Cross-border Collaboration Underpins Cross-Border Trade

With all the attention on the negotiations, ratifications and entry into force of the USMCA/CUSMA trade agreement in recent years, it has been easy to overlook another significant catalyst for trade between Canada and the United States that is also a physical manifestation of our powerful trading relationship – the construction of a new international bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. 

 The Gordie Howe International Bridge will be Canada’s largest port on the Canada-U.S. border comprising two secured Ports of Entry, a tolling system, and a connection to the U.S. interstate. The bridge itself, which will be the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America, is noteworthy with an 853 meter (that’s .53 miles!) main span making it one of the largest bridges in the world. It also currently represents one of the most comprehensive and complex infrastructure projects in North America. 

In terms of trade between Canada and the U.S., the bridge represents the first major new trade link in four decades. Orders of magnitude are inherently large with this project. It has a 36-year term, which includes a 6-year construction period, it will create 2500 jobs, and is estimated to have a total project cost of CAD $5.7 billion. 

It is also noteworthy as an example of collaboration, not only between Canada and the United States, but also between the private and public sectors. Recently the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships awarded the Gordie Howe International Bridge Project a 2019 Gold Award for Project Financing. Among its many distinctions, the Council recognized the project as “the first Canadian P3 to use a non-traditional foreign exchange risk framework to balance fluctuating currency prices setting a precedent for future cross-border transactions.”

There’s a tremendous amount of trade that currently travels between Windsor and Detroit which has continued through the COVID-19 pandemic for the future 6-lane (3 U.S.-bound, 3 Canada-bound), 2.5-kilometer (1.5 mile) bridge to support. The Windsor-Detroit corridor is the busiest commercial land border between Canada and the U.S. In 2019, it accounted for 22% of all U.S. trade with Canada and for the first seven months of 2020, this represented $62.73 billion in total trade value. (1)

Upon its completion, the new international bridge will expand travel capacity supporting the economies on both sides of the border. There is certainly a lot to celebrate in this fact alone. But we should also not lose sight of the ‘investment in collaboration’ that both countries are making with this project which itself is a powerful force for continuing to do more business together. 

This project has required collaboration in binational regulations and standards, workforce management, currency management, tax structures, financing, risk management, and sustainability & environmental management. Our ability to work together through these complexities is also part of the DNA in how well we trade together. 

We look forward to having more merchandise trade stimulated by USMCA/CUSMA, crossing north and south between Canada and the United States on a bridge whose tower shape will reflect the curvature of a hockey stick in a slapshot. Clearly, completing this cross-border collaboration will be quite a goal to score together! 

For more information on this project, visit www.gordiehoweinternationalbridge.com.

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https://www.ustradenumbers

Growing the MAPLE Chapter in British Columbia

Like many parents in 2020, I was homeschooling my son this spring and one of the topics they were learning about in class was the impact of the gold rush on British Columbia during the late 1800s.  It occurred to me that in fact this was one of the first events that really initiated trade, migration, and commerce between BC and California.

In 1848, some 300,000 people from the United States and abroad headed to the west coast to take advantage of the California gold rush after gold was discovered near Sutter’s Mill.  Ten years later, the Fraser River Gold Rush began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thomson River in British Columbia.  The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, sent a shipment of ore to the mint in San Francisco and this started a migration of some 30,000 men from California to BC.  In fact, it is estimated that 80% of all the miners for this gold rush were from California.   For BC, the Fraser River Gold Rush was the catalyst for the building of early road infrastructure, the founding of many towns, and was instrumental in BC becoming part of Canada in 1871.

Due to the geographic, demographic, and ideological similarities between BC and California the two jurisdictions have been historically key trading partners and will continue to be so in the future.   Based on the dollar value of merchandise trade, California is the second largest destination for BC exports and third for Canadian exports.  Total merchandise trade between BC and California was $6.2 billion Canadian dollars in 2019.

From the economic report, “Canada and Southern California: United through collaboration, defined by partnership, sustained by friendship” commissioned by the Consulate General of Canada in LA and sponsored by MAPLE Business Council last year, BC ranks as the 3rd highest  source of inbound investment to Southern California with 101 establishments employing 5922 people with annual wages of $454 million.  Also among the top ten Canadian companies in Southern California by employment, two are from BC: Telus/Xavient Digital and Lionsgate Productions.

While California operates at a trade surplus by value in this bilateral trade relationship, BC exports were up over 60% between 2010 and 2019 while California exports to BC were up a more moderate 10% over this same period.

So what are the major commodities being traded between BC and California?

Based on 2019 numbers from Stats Canada excess electrical power is the leading commodity sold by companies such as BC Hydro subsidiary Powerex, followed by farmed salmon and then various raw materials.

Conversely, in terms of California exports to BC, Tesla (based in Fremont, California)  and other electronic car manufacturers led by a significant margin with the rest of the categories mostly consisting of various food products.

What do tv shows like: Flash, Riverdale, Arrow, The Good Doctor, Supergirl, Supernatural as well as movies such as: Deadpool, Fantastic Four, Fifty Shades of Grey, I Robot, Tomorrowland, and Godzilla have in common?  

All these movies and tv programs were filmed in Vancouver, the third largest film and tv production centre in North America. The geographic proximity to Hollywood to Vancouver as well as tax incentives and skilled labour have been key drivers to this growth.  

Key players like Sony Pictures Imageworks moved their head office from Culver City to Vancouver, while Lionsgate Productions have offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver and companies like Industrial Light and Magic (Disney) validate Vancouver’s reputation in the post-production industry with their local presence.  

Redwood City based Electronic Arts’ large development and motion capture centre in Vancouver suburb, Burnaby, is a key part of the game development ecosystem in BC. The confluence of the game development ecosystem in Vancouver and the film and tv production industry has as a byproduct, produced one of the largest augmented and virtual reality hotspots in the world.  The confluence of these sectors is in many ways a direct result of the maturation of the corporate linkages between BC and California.

BC has positioned itself through geographic proximity and deep demographic linkages to attract inbound business investment from the Asia Pacific region.  In fact, even during the Fraser River Gold Rush many of the migrants from California had originally come from Asia.  

West Coast cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver have not only utilized physical infrastructure such as ports and airports to position themselves as a gateway between Asia and the Americas for the movement of people and goods but also acting as facilitators for the flow of information as intellectual gateways.  This is not a new concept and is yet another common feature that aligns California with BC. 

It is very apparent that California and BC have had a long history of trade and interjurisdictional commerce to the benefit of both economies yet there is so much more to learn about our respective jurisdictions.   Beyond the industries I have mentioned earlier there are also many linkages that can be further developed such as in: life sciences, advanced manufacturing, space exploration, and clean technology to name a few.   The trade linkages will no doubt be further enhanced by the USMCA agreement which increased the minimum threshold for duties and taxes effective this past July 2020.

We are very gratified to have an opportunity to mature MAPLE Business Council’s presence here in BC to a full chapter model after four years of ongoing events.  Like our sister chapter in New York and others to come, we look forward to making meaningful connections across our network in Canada and the US; to not only facilitate further development of new cross-border linkages but also to ensure our existing trade, investment and innovation/entrepreneurship relationships are retained moving forward. 

As I walked around our neighborhood in recent weeks, the air was a little smoky due to smoke from  wildfires in California and other places along the US west coast.  It brings to mind that despite a border, we are really closely interconnected and that our future prosperity amongst many economic and non-economic verticals are very intimately aligned.

Jason Tse

Executive Director, BC Chapter

MAPLE Business Council®  

Canadian, New York and Southern California Markets Rank Strongly in 2020 'Scoring Tech Talent' Report

Each year the commercial real estate firm CBRE publishes their Scoring Tech Talent report which provides a snapshot of the size, growth, quality and affordability of tech talent markets across the U.S. and Canada.

According to the latest report just published this month, there are 6.3 million tech workers of which 5.4 million are in the U.S. representing 3.7% of the U.S. workforce and 900k in Canada accounting for 5.6% of the Canadian workforce. Despite these relatively small workforce shares, this highly skilled segment contributes a much greater impact on our economies through innovations in software and devices and the management of the data and systems that are the foundations for our technology ecosystems. 

