U.S. Congressman in Montreal to promote expansion of Quebec-New York trade corridors
By Jeremiah T. Duboff,
Washington,
May 31 -
Last week the U.S. Congressman Bill Owens, representing northern New York state, addressed Quebec business leaders in downtown Montreal on the advantages of considering his area in their companies’ expansion plans.
The Ireland-Canada and Plattsburgh-North County Chamber of Commerce hosted the seminar, “Doing Business in the U.S.,” on the Concordia campus, at which Owens was the featured speaker. Other business leaders from Plattsburgh, provided expert overviews of American business and immigration law, customs compliance, commercial real estate, finance, and accounting. Owens later met privately with the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, the organization that maintains privileged “trade corridors” between the province’s 154 chambers of commerce and New York and New England. During his one-day visit the congressman also spoke exclusively with The Suburban.
A Plattsburgh attorney, Owens has promoted cross-border Canadian investment continuously since the late 1980’s. Expansion is the key concept, he insists, guaranteeing ready access to American markets. About 175 Canadian firms operate in Owens’s northern New York district, which stretches from the Thousand Islands to Lake Champlain. Nearly all these Canadians partners are from Quebec, roughly evenly split between francophone and anglophone firms.
Owens’s election to Congress in 2009 enabled him to shift his focus from the private sector to government. He successfully appealed to Prime Minister Harper to maintain Canadian services at all 13 border crossings into northern New York. At those same crossings he has requested mandatory French-language training for American agents. His current legislative priorities are to increase broadband coverage and highway funding in his district. Owens also communicates weekly with the Canadian embassy.
Last December Prime Minister Harper and President Obama announced the Beyond the Border Agreement, a comprehensive accord that promises unprecedented efficiency in Canadian-American trade and transit. Major infrastructure improvements are scheduled for border crossing at Lacolle (QC), Landsdowne (ON), and Alexandria Bay (NY). Business travelers with immigration issues will be able to request case reviews in advance of their actual travel. Customs compliance will becomes increasingly paperless. And just last month the Quebec emissary Raymond Chrétien announced that a joint customs office will be built at Montreal’s Central Station for Amtrak service to and from New York.
Susan Matton, Executive Vice President of the Plattsburgh-North Country Chambers of Commerce and the seminar’s co-host, has been recruiting Canadian companies to northern New York for almost 20 years. She regularly arranges meetings in Plattsburg for Quebec business leaders and has partnered previously in Montreal with the World Trade Centre and the West Island Chamber of Commerce. Paul Loftus, President of the Irish-Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the seminar’s other co-host anticipates approval of a Canadian-European Trade Agreement later this year. He will bring Irish firms into Canada beginning in 2013.
Click here to read the whole story from The Suburban.
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