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Canadian urban centres accelerate efforts to attract and retain high-tech companies

Fast Cities. When you hear the term, the idea you’re supposed to get is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. All cities have economic potential: Fast Cities maximize theirs by actively seeking to attract high-value businesses and knowledge workers. All cities have bright citizens: Fast Cities work with academic institutions to foster home-grown talent, then ensure that newly-minted graduates have ample opportunity and reason to stay in the community instead of leaving for greener pastures. All cities have business organizations, entertainment venues and other places where people meet: Fast Cities use these to actively create the networking opportunities that make a community vibrant and encourage the exchange of ideas, then help foster the innovation that results.

Whether it’s building industry clusters and centres of excellence, or collaborating with companies on everything from curb cuts and zoning issues to applications for financial incentives from other levels of government, many Canadian municipalities are demonstrating that they are, indeed, Fast Cities.

Mississauga’s value proposition
With the fourth largest cluster of ICT companies in Canada, the city of Mississauga in Ontario is a hub for innovative and tech-savvy businesses. Located within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and home to a population of 710,000 (and growing), Mississauga has a lot to offer for current and incoming businesses.

“We have about 4,000 technology companies here,” says Larry Petovello, Mississauga’s Director of Economic Development, “including the Canadian headquarters of some of the world’s leading corporations—Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and Pitney Bowes.”

Not only is Mississauga home to American and global Fortune 500 companies, it also boasts many innovative Canadian-based ICT businesses. Companies worth noting include Redknee, a software application developer for wireless technologies; Financial Models Company (FMC), a software developer for the financial securities industry; and Cedara, a leading independent provider of medical imaging software.

Offering a geographically advantageous position for ICT companies on a number of fronts, Mississauga is within close proximity to the United States and Southern Ontario. Just a 90-minute drive from the U.S. border and home to the Pearson International Airport, the city is attractive to Canadian and international businesses. “Companies are able to access both the Canadian market and the U.S. at competitive rates while maintaining their strong presence in their home country,” says Petovello.

With infrastructure in place to support continued industry growth, organizations including Bell Canada and Research In Motion (RIM) are in the process of expanding their Mississauga locations. By the end of 2008, Bell Canada will have relocated much of its Toronto operations to Mississauga, resulting in an increase from 4,000 to 7,000 employees, says Petovello. “RIM currently has two buildings under construction which, when complete, will employ more than 2,000 software engineers.”

Encouraging continued focus on research and development, the Mississauga-based Sheridan Science and Technology Park helps build synergies amongst companies sharing resources, equipment and information. Member companies with sites on this unique campus include Xerox Research Centre of Canada, IMAX and AECL Division of Atomic Energy of Canada.

“Another main draw is our highly skilled talent pool, with 82 per cent of Mississauga resident workers possessing some post-secondary education,” says Petovello. With 10 universities and 11 community colleges within commuting distance from the city centre, Mississauga is well-located for ICT businesses. The University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus, for example, is one of the first in Canada to offer an undergraduate degree in Communication, Culture and Information Technology (CCIT).

A young and forward-thinking city, Mississauga is in the process of developing a new, high-occupancy rapid transit bus system that will make the entire city more accessible to its growing workforce. With extensive highway and public transit access connecting Mississauga to the rest of the GTA, local corporations have access to a labour pool of approximately 3.1 million people.

Finally, the diversity of the city’s population means employees speak multiple languages and have intercultural experience, important factors for many organizations competing globally. One such Mississauga-based company, Minacs, an international business process outsourcing company, requires the capability of 22 languages in order to service countries around the globe.

Toronto forges new tools
Naturally, technology companies and the knowledge workers they employ don’t confine themselves to one jurisdiction’s boundaries, and in southern Ontario the geographical demarcations are blurring. Unique opportunities encourage a business to locate in a given city, and for Toronto that means giving companies access to a variety of sectors—from manufacturing and aerospace to biotechnology and financial services. “The advantage we have here is that we have quite a diverse economy,” explains Rob Berry, Manager of Sector Partnerships with the Economic Development, Culture and Tourism department at the City of Toronto.

Programs designed to attract and retain businesses must not only serve that diversity, but leverage it. That, says Berry, is why the city seeks to entice new businesses to locate here, but places its greatest emphasis on supporting those companies that already have. Some of that work involves forums, roundtables and one-on-one consultations to ensure businesses are aware of and taking advantage of economic development programs offered by the provincial and federal governments. But Toronto has also been forging new tools to add to its own toolbox.

One of these, unveiled in May, is a tax deferral program to attract development in key industries, including information technology and the many technology-intensive sectors it supports. This program includes tax relief for investments to upgrade properties, as well as incentives to take the sting out of cleaning-up older sites contaminated by previous users. Coupled to the city’s skilled workforce and its reputation as the country’s financial powerhouse, this program makes locating in Toronto or upgrading an existing presence more attractive.

Kingston’s lifestyle choice
While some knowledge workers thrive in the energetic environment of large cities, others seek the quality of life found in smaller centres. These communities are proving that size isn’t a prerequisite for attracting creative people and innovation-generating organizations. Billing itself as the freshwater sailing capital of North America, Kingston, Ont., is an example of a Fast City that emphasizes the community’s lifestyle. “We can’t sell a community purely on that—we have to be a place that is doing business competitively as well—but we think that we have it both,” says Jeff Garrah, CEO of the Kingston Economic Development Corporation.