The top 50 markets in the U.S. and Canada were ranked according to their competitive advantages and appeal to both employers and tech talent using a 13-metric scorecard.  The report defines tech talent as highly-skilled workers in over 20 tech market occupations.

Some highlights from the report findings follow:

·       The top-ranked market for tech talent was the San Francisco Bay Area, followed by Washington D.C., Seattle, Toronto and New York. 

·       Southern California markets largely ranked in the top 25 led by San Diego (#19), followed by Orange County (#21) and Los Angeles (#26). 

·       Canadian markets fared particularly well led by Toronto (#4), Vancouver (#12), Ottawa (#14) and Montréal (#16). 

·       Markets registering the greatest rise in rankings this year were Ottawa and Orange County, both rising 5 spots. 

Tech Talent Concentration

·       Ottawa has the highest concentration of tech talent as a percentage of total employment at 11.3% followed by the San Francisco Bay Area at 10.3%. 

·       Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver all ranked highly at 8.8%, 7.4% and 7% respectively. 

·       In Southern California, tech holds a smaller share of the labor force at 3.1% in Los Angeles, 4.4% in Orange County and 5.1% in San Diego. 

Trends

·       Toronto and Vancouver were among the markets that gained the most tech talent. 

·       Canadian markets in the top 50 who were categorized as “Brain Gain” markets (with more tech jobs added than graduates) included Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montréal with Toronto adding 43,000 more tech talent jobs than graduates. 

·       “Brain Drain” markets who added fewer tech talent jobs than tech graduates included Orange County, San Diego, Los Angeles, Ottawa, New York and Long Island, NY.

·       Among 25 smaller markets, the Waterloo Region in Ontario ranked first. This region recorded total tech talent growth of over 51% over 5 years with a tech community now over 22,000 workers. Québec City ranked #6, Edmonton #9, Halifax #12 and the Inland Empire in Southern California #19. 

 

Market Affordability

·       Based on an assessment of labor and real estate costs, the top 50 tech talent markets were analyzed for their affordability based on a 500-employee company requiring 75k square feet of office space. 

·       The San Francisco Bay Area market ranked as the most expensive market at over $62 million a year of which office rent comprises approximately $5 million. 

·       All Southern California markets represented more affordable markets with San Diego 23% less expensive, Los Angeles 26% and Orange County 27%. 

·       The 5 most affordable top tech talent markets were all Canadian – led by Montréal with a saving of over $32 million a year as compared to the San Francisco Bay Area region (a 51% savings). Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary were the remaining 5 most affordable markets.

Both Southern California and Canada offer strong tech markets overall at a significant cost savings in combined labor and real estate costs to the San Francisco Bay Area. The largest Canadian markets of Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver rank highly on the quality of tech talent and the size of their tech communities with above average concentrations of tech talent in the labor force. Each are attracting more talent than they are graduating within their markets too. Smaller markets in Canada and Southern California offer more affordability and growing tech talent communities. 

The full report is available for download here.

Growing Up with Trade as We Welcome the USMCA Agreement

My first recollection of the meaning of “trade” was as a child trading hockey cards with school mates when I was a young boy growing up in Ontario, Canada. We’d bring our cards to school and at recess we would come together in the school yard to compare our collections regardless of how cold it was. In rapid fire we’d shout out “Got ‘em”, “Need ‘em” as we’d take turns flipping through our decks of Guy Lafleurs, Dave Keons, Gilbert Perreaults and Tony Espositos. Some days the activity would rival the trading floor of a stock exchange. Sometimes you would get lucky and get a really good player without giving up much but usually the trades were pretty fair and based on the laws supply and demand just as in the ‘real world.’ Trade was unfettered, within the time allotted for recess, unless we got a little too rowdy calling the attention of the teacher on the playground.

Fast-forward many years later to 1986-1987 when Canada and the United States were negotiating our first free trade agreement that on January 1, 1989 became the precursor to NAFTA. I remember how thoroughly the agreement was discussed and debated in Canada. It was a really big deal for Canadians as we thought about more economic prosperity and trade with the U.S. but also about Canadian cultural protections especially in the arts. We wanted to share more with our friends to the South just as long as we did not lose what was uniquely Canadian. 

I was one of the tens of thousands of Canadians who ordered a copy of the agreement. Now I’d like to say I read it thoroughly, but somehow just having a copy of it meant something in a strange way – that I was doing my little part in the greater span of Canada – U.S. relations. Even without the benefit of time and hindsight, we could sense in the moment that it was remarkable and unique for a “trade agreement” of all things to capture the public’s attention so. It is something that could only really occur when you are a country small in population who lives and trades shoulder-to-shoulder with a world leader more than 10 times the size. 

I still have my copy of the agreement and the sector-focused summaries as well. At the time, the professional services firm, Ernst & Whinney, conducted a survey of North American business leaders on the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. It is interesting to look back at the results some 32 years later. Their findings showed business support for the Agreement was actually higher among Canada respondents at 59% compared to 37% in the U.S. with relatively few respondents outright opposing at 4% in Canada and 2% in the U.S.  In this survey, fewer businesses in Canada did not take a position on the Agreement (37%) compared to 61% of U.S. executives surveyed. Further, fully 90% of Canadian respondents indicated some or a significant knowledge of the Agreement as compared to 73% of U.S. respondents. Free trade had Canada’s attention.

Since this first free trade agreement, I have had the privilege of working in each of the partner countries governed by NAFTA and now CUSMA/USMCA – Canada, the United States and Mexico from Toronto to Mexico City.  I’ve also been able to look at what we have in North America from across an ocean living in Asia.  Each country brings so much talent, expertise and culture to our relationship – we are so much richer for getting to know each other and working together. And now for the past five years, I have had the tremendous opportunity to promote and celebrate the relevance and importance of cross-border trade and investment between my home in Southern California and my ‘home and native’ Canada with some truly amazing people at MAPLE Business Council. 

 So this Canada Day is for me extra special. True – ‘birthday 153’ may not have the same ring as ‘150’ or a bicentennial, but the activation of NAFTA 2.0, what we now refer to as USMCA, on Canada’s birthday, is a special moment in time. 

 For if this star player of a trade agreement were a trading card, we can all say: we “need ‘em” and now we “got ‘em”.  

 Here’s to the power of trade to do and grow more together. 

 Happy Canada Day and Happy Fourth of July!

Getting to Know Irvine - An Orange County Economic Engine

Our work at MAPLE Business Council® (MAPLE) is focused on promoting bilateral economic opportunities between Southern California and Canada through investment, trade and entrepreneurship. Our team works as ambassadors of our home and adopted countries celebrating the best of what each has to offer the other. 

 Orange County and Greater Irvine in particular figure large in our field of vision partly because my co-founder Robert Kelle and I, together with our families, are long-term residents of Orange County. MAPLE has given us a unique opportunity to explore the many facets of our Southern California-Canada ‘territory’ and to create a platform through our events, member storytelling, strategic partnerships and cross-border networking, to share it with others.    

 My family’s path from Canada to Orange County had many stops along the way and eventually we were among the tens of thousands of people who have moved to California from Texas which just happens to be the #1 state for migration to California over the past two years. Surprised? There is a lot to discover about Irvine that makes it an extremely attractive destination for relocation, investment and business & research collaborations whether you are from Texas, Canada, or beyond.

 The City of Irvine is certainly well known for repeatedly earning the distinction as the Safest City in America and many may also know that it earns the highest marks for fiscal strength - recently ranking first for a fiscal health index among 116 U.S. cities with a population of over 200k. And as the third-largest city in our unique county-wide tapestry of 34 cities and over 3 million people, Irvine is also Orange County’s economic engine. 

 And this is where we can and should go beyond the veneer of knowledge about the Greater Irvine region in Orange County because the city’s growth has been exceptional.

 For some regional context, if Southern California were a country, it would be the 13th largest economy in the world within a state that itself ranks 5th largest. Orange County boasts a GDP of nearly $300 billion which is larger than 28 states. Its economy is powered by 1.7 million jobs. The OC commercial real estate footprint measures approx. 100 million square feet. Clearly there are no order of magnitude concerns here! 

