A new partnership has been formed to boost the work local governments are doing to develop relationships overseas.
On Wednesday, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development announced a joint working group focused on helping small and medium-sized businesses at the local level benefit from international arrangements.
"To realize Canada's full economic potential, cities and communities must be full partners with the federal government to attract jobs and promote local businesses. Strong cities and communities are central to Canada's long-term economic competitiveness," said FCM president Brad Woodside, in a press release. "This kind of partnership can only improve our capacity to take advantage of international trade and investment opportunities."
As the chair of the FCM municipal finance and intergovernmental arrangements committee, Prince George city councillor Garth Frizzell will be heavily involved with the new partnership. Frizzell is in Ottawa this week for the organization's annual Advocacy Days event on Parliament Hill and attended a meeting about the new group with International Trade Minister Ed Fast.
It's a big policy change, said Frizzell - one that sees the federal government recognizing the work municipalities have already accomplished.
"It reaffirms what municipalities have known all along - that trade and investment is happening on a city-to-city basis now, on a municipality-to-municipality basis," Frizzell said.
Though not finalized, the city of Prince George has been in the process of creating a twinning agreement with the Chinese city of Jiangmen since 2010. Connections with the country were formed by former mayor Colin Kinsley as far back as 2004.
In those initial days, Frizzell said finding information on basic things such as protocol was difficult and anything more extensive was overwhelming and far outstripped what a municipality is built for.
"If we have a trade and investment question at the local government in Prince George then now we've got a way to connect to the federal government and the federal government will be eagerly looking for opportunities to facilitate us," Frizzell said. "In the past, where we might be hunting for a connection, now we've got a group that is actively going to be facilitating trade and investment."
It's still too early in the group's formation to know if any of this facilitation will come with a financial contribution, said Frizzell.
