Dalton McGuinty goes to Israel to boost trade

Robert Benzie

Queen’s Park Bureau Chief

Dalton McGuinty is making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

But he is doing so in the name of pragmatism and economics, not religion or politics.

McGuinty arrives in Israel this weekend to lead the six-day “Ontario Life Sciences Mission,” drumming up business for the province and learning from top innovators in the fields of bio-technology, water treatment, computers, and green energy.

“I’m not sure there is any place on the planet where the people are more proficient at innovation and commercialization,” the premier told the Star.

As McGuinty strives to diversify Ontario’s economy, lessening its dependence on manufacturing and mining and encouraging new industries, Israel is a useful model.

“ It has been explosive how quickly they have turned on their innovation engine,” he said, marvelling at how a tiny desert nation of 7.4 million people surrounded by hostile neighbours has been so successful.

With the highest density of start-up companies in the world – some 3,850, according to the Israel Venture Capital Research Centre – McGuinty said Israel’s greatest natural resource is its people.

“They’re leaving no stone unturned in creating all kinds of opportunities for young people to access the best quality education,” he said.

“Because of our history we’ve benefited from a wealth of natural resources. Israel doesn’t have a wealth of natural resources so they’ve come to quickly understand that their greatest resource is and always will be their people.”

As the first sitting Ontario premier to visit Israel since Mike Harris in 1998, McGuinty said he wants to bolster the province’s ties to the region by leading the delegation of executives from 35 companies, universities, and hospitals.

“This is at more of a formative stage in terms of some economic alliances. This is a first trade mission. There are 350,000 Jews in Canada, 250,000 here in Ontario and a lot of those folks here have very strong connections to Israel and we intend to take advantage of that,” he said.

“We’re not strangers. We’ve got a lot of friends there, we have a lot of family there. There are many Ontarians who are absolutely devoted to growing prosperity in Israel. We intend to capitalize on that goodwill and develop more economic win-wins.”

McGuinty is mindful of the morass that is Middle East politics.

Singer Elvis Costello this week cancelled two shows in Israel to protest “the intimidation, humiliation or much worse” inflicted upon the Palestinians.

That’s why the premier will visit the West Bank on Thursday and has added a day in Lebanon at the end of his trip.

“The foreign policy there can be complicated and I don’t intend to weigh in on that. But we do feel the responsibility to visit the West Bank,” the premier said.

“Canada is investing $350 million there over the course of … five years and helping build up community and small business and governance and prosperity and stability. I think that serves the interest of everybody in the region.”

Planned stops in Ramallah and Beirut, however, have done little to appease the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association, which called on McGuinty to “press Israel to comply with international humanitarian and human rights laws that protect Palestinians … (and) call on the Israeli government to lift the inhumane blockade on Gaza.”

Still, Israel is his main focus and David Weinberg, director of the Israel office of the Canada-Israel Committee, said the visit comes at time when Israelis are heartened by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s unwavering support for the Jewish state.

“Israel appreciates every display of friendship from around the world very much and Canada is a good friend of Israel,” he said, adding he hoped McGuinty’s visit would highlight for Canadians the medical and technical breakthroughs happening there.

“There are truly exciting and good, sophisticated things going on in business writ large – and by business I include things like medicine and technology and environmental advances.”

That – not politics or religion – is what is drawing McGuinty to the region.

“(On) clean-water tech – they’re pretty well at the front of the curve when it comes to developing and utilizing and exporting water technology … and services. That’s a booming marketing opportunity,” the premier said.

It’s also a top priority for a Liberal government that Tuesday introduced the Water Opportunities and Water Conservation Act, which creates the Water Technology Acceleration Project (TAP) to promote the domestic clean-water industry.

As well, McGuinty said he would be looking to see what lessons Ontario can learn from Israel in assimilating immigrants.

“The Israelis draw a direct line between rate of economic growth and their rates of immigration,’’ McGuinty said.

“They understand that immigrants who have been in many, many cases been trained abroad at the expense of foreign taxpayers, who are arriving with skills and education, are a tremendous net gain for your economy,” he said.

Indeed, about one third of Israel’s fast-growing population is foreign-born and 90 per cent of Jewish Israelis are immigrants or are the children or grandchildren of immigrants.

“We can’t replicate it in its entirety because Israel has had a different genesis, has a different history, it has tremendous support from around the world from its diaspora, which is sending ideas and goodwill and money into that country,” he said.

“That distinguishes their reality from ours. But there are some areas of tremendous similarity, which is their reliance on immigration to generate economic growth, their reliance on innovation to create new opportunities for their people.”

Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman, said while he’s pleased McGuinty is going to Israel, he was “terribly disappointed” opposition MPPs were not able to join the delegation that includes Liberals David Zimmer (Willowdale), Monte Kwinter (York Centre), Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence), Economic Development and Trade Minister Sandra Pupatello, and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Eric Hoskins.

Shurman, whose Thornhill riding is 38 per cent Jewish, said allowing Tory and New Democrat members on the trip would have sent a positive, non-partisan signal of Ontario’s eagerness to do business in Israel.

But NDP Leader Andrea Horwath thinks McGuinty should be concentrating on economic development closer to home.

“The premier should take his trade mission up to Northern Ontario and do something about the opportunities that the north provides but we don’t reap the benefits of because the government’s completely ignoring that area in terms of job opportunities,” said Horwath.

Link: http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/812846--dalton-mcguinty-goes-to-israel-to-boost-trade