 Driving Southern California’s growth is the second largest STEM degree population in the U.S. after New York/New Jersey, and it has an equally high ranking for the number of tech jobs.

Getting to Know Irvine

 In Irvine, Professional, Scientific and Technical Services is the #1 sector employing over 41k people. High industry and employment concentrations are found in the pharmaceutical, real estate, management, and finance & insurance sectors. Occupations in Irvine with high concentrations include computers and mathematics, architecture & engineering and legal.

 With a population of just over 275,000, Irvine has a diverse and highly-educated population with over 70% of its residents earning a bachelor’s degree or higher – more than double the state average. Combined with a lower median age than Orange County and the surrounding region, Irvine continues to add to its talent base. Between 2013-2017, the foreign-born resident population aged 18-34 grew by 28% led by the 18-24 cohort with an increase of 47%. And in 2016, Irvine universities awarded over 16k degrees led by the University of California – Irvine (UCI). 

 The proof is also in the number of companies that call Irvine home. Consider that there are now over 485 life science and over 900 technology companies. Supporting tomorrow’s successes is a vibrant and growing innovation ecosystem of incubators, accelerators, co-working communities, and investors.

 Between 2001 and 2018, Orange County employment increased by 200,000 jobs with Irvine accounting for nearly 20% of this growth. No surprise that among graduating seniors from the University of California – Irvine who accepted employment offers, 88% chose to work in Southern California with the majority choosing to stay in Orange County.

 Part of the attraction is the quality of life and, while not inexpensive, Orange County is more affordable than the Bay Area. Currently the home ownership rate is 32% higher in OC than in San Francisco County. The region continues to invest in infrastructure with over $250 million dedicated to capital improvements to roads and $13.4 billion in funding for overall transportation improvements. 

 There are certainly challenges and growth pains which every city and region faces with more ideas needed for housing supply and affordability.  But Irvine and Orange County have nurtured an impressive success formula for growth for decades guided by the City’s Master Plan. Part of the secret sauce is also in the high level of collaboration that exists between business, start-up ecosystem, academia, government and civic leaders to continue to propel this region forward.

Canada & Orange County: Economic Partners

And of course, Canada is invested in the success of Irvine and Orange County as one of the leading sources of foreign direct investment ranking 4th highest amongst all nations across Southern California. Noteworthy in 2019 was BlackBerry’s acquisition of Irvine-based cybersecurity firm, Cylance. 

 According to a 2019 report commissioned by the Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles, Canadian-owned entities in Orange County account for over 11,100 jobs representing an annual payroll of over $854 million. That translates to an average wage in Orange County at a Canadian-owned enterprise of $76,937. 

 Canada represents the 2nd largest export market for California businesses and as identified in the 2019 report, the #1 export market on a per-capita basis. Southern California exported over $9.6 billion to Canada in 2017 – 12% of all SoCal exports globally. And Southern California exported a further $5 billion in services to Canada representing 53% of all state-wide exports to Canada ($9.4 billion).

 The Canadian community in Orange County has been represented socially for over 10 years through Canadians in Orange County from which MAPLE Business Council was launched in 2015 to build business bridges. Canadians in Irvine and Orange County are hungry to support familiar brands from Canada and welcome Irvine’s newest residents from north of the border.

 So, what does all this mean for Canadian entrepreneurs who are starting and scaling their tech and life science enterprises as well as for leaders of established Canadian businesses? There is much to discover about the Greater Irvine/Orange County region as part of a U.S. growth strategy. 

 Greater Irvine Comes to Vancouver

With this in mind, MAPLE is honored to be welcoming one of Orange County’s most senior economic developers to be our guest speaker at our upcoming MAPLE Spring Reception in Vancouver, British Columbia on March 12th. Ms. Linda DiMario, EVP at the Greater Irvine Chamber, will be discussing driving innovation in CA: Canada & California.

She notes that our west coast economies are hot. Moreover, our shared commitment to fueling 21st century industry sectors and innovation is at the core of this success and our proactivity defines our leadership model. So, what are we doing individually and what can we do together to leverage this extraordinary strength, so we continue to grow our economies and sustain that leadership?   

 We hope you have an opportunity to join us in Vancouver on March 12th or be with us on March 5th in Irvine as part of our SoCal-wide Spring Reception Series featuring executives from the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and RSM Audit, Tax and Consulting. More information on these and all our events promoting greater economic collaboration between Canada and Southern California can be found on the MAPLE website.

From 'Start-Up' to 'Support-Up' - Nurturing a Special Cross-Border Ecosystem for Canada & Southern California

Start-ups justifiably command a lot of our attention. They are the wellspring of innovations, the source of market disruption and they provide us with a window to what’s possible, what could be ‘next’. Inspiration, dollars, mentorship, physical resources, collaborations, and community all fuel their growth. In Canadian and Southern California markets there are many active ecosystems to support start-ups from sector-based associations, incubators, accelerators, investment groups, colleges and universities, shared workspaces and co-working communities, to city/regional networks and business chambers. 

When a start-up busines scales, it is presented with new challenges. Capital, executive mentorship and new collaborations are needed with an understanding that the business leadership and market acumen that founded the company often needs to be complemented with seasoned experience in growing companies, attracting and retaining talent, and charting the growth of the enterprise. The scale-up ecosystem can be less defined in markets in part because each company is at this point on its own trajectory path and focused on their individual sector(s). 

 International market expansion will at some point enter a business’ horizon. In a market like Canada with a population one-tenth of the United States, the conversation about when to cross the border may come sooner than for U.S.-based companies who may feel less urgency to look beyond the domestic market given its size.  Doing business in an international market is a decision that requires much planning as there is a need to first understand the international market, how the target market differs from the home market, how competitive a company’s good or service will be and how to serve the market profitably. Then there is the matter of physically getting goods from point A to point B across the border efficiently and within the cost and timing expectations of customers which is a topic unto itself. For many companies, exporting becomes their first international foray. Yet the number of companies who export in Canada and the United States remains a relatively small percentage. Latest statistics in the U.S. indicate that less than 1% of businesses export. 

 Growing a business to reach the stage where they can effectively compete in an international market may be considered its own growth stage. Let’s call it ‘Trade-Up’. In the case of a Canadian company, they can benefit from the significantly larger market their American neighbor represents. There is a well-established ecosystem to support exporting from government agencies including the U.S. Commercial Service and the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, World Trade Centers, ports, freight forwarders, shippers, custom brokers, third party logistics firms (3PLs), and more. 

 Exporting can validate that a good or service has future potential in the new market advancing the conversation towards whether the company should actually set up an international operation. This could start with hiring international representation to cultivate a customer base to investing in an office, warehousing goods in the new market, or building a manufacturing center. Trade can therefore be a steppingstone to foreign direct investment (FDI) as the company grows. Site selection agencies, cities, chambers, commercial real estate companies and certainly government agencies all play a key role in helping a company gauge the fit for an international expansion or to “Invest-Up”.

 While this admittedly grossly simplifies how a business finds itself operating in an international market, it is important to note that there are ecosystems that support each stage with targeted subject matter experts. At MAPLE Business Council®, we speak regularly with companies at all these stages from start-ups to multinationals. Within our community there are subject matter experts to address virtually every aspect of growing your business either domestically or expanding to Southern California or Canada. All through the lens of our specific cross-border focus.

 Our role is to help these conversations happen. We do this across Canada and Southern California through networking events, market-focused receptions, delegations to key markets, partnerships with economic development organizations, storytelling and content-sharing. In our first four and a quarter years, we have led 3 Southern California delegations to Canada as part of 9 cross-border trips/receptions to Canada, and hosted over 65 events throughout Southern California and Canada featuring the insights and experiences of our member organizations. We shine the spotlight on Southern California when we are in Canada and on Canada when we are in SoCal.

 Complementing our event programming is our content focus. Our members and partners share key insights through articles, interviews and video-based conversations. There is both information for a business at any stage to benefit and learn from their fellow members and content platforms to share their particular area of expertise. Overall, the mechanisms for engaging with our cross-border ecosystem support early stage companies to established enterprises.

