Chatham-Kent Mayor Proposes Regional Partnership To Attract Investment

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Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope (Handout photo)

Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope is proposing a regional partnership of municipalities to compete for new international investment.

“From Sarnia to Windsor and all communities in between, we should be collectively investing in one powerful and effective organization to attract global investment to our region,” said Mayor Hope. “This organization would be accountable to the communities in Essex County, Chatham-Kent and Lambton County. The objective is to put our collective resources for attracting investment to more effective and efficient use.”

“Most investors looking to Canada and Ontario are from overseas,” said Mayor Hope. “Challenges for all of us are going to be much tougher. Although a local approach works for business retention and expansion, the way we compete for new international industrial investment dollars must be improved upon. We are all competing with very large state and regional jurisdictions. Many appear to have unlimited resources to attract investment. The effort to attract investment dollars takes time and is very expensive. With individual community approaches, there is a significant duplication of effort and expense that taxpayers in the region can ill-afford. Unless we all take a new approach, we will lose the investment opportunities available.”

Hope says that the regional communities with common interests can overcome barriers to attracting new investment. The South Shores region, with over 630,000 residents, will also have a far greater influence with senior levels of government than we could ever hope for individually. That influence can help to shape effective provincial and federal investment attraction programs.