Mayor John Tory to visit Austin in renewed push to sell city abroad
Following in the cowboy boot treads of his predecessor, Mayor John Tory is headed to Austin, Tex., as the launch of a renewed push to sell the city to the world.
In March, Tory will join Councillor Michael Thompson, chair of the economic development committee, to retrace former mayor Rob Ford’s path and tour the annual South by Southwest music festival that has grown into an arts and culture mecca — in hopes of bringing similar success to Toronto.
The trip will mark Tory’s first cross-border excursion in his role as mayor and the first step towards a goal of doubling investment from abroad in Toronto. That kind of work, he said, essentially stalled during four years under Ford.
“My predecessor — I’ll put a fine point on it — was kind of penny-wise and pound-foolish,” Tory said in an interview Friday. “That’s not to say you should be sort of travelling every week and taking trips all the time, but you have to go and sell the city, and they expect somebody to show up.”
Tory criticized the previous mayor for touring the Austin City Limits festival in 2013 and failing to make good on promises to bring a similar event and the associated tourism benefits of thousands of music lovers to Toronto.
“I want to just see it and make the contact with the same people he did, and just take it the rest of the way,” Tory said, promising to make trips where he is needed and delegate other responsibilities to Thompson and staff. “As long as people are careful of how they spend money and so on, I will not only defend that, I will argue strongly that is absolutely necessary to attract jobs.”
Thompson is hopeful of doubling current investment in Toronto, which will involve looking at new opportunities, including doors about to be opened by the South Korean government.
“We have to recognize that it’s the nature of how to attract business, of how to attract investment,” he said of the travel, adding that Toronto is not the only city engaged in this type of outreach. “We’re unique in that we’re not really as developed in this particular space as we should be.”
Tory said he expected other levels of government to come on board. Council this week approved working towards a regional body focused on foreign investment — one that seeks funding from the province and Ottawa for $2.5 million each.
Though neither government has agreed to chip in, Tory said he is optimistic and that a regional group would allow for better joint strategy in selling Toronto’s brand.
Tory faces criticism from some councillors, who argue the city shouldn’t be in the business of attracting foreign direct investment. The loudest critic remains Ford, who has often decried travel expenses as a waste of taxpayer money.
Ford was booted from the council chamber this week after challenging staff on a trip to Milan for Expo 2015. He questioned why it was omitted from an economic development committee report, accusing staff of doing so intentionally.
But once he was out of the room, Thompson told council that Milan would not be the only such trip he and others would take.
“We’re embarking on a different game in terms of promoting the city, creating opportunities for our businesses, looking at new channels of markets, and so on,” Thompson said. “We’re going to go around the world in order to do that. We’re going to go to places like India, China, South America, United States and across Canada to promote the city of Toronto.”
Despite Ford’s recent protests, Thompson — whom Ford also picked to chair the economic development committee — travelled to New York, Brazil, Palm Beach and across the country between 2011 and 2014, with the city spending more than $26,000 in expenses for him to represent it abroad.