 And this leads to a special stage of engagement that we see our member organizations embody extremely well. Let’s call it ‘Support-Up’. Our community regularly pays it forward by sharing their insights and connecting with our network. We all benefit from this knowledge sharing. And collectively what we are doing together is effectively celebrating a tremendous economic relationship that exists between Southern California and Canada - as trading partners, mutual investors in each other’s economies, allies and friends. If we were to look at ‘Start-Up’ as the foundation of the economic development equivalent of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this ‘Support Up’ stage would be the tip end of the pyramid where corporate citizenship to a region and a country, are in evidence. ‘Economic self-actualization’ dare we say?

 MAPLE Business Council is privileged to bring businesses together from “Start-Up” to “Support-Up” through our focus on the special relationship that Canada and Southern California enjoy. It is a testament to the expertise that our members and partners bring. We invite you to get to know us. 

MAPLE Business Council - Our Fourth Anniversary

In recognition of the fourth anniversary since the founding of MAPLE Business Council®, we want to take a step back and say thank you. It is because of the support and participation of our members, team, board, partners and network that MAPLE has continued to grow as a community and a voice on behalf of bilateral investment, trade and entrepreneurship opportunities between Southern California and Canada.

Participating in Select LA 2019 - A Vancouver Journal

4:30 am Vancouver. I wake up for a 6:30 flight on Air Canada out of YVR to LAX. Arriving in LAX just after 9:30 I hail a Lyft and 45 minutes later reach my hotel at the Courtyard by Marriott just beside L.A. Live in downtown L.A.  A quick check in to drop off my bags at the hotel and I take a 10 minute walk over to the new Intercontinental Hotel where the proceedings are taking place.

The Select LA Summit is held annually by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) that owns the rights to the local World Trade Center franchise. As the U.S. Department of Commerce holds Select USA in Washington, D.C. every June many jurisdictions, like L.A. have held summits in advance so that visiting delegations can pass through other cities beforehand.  Like its larger counterpart, Select LA is an investment attraction event intended to bring and retain investment into the L.A. region. As MAPLE Business Council is a partner of WTC-LA, and their CEO Stephen Cheung has been so kind to speak in Vancouver and Toronto, I thought it would be good for me to show my support by joining them on this occasion.

With me today from MAPLE are principal founders, Stephen Armstrong and Robert Kelle joined later in the day by Stan Marszal, our Regional Director in San Diego and Eric Eide, one of our Advisory Board members.  We are also joined by my colleague on the World Trade Centre Vancouver Advisory Committee, Jamir Jaffer and his wife who divide their time between Loa Angeles and Vancouver.

To encourage out of town visitors, all delegates from out of the country are allowed to participate in this one day event for free. Anyone interested in investing or creating business linkages between Canada and L.A. should consider attending as I found the cost of airfare as well as a hotel downtown to be relatively reasonable.

I arrive at midday to the event around 10:30 and they are well into their third session of the day.  The night preceding they held a pre-event reception at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank.

There were several sessions in the day that talked about: hosting of major sports events, opportunities in the blockchain, transportation infrastructure, and measuring the extent of foreign investment in the region.  There are several networking breaks scheduled with a fairly large exhibit floor as well. Mayor Eric Garcetti, a truly dynamic speaker, addresses the crowd during a lunch keynote. Although not entering his name in the Democratic leadership race for the 2020 election, look for his name to be relevant in federal politics in years to come.

Of particular note in this conference is the focus on Canada as the 3rd largest source of foreign investment in Los Angeles after the UK and Japan.  In addition, at the conference, the LAEDC previewed additional research focused on the depth and breadth of Southern California’s economic ties with Canada. The full report will be debuted on Canada Day. MAPLE participated actively in this study and was recognized during the introduction of the report.

Proceedings ended at 5pm and delegates proceeded to the Consulate General of Canada’s Residence for a wind up reception.  This is a beautiful residence located about 20 minutes away west of downtown near Hancock Park.

Over 100 guests attended the reception and although the Consul General was in Canada on this occasion, Senior Trade Commissioner and Consul, Patricia Elliott provided welcoming remarks followed by thanks from Stephen Cheung, CEO of WTC-LA.  An excellent venue for casual networking until events eventually wound down around 9pm.

Since Vancouver is easily accessible by air with both frequency of flights and airfare being quite attractive it is easy to come down with minimal investment in time and money.  My flight was not until 1:30pm the following afternoon so in the morning I quickly visited Glendale to meet a contact at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Overall, Select LA is a really first-class event to make new acquaintances both from the L.A. area and from abroad.  For those of us from Vancouver interested in doing business in SoCal the conference is free to attend and the cost of travel is fairly minimal.  The business ecosystem is so deep here, (Los Angeles is the world’s 13th largest economy), that is easy to tag on other meetings before or after with connections new and old. Congratulations to WTC-LA, Stephen Cheung, Michael Smith, and team and we look forward to seeing you again.

From Vancouver to Southern California - Attending a MAPLE Quarterly Event Series

We have hosted several events in Vancouver since I became MAPLE’s Business Ambassador to BC in 2017 but this was my first trip down to SoCal for one of their quarterly grouping of three events in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Orange County. On this Wednesday December 4th I head out mid afternoon on one of three daily nonstop flights on Air Canada from Vancouver to San Diego to be fresh for our first meeting at the Bella Vista Social Club and Caffe tomorrow morning at 7:30am. Only three hours gate to gate and no time zone changes, the geographic and time zone proximity between B.C. and SoCal can’t be understated. It is sunny in Vancouver today but only a high of 4c however we will be arriving to sunny skies and 21c in San Diego. Another benefit for Canadians to join the MAPLE events in SoCal during the winter.

During this series of events our speakers will be Bernardine Perreira of Perreira Hurly Wealth Advisory who will be speaking on key financial considerations for navigating North-South moves between Canada and the United States as well as Delilah Panio of the TMX Group, who will be speaking about capital opportunities for Southern California high-growth companies. MAPLE typically has the same speakers for each one of their triad of quarterly events.  Bernardine has come down from Toronto for the speaking opportunity while Delilah resides in the LA area.

It is Wednesday morning and I get up at 6:15 for our event to start at 7:30 about 15 minutes away from my hotel by Uber. The Bella Vista Social Club and Caffe is a beautiful establishment located on the campus of the University of California - San Diego (UCSD) in La Jolla overlooking the ocean. UCSD is quite the catalyst for the life sciences cluster in San Diego with the world famous Salk Institute in immediate vicinity.  Breakfast is served at 7:30 and guests, mostly from San Diego roll in, although we had one guest come in as from as far as Oceanside which on this morning was well over an hours drive.. Lots of time to network with the 20+ guests in attendance followed by an hour of formal presentations. Again some time to network after formal proceedings and guests make their way from the Bella Vista at 10am. Our founders Stephen Armstrong and Rob Kelle along with myself pack up all our signage and collateral and head back up to Orange County. It is midday and raining so traffic is very good so we have a few hours break before heading up to Pasadena in the afternoon to set up for next morning.

I stay overnight in Glendale which is about 15 minutes by Uber to our venue at the Arts Center College of Design in Pasadena. Incidentally if in Glendale you have to check out the outdoor mall, Americana on Brand and if you are game, the Void VR experience at the Galleria across the street.  On this occasion, I tried the Ralph Breaks the Internet VR experience but they also had the Star Wars experience ongoing as well.  Since Vancouver has one of the largest clusters of immersive technology companies worldwide I felt this would be a great opportunity to educate myself.

We arrive at the Arts Center College at 7:30 and unfortunately it ends up being the rainiest day of the year. Despite that, an enthusiastic, albeit smaller, group shows up for breakfast, formal presentations, and we are hosted to a tour of the campus afterwards. The College has many disciplines such as art design, film and tv education, and automotive design; the latter of which has international acclaim. Many of their automotive design alumni hold key positions at major car manufacturers around the world.  

The tour ends around 11am and we pack up and head out just before noon to set up for the evening event in Costa Mesa. I stay at the Westin South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa just across the street from Brookfield Residential’s offices in Orange County who will host the evening event.

