Author: Nigel Neale, Senior Trade Commissioner and Director of Trade & Investment, Consulate General of Canada, New York
Thank you for the opportunity to describe to your readers what the Government of Canada has been doing in support of Canadian businesses during the past year. Despite continuing to address the challenges of COVID-19 during 2021, the International Business Development team at the Canadian Consulate General in New York was able to make considerable progress in advancing Canadian commercial interests in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware. We brought over 180 high-potential new Canadian business clients to market to connect them with sources of capital for fundraising, investors, mentors, distributors, agents, sales partners and customers.
We ran four flagship Canadian Technology Accelerator programs in cybersecurity; climate-tech; digital tech and for the first time in retail-tech. We launched two new accelerators in the creative industries (music supervisors, and women in television) delivered in conjunction with our colleagues at the Canadian Consulate General in Los Angeles, and one in ed-tech. Bootcamps were run in cell and gene therapy, women in climate-tech, seed-stage capital raising and AI/ML. We recruited Canadian companies to Finovate and Future of Fintech, DOCNYC (the largest documentary film festival in the US) and A2IM (the American Association of Independent Music) and others. We brought over 50 VCs, growth stage tech companies and Fortune 500s seeking Canadian solutions for their value chains to participate in Collision 2021 – North America’s fastest-growing tech conference held in Toronto.
We deepened our involvement as a founding member in the Carbon2Value Initiative to commercialize more decarbonization technologies. We ran webinars for over 500 participants in Buffalo, Plattsburgh and Rochester to promote the benefits of USMCA – the US-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement - to our border communities, and produced a market guide for Canadian SME businesses on how to penetrate the US market via e-commerce, including promoting Canadian brands at industry events such as theCanadian Flavours Food Festival, Canadian Oyster Fest and New York Fashion Week.
We are advancing gender equality and increasing the diversity of the Canadian business clients we serve. At the beginning of 2021 we set a minimum target of 50% representation from diversity groups. Over the course of the year, we achieved an average of just under 70% through intentional and deliberate recruitment efforts.
On investment attraction and expansion, we promoted Canada’s value proposition to Fortune 500 companies and AI-powered tech startups to set up shop and benefit from our exceptional tech talent pool; our Global Skills Strategy – a program to bring in highly skilled workers in as little as two weeks; lower operating costs – often by half; and an unmatched quality of life centred around our policy of multiculturalism. Our participation at the TechDay Founders Summit is one example. Other examples of traditional firms that benefit from reliable Canadian operations to ensure uninterrupted North American supply chains are GSK, Hershey, Kraft-Heinz, Estee-Lauder, to name a few. NYC tech firms like LiveLike and Fadel are benefitting from Canada’s expertise in fintech and other disruptive technologies and enhancing their profits by locating value-added production and development in Canada.
In conclusion, it’s a good time to remember our core priority: helping our business clients navigate challenges in order to thrive.
Do stay in touch with us via our LinkedIn page and our www.canada-ny.com site.