Kingston’s location at the eastern end of Lake Ontario is great for more than sailing. It’s also ideally situated for wind power, and one of the most ambitious such projects in Canada—the Wolf Island Wind Project—is on Kingston’s doorstep. The city is leveraging that presence by fostering a green technology and alternative energy cluster.

Collaborations and benefits
None of this is accomplished by flying solo. Cities are supported by other organizations and companies as they pursue the creation of knowledge clusters that integrate businesses, research institutions and other stakeholders.

For example, Ontario Centres of Excellence support industry-relevant research commercialization. It taps the potential for Ontario colleges, universities and hospitals to act as innovation incubators, and closes the innovation gap that might otherwise prevent promising research from producing the creative new products and services that drive economic growth.

Technology companies also contribute, building and operating the networks and providing services that are essential to high-tech collaboration. Companies such as Bell Canada not only link businesses with customers and partners, but also connect Fast Cities with their citizens.

Using creative strategies to attract new technology-intensive enterprises is what being a Fast City is all about. Regardless of the specific strategy, these Fast Cities all stand to benefit from any influx of new businesses and talent.

Enabling fast cities

Bell Canada builds the systems that keep cities on the move

Bell Canada works with the country’s most advanced, technology-savvy cities in order to improve the quality of municipal communications, ensuring efficiency, responsibility and security.

With a focus on improved service, Bell works to ensure, for example, that all taxpayers can readily access municipal services. “A city must be easily accessible by its citizens,” says Stéphane Boisvert, President, Bell Enterprise Group. A most recent development in municipal communications technology is the 311 calling system. Currently implemented in three cities in Quebec, the system follows the same principles as 911 but is intended for non-urgent matters. “When people want to call the city about potholes or a burnt-out street lamp they don’t have to remember phone numbers for each department,” adds Robert Guay, Bell’s General Manager, Sales - Crown Corporations and Municipalities. The centralized 311-system not only makes the city more accessible to its constituents but also optimizes the internal response and coordination of incoming calls.

Part of this solution is the installation and maintenance of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) software. This software walks callers through a voice activated triage system, providing prompt access to the appropriate department or representative needed to solve the issue.

Another way Bell helps cities maintain efficient lines of communication is through wide-ranging online services. “Eventually everyone should be able to register their kids for swimming lessons, reserve a public tennis court and access tax records online from their home at any time of day,” says Guay.

In summary, Bell is delivering a multi channel solution which enables cities to optimize their internal processes while simplifying citizens’ experience.

The second area in which Bell is using technology to help municipalities improve is public safety. “It’s all about getting the right information to the right person as quickly as possible,” explains Boisvert. Bell supplies 911 services to cities to support deployment of the appropriate response team and also provides wireless networks used by police services to connect police car terminals to a centralized database.

“Last year we began supplying the network for a Computer Assisted Dispatch application that was introduced for municipal fire departments,” Boisvert says. As soon as a call is placed, essential information such as detailed building plans is sent directly to the dispatched team, resulting in a better coordinated response.

The third area of focus for Bell is municipal business continuity. “We are spending a lot of time looking very seriously at network reliability, redundancy and security in order to ensure the protection of all data records,” says Guay. To assist municipalities with data storage and accessibility, Bell coordinates and conducts a security “health check” and then offers recommendations such as firewalls, storage mechanisms and intrusion-restricted software.

Finally, Bell is working with municipalities to improve the quality of asset and infrastructure management. “Through wireless solutions we are helping municipalities deliver best-in-class services to its citizens” says Boisvert. For example, efficient monitoring of moving assets results in considerable savings in fuel consumption, addressing two important objectives: economical and environmental.

For many cities, the concern is value for money and Bell is able to offer improved communications and efficiency with the implementation of information, telecommunications and technology systems.

For more information visit www.bell.ca/enterprise

Kingston combines lifestyle and opportunity in a vibrant package

Looking for a city with easy access to major markets, a talented workforce, research and innovation muscle, and a lifestyle that offers the best aspects of city sophistication combined with short commute times, a walkable urban core and friendly neighbourhoods? Kingston, Ont.—at the convergence of Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River and the Rideau Canal—offers all of this and more. From its historic waterfront and many cultural attractions to leading-edge research and award-winning reputation as a champion of sustainability, Kingston is an appealing choice for companies in technology-intensive sectors that want to offer their knowledge workers an outstanding lifestyle as well as a rewarding career.

“Being a large-sized smaller city is a real competitive advantage,” says Jeff Garrah, CEO of the Kingston Economic Development Corporation. “Kingston is a place where people who are focused on the knowledge-based sector of the economy want to live and work. Our city is home to the highest number of PhD graduates in the country.”

Kingston offers easy access to major markets including Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and New York. At the same time, the city is differentiating itself from these markets by pursuing its own unique vision of the knowledge economy, and building a green energy cluster.

This group draws on the city’s already considerable resident expertise, including Queen’s University, Royal Military College of Canada, St. Lawrence College and the Wolfe Island Wind Project, and is breaking new ground in wind and solar power, fuel cells and bio-fuels. “Our environmental footprint is a significant issue for all of us,” Garrah notes. “This is helping us attract interest from those who want sustainability to be a part of their core mandate when they’re developing and growing their business.”

For more information visit www.kingstoncanada.com