This afternoon, we are trying something a little different. We are going to film our two speakers in a brief snippet about their subject matter expertise and will be making the videos available online. This is something MAPLE will be planning to do for all our events moving forward. Several of our guests from the Pasadena event will also be attending the evening event in Costa Mesa as well despite the unusually stormy weather. Guests arrive at 5:30 for about an hour of networking complimented by drinks and appetizers and we begin the formal session around 7:00.  We promptly adjourn at 8:30.  Clean up begins shortly after the final guests leave after 9pm and we depart the premises just before 10pm.

Overall a very compressed and efficient way of not only meeting new contacts but also getting to learn more about SoCal in general, in part due to the diversity of event locations. Although the core of their attendees are Canadian expats, the MAPLE brand name is really starting to resonate in recognition and we certainly see this as well in B.C.

There is truly so much going on in the region and even though I have been to SoCal on many occasions and formally with MAPLE for over two years I find I am both learning something new and meeting new contacts all the time. Thanks to MAPLE I am also beginning to become part of the SoCal business community and opening up the real gratifying opportunity to connect my business networks between B.C. and SoCal.

Congratulations to MAPLE’s founders Stephen Armstrong and Rob Kelle, I never realized how much time and effort you put into each one of your quarterly events. Amazingly they also run the parallel group, Canadians in Orange County as well. 

I hope to be back in SoCal for other MAPLE events soon and would certainly encourage my cohorts in B.C. to come down for future MAPLE events. As is well known of course, there are no shortage of tourist activities in SoCal should delegates from Canada want to mix in some pleasure with business.  I hope that sometime in the future we can have a broad congregation of our MAPLE community which includes delegates from BOTH our communities in SoCal and in Canada. 

I fly out on one of Westjet’s daily flights from John Wayne Airport to YVR the following day just after noon. John Wayne Airport, located in Santa Ana is one of the nicest airports in the U.S. and super convenient if you are visiting Orange County.

Discover Québec, Canada - Our Mission Brings Us Closer

MAPLE Business Council® is excited to be presenting a comprehensive tour of one of Canada's most dynamic and vibrant centers of innovation and collaboration as we visit Québec, Canada. Our three-day mission on June 13-15, 2018, will provide our delegates with a window on Québec's leading sectors as well as their unique and highly successful industry cluster economic model.

Our trip is designed for executives, investors, service providers and economic development partners to explore opportunities for trade, investment, and business collaboration. Led by our Business Ambassador to Québec, Charles Gauthier, the delegation will visit Québec's economic, innovation and political capitals of Montréal and Québec City. The format of the crisp three-day tour will comprise of private briefings with leading organizations and an evening networking reception in Montréal where MAPLE and our delegation will shine the spotlight on our cross-border mission and the exciting work and opportunities that exist throughout Southern California.

We will be meeting with the following organizations:

• Aerospace: Aéro Montréal

• Artificial Intelligence: Elément AI

• Cleantech: Ecotech Québec

• Electric and Intelligent Vehicles: GIVEI

• Homebuilding: BONE Structure

• Innovation Hub: Espace CDPQ

• Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods: INAF

• Optics/Photonics: National Optics Institute, Vanderlande APC

In addition, we will be meeting with expert market navigators to help our delegates understand how to do business with and in Québec:

• Borden Ladner Gervais, LLP

• Montréal International

• Québec International

• U.S. Department of Commerce

We are traveling in great company too! Thank you to Air Canada for being our travel partner, Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, for being a sponsor of our 'Doing Business in Southern California' reception in Montréal, and Teknion for being our reception host.

Space is limited. Do not miss this incredible opportunity to build a bridge of opportunity with Québec, Canada. Bienvenue!

Send Me Information on the Québec Delegation

Quebec Delegation Blog

Showcasing MAPLE Member & Partner Insights

As we prepare the first issue of our second year publishing MOMENTUM, it is an opportune moment to step back and thank all of the terrific contributors to the first 12 issues of our monthly insight-driven e-newsletter.

We created MOMENTUM because there is a wealth of expertise and insights throughout the MAPLE membership and our strategic partners. A monthly e-newsletter seemed a practical way to celebrate some of the collective expertise in our community beyond the one-to-one networking that occurs at our 12 networking events throughout Southern California, our outbound delegations to major Canadian markets, our special event programming, and our social media. And while a lot can certainly be said in a tweet, the topics of trade, investment, and entrepreneurship are simply deserving of a little more substance.

Each month we bring our readers two articles. Like our membership, the topics and the perspectives can and do vary. We think it keeps it interesting and frankly, the cross-border landscape is so broad and multi-dimensional, there is much to cover. In our first year, our authors covered the following topics:

• NAFTA and immigration

• Cross-border investment management tips

• The Los Angeles market and Canada

• Cybersecurity

• Workforce strategy

• Business resilience

• The Cannabis market in Canada

• The Importance of NAFTA

• R&D payroll tax credits

• The Office of Foreign Trade in Riverside County

• Managing business growth the right way

• Customer success mining for marketing leverage

What is interesting about looking back over the first year's content is that we have some of our own "momentum" to celebrate. While our early issues provided helpful profiles of our corporate members and snapshots of their scope of services, what we have seen emerge increasingly are more points of view and shared market insights that inform how we look at doing business across borders and the importance of the relationship that Canada and Southern Calfornia share together. So thank you to all our corporate members and valued partners for making us a little smarter. And now we embark on another year of sharing cross-border "momentum".

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder with Robert Kelle of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Connecting Southern California & British Columbia

While there has justifiably been a lot of focus on opportunities pertaining to emerging countries in Asia and Latin America, we can often forget about the significance of the trade relationship between Canada and the US, which is the second largest bilateral trade relationship in the world. The US is the largest economy in the world and its most populated state, is also home to the 6th largest economy of the world with an annual GDP exceeding $2.5 trillion.

With a population of close to 40 million, California has had a long-standing relationship with Canada and BC.  Within California, Southern California with a population base of over 22 million brings in combination with BC a total combined population of almost 27 million connected within the same time zone only 2.5 hours away by plane.  Many BC residents know Southern California from childhood trips to Disneyland while many Southern Californians know BC through Alaska cruises or ski trips to Whistler. In fact, today the annual number of air passengers traveling between Vancouver and Southern California exceeds 1 million passengers a year, almost 200,000 more than that between Vancouver and Mainland China.  Vancouver has 124 flights a week in the summer to Southern California more than twice that for Toronto.  The extent of travel demand and air capacity really speaks to the depth of the trade, travel, and migratory relationships between the two regions.

As is well known, these regions have the first and third largest film and TV production centers in North America and with the continued growth in production in BC, most major Hollywood TV and film personalities have at one time, filmed in BC.  Further synergies between the regions lie in the commonality of industry sectors such as: agri-foods, tourism, life sciences, clean technology, aerospace, information technology, and of course, the creative industry.  Companies such as Sony Pictures Imageworks, Lionsgate Productions, Disney, Encore Hollywood, Ledcor, Onni group, and many others have established offices in both locations.  A further common trait between BC and Southern California is the depth of their relationships with Asia, as both jurisdictions are extremely well positioned as gateways from their respective countries to Asia.  As a common catalyst, both locations have a sizeable demographic of local Asian diaspora built up over many generations of immigration and trade flows.

As BC Ambassador for Maple Business Council, I am looking forward to welcoming back to Vancouver the principals of MAPLE Business Council, Robert Kelle and Stephen Armstrong, as they make a return visit on April 16th. This trip follows on their initial visit to our region during the BC Tech Summit in 2017.  This year, they will be joined by Mr. Stephen Cheung, President of the World Trade Centre - Los Angeles, who will be our keynote speaker at our reception hosted by PWC, and supported by the Vancouver Hotel Destination Association, Air Canada, and Snell and Wilmer LLP.

Jason Tse is the Business Ambassador to British Columbia for MAPLE Business Council - an executive-level cross-border organization promoting investment, trade, and entrepreneurship between Southern California and Canada. Jason is based in Vancouver, B.C., and is a marketing executive at the Vancouver Airport Authority and is the former Executive Director of Business Development at HQ Vancouver.

