Mayors of Toronto and Montreal lead joint delegation to Israel and West Bank
Toronto and Montreal have long been bitter rivals, especially when it comes to ice hockey. But the mayors of French-speaking Montreal and English-speaking Toronto, have come to Israel at the head of a 120-person economic delegation to strengthen business ties. Mayor Denis Corderre of Montreal and Mayor John Tory of Toronto say that working together can help both their cities.
“Mayor Coderre decided early on (I was quite a new mayor, he’d been around a little longer in Montreal) that the world was a much smaller place when it comes to competition in business and investment, so that there was not much point in our being competitors with one another. We are the two biggest metropolises in Canada and we should work together,” Toronto Mayor John Tory told The Media Line. “I look at my principal job as getting investment to Toronto, but if it goes to Montreal then it’s good for Canada.”
Canada’s ambassador to Israel, Deborah Lyons, said that Forbes listed Canada as an excellent place to do business. Research and Development costs are more than one-third less than in the US, and Canada has a highly educated population.
Since 1997 when Israel and Canada signed a free-trade agreement, the value of trade between the two countries has tripled, reaching $1.5 billion in 2014. There are also significant Jewish communities in both Toronto and Montreal. The first synagogue in Montreal was built in 1768, the mayor said.
The mayors said they were especially interested in Israel’s advances in cyber-security.
“Democracy goes along with safety – we have to take a look at it,” Mayor Coderre told the Media Line. “We already have different clusters from satellites, simulation and aerospace. We are a land of creativity. We learn from each other, and by sharing more we grow together. That’s good politics and good economics.”
The delegations also visited the West Bank, and met with Palestinian officials. Coderre said he wanted to discuss “urban diplomacy.” He said that in 20 years more than 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. Traffic and congestion leads to more green gas emissions, he said, and cities must cooperate to deal with these issues.
Mayor Tory said that he hoped to make new contacts in the West Bank.
“We want to not only sit and talk with the politicians about the political situation, but to see what kind of business opportunities there are for Palestinian-led businesses. We want to help them create economic growth in their part of the world, and that will improve the lives of their people as well.”
In Israel, he said, they are cooperating with Israeli companies in life sciences, transportation and security.
“It is amazing the kind of innovation they have achieved here,” he said. “I have seen many ideas that we can use in our own cities, on how to run our city smarter and better.”
He said that the market in Israel is small, and Canada, and its neighbor the US, provides a much larger market. There are about 350,000 Jews in Canada, most living in Toronto and Montreal, and about 20,000 Canadian citizens live in Israel.