Los Angeles: A Thriving Business Destination

It’s the holiday season—a time when temperatures drop and many Canadians look toward Los Angeles, planning winter getaways that break up the long cold winter. But while Canadian vacationers come to L.A. seeking sunshine, beaches, and attractions like Disneyland and Universal Studios, a growing number of Canadian businesses head to the Southland because they see the wealth of investment, talent, and market opportunities available in the region.

Canadians likely know that Hollywood is the world’s leading entertainment center; L.A. boasts all six major entertainment studios. But L.A. does much more than movies.  It is the third largest city economy in the world after Tokyo and New York.  The economy is highly diversified and the region is a welcoming place to do business. Indeed, the wide range of economic opportunities in L.A. may come as a surprise to some.

While many might associate manufacturing jobs with rustbelt cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, the L.A. metro area is actually the largest center of manufacturing in the U.S., with more manufacturing jobs than any other city. The manufacturing industry in L.A. County employs over 356,000 workers.

L.A. is also a leader in the aerospace industry. Aerospace components are consistently the top export from the region totaling nearly $6 billion in the first 10 months of 2017. The L.A. aerospace industry has a new breed of best-in-class companies like Aerojet Rocketdyne, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX, which are built upon the region’s strong industry foundations. Today, SpaceX produces rockets made for space exploration in the same facility that used to produce fuselages for Boeing airplanes.

”Silicon Beach,” L.A.’s answer to Silicon Valley, has rapidly become a key market for tech innovation, with leading companies like Snap, Hyperloop One, and Riot Games establishing their headquarters here. L.A. is one of North America's top markets for high-tech employment growth, increasing industry jobs by 20% in 2015-16. L.A. County added over 12,000 tech jobs in the past two years, for a total of 72,226.  As Silicon Beach and Hollywood increasingly interface, L.A. has become a natural destination for leading content producers like Netflix, which now has over 800 employees and 500,000 square feet of office space in Hollywood.

L.A.'s High Technology Ecosystem

• $50 billion tech ecosystem

• $4 billion in startup funding in 2016

• 231 companies funded

• 64 exits worth over $6.5 billion

• 104 VC firms

• 32 accelerators

• 45 incubators

• This ecosystem supports the over 8,000 start-ups in L.A.

L.A. has also seen the emergence of thriving bioscience and clean technology clusters. The region’s bioscience cluster includes 600 companies and 57,000 employees. L.A.’s cleantech cluster includes more than 34 companies. The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator is the hub for the industry, supporting emerging companies, providing access to prototyping labs to develop their products, and attracting visits from political leaders from across the world, including U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Canadian Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne.

L.A.'s Bioscience Ecosystem

• 150 biotech firms in L.A. city

• 600 in L.A. region

• 57,000 employees

• Bioscience Hub supported by L.A. County

L.A.'s Cleantech Ecosystem

• $12 million in funding

• 34+ companies

• Home to the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator

These industries draw upon the region’s top ranked global universities, like UCLA, USC, and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which graduate some of the nation's top engineers.

L.A.’s diverse economy and geographic location have made it the leading city in the country for international trade. In 2016, Los Angeles was the number one customs district in the country with $398 billion in two-way trade. With access to the world from the country’s number one and number two ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, the region is the gateway between the Pacific Rim and rest of the United States. And the region’s major international airport, LAX, is the nation’s leading origin and destination airport with more than 80 million passengers passing through in 2016.

Just as Canadians value diversity, L.A.’s multicultural communities form the backbone of the city.  Over 220 languages are spoken here and almost any ethnic community can find a place that feels like home, from Little Armenia, to Koreatown, to Little Tokyo.  Los Angeles has the largest populations of Armenian, Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Korean, Sri Lankan, Thai, and Salvadorian people outside of their home country. All this diversity provides the basis for a strong, and multi-skilled workforce that can help companies thrive and contribute to a massive consumer market. Los Angeles County is home to 10 million people and the Southern California region has a population of 22 million—or roughly a third of Canada’s total population.

Many Canadians and Canadian companies are already successfully conducting business in L.A., reaping the many benefits available to businesses in the region.  Toronto-based Brookfield is the largest owner of downtown office space in Los Angeles and has significant investments in the Port of Los Angeles and in the Southern California energy sector. In 2015, Toronto-based RBC bought L.A. largest bank, City National Bank.

So come visit our beaches, experience our sunshine, but please also check out the plethora of business opportunities available in L.A.

Eric Eide is a Strategic Advisor of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. Eric is a principal at TradeWorks Global, a international trade and investment consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Celebrating Our 2nd Anniversary

MAPLE Business Council® wishes to thank our members, board, sponsors, partners and followers on the occasion of the second anniversary since launching our cross-border organization. A special thank you to our ambassadors and volunteers who have sacrificed their valuable time to help grow our organization. Robert Kelle and I appreciate everyone's participation and contributions to our mission of connecting Southern California and Canada more closely together. To mark the milestone, we have developed a new infographic to profile the MAPLE community "By the Numbers".

Since Robert and I launched MAPLE in May 2015, "community" has been at the heart of our organization. We set out to develop a network that spans business sectors and size of businesses to create a diversity of experience and expertise that will be most beneficial to members interested in exploring opportunities across borders. To date, MAPLE membership includes 19 different business sectors with members across Canada (from St. John's Newfoundland to Vancouver, BC) and throughout Southern California.  Major Canadian brands such as Air Canada, Brookfield, Purolator International, and RBC are among the membership which also includes government organizations including Opportunities New Brunswick, the County of Riverside and the City of Murrieta, California.

Community means coming together on a regular basis to meet in person, make connections, learn from one another and build relationships. In the first two years, MAPLE has hosted 30 events including 20 quarterly networking events in San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles. In addition, special events have created some noteworthy networking including hosting the mayors of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, Ontario from Canada's "Silicon Valley", Waterloo Region, to promoting the Province of New Brunswick at the Official Residence of Canada in Los Angeles.

The three primary work streams of MAPLE, investment, trade, and entrepreneurship, could not be more topical these days and keeping abreast of the discussions on both sides of the border is therefore critically important. On a daily basis, MAPLE shares key news of interest to our cross-border community through our social media channels. A special thank you to Ms. Michelle Thompson for her excellent work in sharing key news of the day. We also use these channels to amplify member organizations' own messaging by sharing news and announcements from members' own channels.

And as a cross-border community with thousands of miles between our members, simply keeping connected to one another requires timely communications. MAPLE produces two monthly e-newsletters focused on events and member welcomes including a new communication, MOMENTUM, launched in 2017 that spotlight the missions and work of two member organizations each month in their own words. Together, these newsletters reach thousands of followers across Canada and the U.S. each month.

Earlier this year, we led our first business delegation to Canada as part of our third Canadian mission. Six companies joined MAPLE for "48 hours in Vancouver, Canada". We scheduled the trip during the week of BC Tech Summit, an annual celebration of innovation in the province, enabling members to attend this conference too. Our delegation met with leading business and government agencies over two days. In addition, MAPLE hosted a sold-out networking reception in Vancouver bringing together area executives, investors, and entrepreneurs for an opportunity to learn more about doing business with Southern California. Based on the success of our initial delegation, we are planning future delegations to Toronto and Montréal in the coming year. In fact, we've just scheduled our Toronto delegation which will be held on Sept. 21-22.

Most recently, MAPLE has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with World Trade Center Los Angeles to collaborate on opportunities to promote more investment and trade between LA and Canada. The organizations have already been sharing information on the depth of Canada's investment in LA and Southern California (did you know Canada is the 3rd largest investing nation here?).

We are honoured to have received a letter of recognition from Canada's Consul General in Los Angeles, Mr. James Villeneuve on the occasion of our second anniversary.

Thank you to all who have supported our journey in our first two years. Canada and Southern California are two incredible places that share a long history of friendship and economic partnership. It is an honour to work to bring more opportunities to two places we call home. The best is yet to come.

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder with Robert Kelle of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Bridging Our Pacific Coast Neighbors

As Pacific coast neighbors, California and British Columbia embrace both an outlook for new ideas and an appetite for innovation. To their respective countrymen in the rest of their nations, these innovative regions are viewed with a sense of pride and curiosity as wellsprings of new trends, ideas and tastes. They also have the best waves for surfing.

Both regions are national gateways to lands across the Pacific and stand as their countries’ first port of welcome to immigrants across Asia. Each is richly endowed with natural beauty and natural resources – one even laying claim to a ‘Super, Natural’ standard of beauty in a longstanding advertising campaign. And both have been key destinations in the growth of their nations, one famously by rail where the last spike was laid, and the other by a passionate quest to discover the West. Today each is a global destination where the world gathers to explore, innovate and connect.

While in some ways they share parallel journeys, Southern California and BC are also fans of each other. In fact, Southern California represents the largest source of overnight visitors to BC from the U.S. The affection goes both ways of course, as Canadians are a major source of tourism for Los Angeles and all of Southern California. There are as many as 230 flights a week between Vancouver and Southern California making Southern California the largest air travel market between Vancouver and the US. It is easy to forget sometimes how close we really are. Our flight on Air Canada from LAX to Vancouver was less than 3 hours. That is closer than traveling from LA to Austin.

We compete with each other too. Southern California, the world’s capital of entertainment, has a northern neighbor who is in its own right a major place for television and movies. In fact, Vancouver is the third-largest film development center.

Technology is one of the newest points of interaction. Just as California is synonymous with “tech”, BC continues to transform its resource-rich economy to promote new sources of growth including a significant tech sector that the province is celebrating this week with the annual BC Tech Summit. MAPLE will be there.

There is, of course, a longstanding trade relationship between BC and California too. The trade data indicates that California's top buys are electrical energy, fresh fish, particleboard, lumber and unwrought zinc. In fact, California ranks second among all states for BC exports. And California is a major exporter to Canada of produce, grape wines, nuts and petroleum oils. In 2016, merchandise trade between BC and all of California was US $4.4 billion.

MAPLE is making our first mission to British Columbia in our second year since founding our Canada-Southern California business council. We are visiting leading organizations in the province to learn more about the state and trends in overall trade, attracting international head offices to Vancouver, film and the creative arts, wireless and IOT, the tech sector at large, how emerging companies can access the capital markets and graduate-level education innovation. While our week in Vancouver is our third mission since founding MAPLE 22 months ago, this is our first delegation mission. We are delighted to be joined by several MAPLE member organizations representing logistics, corporate, securities and immigration law who share our interest in taking the pulse of Vancouver.

 Our trip will be capped by our sold-out cross-border reception sponsored by Air Canada and Snell & Wilmer LLP where the MAPLE delegates and area executives, entrepreneurs, investors and educators will get to know each other better.

At MAPLE, we are bridge builders at our core. Connecting people and ideas together to promote opportunities in cross-border investment, trade and entrepreneurship. This week perhaps we should call it “Lions Gating” in honor of one of Vancouver’s iconic bridges. That would surely be Super, Natural.

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. Stephen is principal of The 360 Marketer, a marketing consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Exchange - Explore - Engage - The Role of Events in Growing a Cross-Border Community

At MAPLE Business Council, events are a key component of our cross-border outreach between Southern California and Canada. With a mission to connect individuals, ideas and organizations together across sectors, growth stages and regional and national borders, events are a pivotal foundation for building relationships. And once you have made a connection with someone then opportunities can be explored and resources engaged.

In our first 20 months since launching MAPLE, we’ve hosted nearly 25 events. Its not our only form of programming but they play an important role. These have included intimate networking events, a fireside chat, international panel discussions to a dinner reception at the Canadian Official Residence. The exact formula of each event of course differs depending on the objectives, target audience, location, even the time of day. (and never forget Los Angeles traffic!)

So what does it take for an event to be effective?

It starts of course with clearly identifying your meeting objectives. Will this be a general orientation to a topic, an exchange or debate of ideas, an in-depth exploration of an issue? How many people are involved in communicating the messages? Each suggests a different approach to how the communications will be managed. 

And then consideration should be given to your target audience. What is their incoming knowledge of what is being presented? What are their motivations for attending? What constraints need to be considered in terms of meeting time, access and even sometimes protocols? What will represent a meaningful ROI for their time?

Identifying this information upfront is important and helps to lay the groundwork for the event design. At MAPLE, we look at events, no matter the format, as having a core DNA. We consider it as the three E’s – “Exchange – Explore – Engage”.

It starts with “Exchange”. Having a dedicated time period for networking brings immediate value in making key connections. You want to know who is in the room first. It’s about creating connections between guests and between speakers and guests. It can be a primer for the content that will be formally shared later on. A sense of camaraderie can be fostered especially if the event is celebratory or becomes a shared experience of something new.

The meat of the event is typically the “Explore” stage. Here the core content is presented. This can be by lecture, individual presentations, moderated panel discussion or debate, a fireside chat. Video content can amplify the key messages and set the tone of the event.

At this point, it is easy to end an event with people departing without a clear idea of how to “Engage” further. This is a common mistake. A good event will leave the audience with a call-to-action. This can be facilitated by concluding remarks, distribution of materials, identification of online content, access to speakers and thought-leaders informally after the event, and through an additional networking period. Key messages can be reinforced after the event too through post-event communications.

The event does not end when the lights go out. Post event marketing can reinforce key takeaways, strengthen a sense of community by memorializing and celebrating what was shared together, provide access to additional content and resources that can expand the reach of the event content further.  And of the course the networking dividend of the event has the potential to continue on indefinitely.

With the “Exchange-Explore-Engage” model tailored to the best format for content sharing and the needs of the target audience, the value of an event can be optimized for all involved. What is hard to measure, but becomes the ultimate ROI of the event, are the outcomes from the connections made and the information shared.

In a networking environment that lives between the meeting participants, much of which will not be visible to the meeting hosts who orchestrated the event. For the clients on whose behalf the event was produced, contacts, leads, and future engagements will be among the key metrics to measure. And there are the intangibles of increased awareness for their brand and the regard with which it is held. These are difficult to measure in isolation but are certainly potential benefits.

Lastly, the event should not be an island unto itself but a tactic that is part of a broader outreach to a target audience. Events can act as a prelude to deeper and more targeted discussions with groups or one-on-one. They can mark key milestones and of course be annualized touch points. Ideally they are part of an ongoing narrative. At MAPLE, our quarterly networking events play an important continuity role for key communications with our community such as networking reconnects, council updates and member presentations, that are then accented throughout the year with meetings that focus on particular opportunities or topics within our overall cross-border mission.

Events are the lifeblood of a growing community providing valuable exchanges, explorations and engagements. For those interested in cross-border opportunities between Southern California and Canada, we invite you to “Exchange, Explore and Engage” with us at a future MAPLE event.

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. Stephen is principal of The 360 Marketer, a marketing consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Canada Super Session Soundbites at Get Global 2016

MAPLE, the Canadian-U.S. Business Council of Southern California, had the pleasure this week of hosting a panel discussion on doing business with Canada at the inaugural Get Global Growth Conference in Los Angeles.

Our panelists included Mr. Timothy Liu, Senior Director of Commercial Strategy at Air Canada, Ms. Tina Shih, Consul & Trade Commissioner at the Consulate General of Canada in Los Angeles and Mr. Robert Laplante, CEO of media representation firm, Media-Corps. Our moderator was Ms. Rachel Horning, Policy Manager at the LA County Business Federation. Here are some sound bites from a wide-ranging discussion on the advantages and opportunities to do business in and with Canada.

"In a population of 35 million people, you will find every type of talent you will need."

"Why Canada? Simply put, it makes business sense."

"Companies can save up to 40% when they operate in Canada."

"The quality of the universities in Canada is very high."

"You need to keep in mind that Canadians are value conscious."

"Canadians get Americans really well."

"Think bigger than just Canada's population of 35 million. Canada's trade agreements provide access to 480 million more people too."

"The luxury category of retail is doing very well in Canada."

"Canada as a brand cannot be underestimated."

"As a Canadian company we ask ourselves what it means to be truly Canadian."

"Progressive, friendly, open-minded and eco-conscious are some of the Canadian brand attributes we want to express when dealing with our guests."

Thank you to all our panelists and our moderator for an engaging and insightful discussion and to the Get Global conference team for an exceptional conference.

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. Stephen is principal of The 360 Marketer, a marketing consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

The Southern California Innovation Corridor - Excellence Spans Our Coast

Excellence spans our coast. Silicon Beach, Pasadena, Irvine, San Diego, Downtown LA and Santa Barbara – the names are all familiar. Many of us have visited for business or pleasure. But how much do we know of these communities as centers of innovation? Moreover, how are they different from each other in their sector focus and supporting ecosystems? And if I am seeking to launch my innovation in SoCal or expand my business, which is the best location for my goals?

Now consider an investor from outside the state or the country. What is known across borders about the diversity and depth of the innovation centers that are strung along Southern California? Individually, each community has their own personality, sector strengths, champions and sphere of influence and new innovation centers are emerging. For example, the City of Murrieta is nurturing an innovation community within its attractive corner of Riverside County.

What is missing is a macro view of the entire region and the changes that continue to shape its contours. This collective view can serve as a calling card for the region benefiting all within it.

There are existing examples of innovation corridors that have established an international reputation for the collective strength of their communities who share a focus on tech startups. Most notable is the 20 mile-long Silicon Valley known worldwide as a preeminent center for tech and innovation.

One perhaps less known here in Southern California is the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor in Ontario, Canada. Anchored by Canada’s financial capital of Toronto and Waterloo Region with its three primary cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo, the 70-mile corridor boasts 16 universities & colleges, access to 6 million people with 15,000 tech companies and 200,000 tech workers. It also offers a compelling collocation of auto and tech corridors for autonomous vehicle innovations.

As an innovation center north of the 49th parallel, it naturally takes a little more effort to establish recognition in the U.S despite the world-class University of Waterloo, heavy sustained recruitment from Silicon Valley and the second-highest density of startups per capita in North America. What is truly impressive is the active collaboration of the cities within the Waterloo Region both with each other and with Toronto. The region has recognized that despite the depth of innovation and sector strengths in each community within the corridor, the collective region, the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor, is stronger by marketing the strengths and shared resources of the overall region. MAPLE saw this first hand when we hosted the mayors of Waterloo Region and the CEO of the region’s economic development corporation, for a panel discussion on nurturing an innovation economy in downtown Los Angeles earlier this year.

Southern California can learn from the regional marketing model such as the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor. Without taking away focus on each individual SoCal tech community, developing a complementary tier of marketing around a Southern California innovation identity will help attract foreign investment by giving more clarity to what exists and where within the region. FDI is essentially matchmaking and helping to match the investor with the best home for their business goals is a big win/win. It will also help Southern California compete with Silicon Valley more effectively when foreign investors seek a California footprint.

The investment dollars, world-class universities, start-up incubators and co-working partners are already here and growing. The World Trade Center Los Angeles recently made a significant step forward in marketing the region with its research on foreign direct investment not just for LA County but for the six counties in the region.

These infographics on Southern California begin to tell a story of what makes a Southern California Innovation Corridor profile interesting.

Lets work together to build an identity for Southern California as an innovation region to attract more of the world’s leading businesses and brightest entrepreneurs to one of the most beautiful and dynamic parts of the world.  As the expression goes, “a rising Southern California tide lifts all boats”

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. Stephen is principal of The 360 Marketer, a marketing consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Discover Waterloo Region for Your Business

One of the rewards of growing a cross-border organization promoting trade, investment and entrepreneurship between regions are the discoveries you make. People, places and innovations. One of these discoveries is Waterloo Region in Ontario, Canada.

Growing up in Ontario, I have some childhood memories of Waterloo Region whose major communities are Cambridge, Kitchener and the City of Waterloo. My earliest memory of this now nearly 600,000 strong metro area located 70 miles southwest of Toronto was when I could join my father on a business trip to the region’s dairies. We would always stop for a large plate of wiener schnitzel with extra lemon wedges at one of the many German restaurants in the area – a hallmark of the region’s German heritage. In fact until September 1st 1916, nearly 100 years ago, the city of Kitchener was named Berlin.

Today’s Waterloo Region is a dynamic and multicultural innovation engine on the North American landscape. Home to the 2nd highest density of start-ups per capita after Silicon Valley, there is a tremendous energy of ideas and innovation fuelled by the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, Conestoga College, 150 research institutes and over 1000 technology firms. Incubators and accelerators nurture and mentor innovation and there is a feeling of collaboration across investor, government, academic and business stakeholders. The community works and plays together.

Waterloo has a lot to offer businesses looking for a new location to expand in North America. An attractive cost of living, a high quality of life, retention rates of engineers that are 2.5-3x that of Silicon Valley, an incredible pool of engineering talent and opportunities for significant R&D savings.  And why not locate where Silicon Valley recruits and within proximity of over 150 million people within a one day's drive?

At MAPLE, we are about building bridges between Southern California and Canada by connecting people & expertise and curating ideas & insights that can help reduce the friction in cross-border growth. We are honored to be working with Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation to increase the awareness of Waterloo Region within Southern California. And there could not be a better time to get acquainted. In September, the Waterloo Innovation Summit and the AutoTech Symposium are kicking off a season of thought-leadership gatherings.

We’ve put together these infographics to help tell just some of the Waterloo Region story. If you are interested in learning how Waterloo could be the home for your next office, R&D facility, call center – let us know at MAPLE. We’d like to build a bridge for your business. There’s more info at Access Waterloo Excellence.

And I guarantee you’ll love the schnitzel.

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. Stephen is principal of The 360 Marketer, a marketing consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.

Entrepreneurs Sans Frontières

Ideas can travel around the world in 140 characters. But an entrepreneur is more often to be rooted in place tethered to a nurturing ecosystem as they develop their business. How can we help the entrepreneur explore new markets across borders that can provide new stimuli for their vision and in so doing fortify their model and accelerate their growth?

A new market in a different country represents new ideas, fresh talent, additional investors and more clients. This represents a significant opportunity for startups who grow up in Canada beside a southern neighbor with a market size of 10x or more for their inspiration. The opportunity is not to displace or transplant the Canadian-based innovation but to strengthen the overall business by successfully tapping into what a new region offers.

But how does an entrepreneur explore the opportunity for his/her idea to take root in a market outside of their country?

There are excellent investment-centric networking programs connecting Canadian startups to Silicon Valley but what if the end game is not finding an investor but navigating a new market for product or market validation, funding yes too, but also sales and partner opportunities and the potential to open a satellite office staffed with in-market talent? It requires finding the right match based on the sector, business goals, business and even lifestyle. Is this a place where my business can grow? Can a presence in this region strengthen my overall business based in Canada? Is there a lifestyle match for our team? So in this hyper-connected world of ideas, knowledge sharing and daily conversation, how do we physically connect the entrepreneur to a new market with expert navigation that saves the startup time and money and leads to more informed growth decisions?

Enter Entrepreneur Tourism™.  A model of expert market navigation tailored to a startup’s business needs that enables an entrepreneur to assess the fit of a market or region as a place to penetrate the American market.  Now imagine a turnkey model that integrates air travel, ground transportation, work space and accommodations with the business networking and on-the-ground market intelligence as part of a turnkey model for a week or month. What is the value to a brand sponsor in any of these sectors by supporting such a program that facilitates future investment and business in the local region, connects them with innovative businesses and engenders brand loyalty?   

The ingredients for such a program can be found in a business network operating in a region on behalf of the entrepreneur’s home country. Within these networks are domain experts, brands, expatriate executives, subsidiaries of international parents and long-term in-market residents sensitive to the questions a traveling entrepreneur will have about the new region, and in many cases, experienced in making the transition themselves. In other words, they represent market navigators.

Today’s start-up entrepreneur need not break away from the ecosystem that nurtures them in Canada or elsewhere but instead embrace the opportunity to be an “entrepreneur sans frontières” with the help of a connected community across a border engaged in a structured model of market navigation.

Its time for Entrepreneur Tourism™.

Stephen Armstrong is co-founder of MAPLE Business Council, a non-profit senior executive council focused on promoting investment, trade and entrepreneurship between Canada and Southern California. Stephen is principal of The 360 Marketer, a marketing consultancy. For more information on MAPLE, please visit www.maplesocal.com.