Good Neighbours, Strong Regions: Cultivating Regional, Cross-border Strategies to Build Local Economies

Full Panel
Transcript

Note to readers: This video session was transcribed using auto-transcribing software.  Questions or concerns with the transcription can be directed to citytalk@canurb.org with “transcription” in the subject line.

Mary W. Rowe Hi everybody, it’s Mary Rowe from the Canadian Urban Institute, just aligning my shot there. The only thing about these headsets, it does flatten your hair, doesn’t it, just a little bit of vanity to start off with our early broadcast. Thanks everybody for joining us and for what is continuing to be an ongoing, very dynamic conversation about the evolving economic relationships that are unfolding before our very eyes between Canada and the world and Canada and the United States. And so we’re really pleased to have today a bi -national panel to talk about regional collaboration. I happen to be in Toronto today, as you can see if you recognize my backdrop, and I’m actually at my home, not at the office. And this is the traditional territory of many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. And Toronto was covered under Treaty 13, and the Williams Treaty, but home to the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, the Wendat, the Chippewas, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. We always invite people to come into the chat, tell us what the ancestral territory is that you are a visitor on. And we continue to come to terms with what’s happening in the United States and it’s going to be interesting to see how our indigenous heritage and our commitment to reconciliation in this country is affected by, or the extent to which that influences our ongoing conversation … What the future is to our relationship with our neighbors to the south and who knows where else. So we have an active chat as people know and we encourage you to participate in the chat. If you’ve been a lurker, of which there are always many, who enjoy CityTalk maybe at the edge of their desk because they’re having a cup of coffee, or they’re doing some of their work or eating lunch, depending which time zone you’re in, we encourage you to monitor the chat because there’s a whole parallel universe that evolves there. People put links up, they ask questions of each other, and then we publish the chat so you can see it later. But it really is a really interesting kind of bifurcation of your brain to listen here, to engage with what our panelists are talking about, but also to engage with the other folks who were putting in interesting questions and resources and thoughts on the chat. And as you know, what goes into the chat stays in the chat, just so you know, so everything gets published. So today, I’m gonna ask my folks to turn their cameras on, because we’re gonna talk about regional collaboration and collaborations generally, and how our economies are actually oriented that way regionally, and sometimes that region might actually straddle a border. Or it might straddle a provincial border, it might straddle a state border, it might straddle a national border, and to watch that’s an interesting kind of added dimension to this conversation that is, as I suggested, rather popular in the media, particularly, and I think at everyone’s kitchen table certainly here in Canada. I don’t know Bruce and Jeanette can tell us whether it’s as topical in the United States as it is here. But we wanted to try to as much as possible, always be grounding our conversation in what is happening in local communities. And as I said in the little orientation call, we all just came on to check our tech, I just said, you know, we could spend the whole hour just having a good rant about how crazy everything is. And I’m sure there are people in the chat that are ready to rant. Rant away, but we’re gonna use this hour to try to focus on tangible, practical kinds of things that we’re observing. Opportunities that we may see emerging. What is the reality of economic life? How does it affect local communities? How does it affect municipal service delivery obviously? Because we’ve got Isabelle here from the municipality of the Ville de Gatineau. But just all the ways in which we’re seeing these things hitting on the ground. So CUI is always about, our CityTalk is always about what’s working, what’s not and what’s next and we’re living in extraordinary times. I guess everyone says that, everybody thinks they live in extraordinary times. But I think this might actually be one of those times. Isabel is nodding at me So so i’m going to ask each person to just give me a little bit of what we usually do. You know, what are you seeing when you look out your window? What do you think the key challenges are when you go outside your door? Uh, what what do you see as economic… How do you see economic uncertainty manifesting at the moment? and then we’re gonna talk a lot about the potential for these regional collaborations. So I’m gonna go to you first, Bruce. You are a fellow, you’ve had a haircut since I last saw you, it’s looking good. And Bruce is familiar to CUI because he’s a fellow with us and he works on regional economic development across various domains. We’re happy to have you back on CityTalk. Bruce, you start us off and then we’ll come to the others. Over to you. Welcome back to CityTalk.

Bruce Katz Well, great to be with everyone. I just put something in the chat that I published about two weeks ago. So we’re five weeks in. We have three years, 10 months, three weeks left. Who’s counting? That was not a rant. That’s just accurate.

Mary W. Rowe You’re allowed to have that, yeah.

Bruce Katz So, I think the advice I would give, you know, to the folks on the call is the same advice I would give to people in the United States, because we’re getting a real lesson here in civics and federalism in economics. I mean, our economies are so completely intertwined and integrated, we are joined up here. So the message really has to be for cities, counties in the United States, provinces, is you’ve got to get a stress test done. In the U .S., the first stress test that we’re going through at the city and county level is about the freeze on federal funding, which was rescinded within two days, the coming cuts in entitlement spending. New York City, just as one example, I’ll have a piece out tomorrow, receives about $100 billion a year in federal funding. And that’s a conservative estimate because they don’t even count direct federal contracting. In the case of the Canadian municipalities and provinces, the stress test is really around the structure of your economy, the nature of trade, the investment flows. You very much focus North -South. There’s an enormous amount of vulnerability here. The only check and balance we seem to have anymore in the U .S. is the stock market, which reacted like that when Trump announced some of the initial tariffs with regard to Canada and Mexico. So who knows what’s gonna happen within the next week, two weeks, month, et cetera. But what is clear I think is for places to understand, you know, what is your distinctive starting point in the global economy? To what extent are you dependent upon trade with the United States? It’s a very large portion of Canadian GDP, a much lesser proportion of US GDP. To what extent, as we think about all these different sectors, auto, energy, health care, digital, I mean, the list goes on and on. Are there options? Are there alternatives between a North -South orientation or an East -West orientation? The bottom line is, you know, these stress tests or you know, initial diagnostics around, in the US initially, federal funding flow, I think in Canada and Mexico, trade and investment flows. It’s fundamental now to get a new understanding of what our position is and what our vulnerability and exposure is. And then as we see this play out, they are flooding the zone, they are basically testing everything to find where the weaknesses are. Where will there be pushback? Where can they just get away with stuff? Because so many things are happening simultaneously. I think we’ll begin to find ways to adapt. I think we’re going through, in the US, a fundamental federalist resort. At the end of this process, we will find ourselves, frankly, being more like Germany, in some respects being more like Canada. We’ll have a central government that still performs certain functions, but our states and our cities and counties will bear much greater responsibility for a whole range of activities. Are we prepared for that? Absolutely not. There’s gonna be a new math, a new sorting, but so Mary, I mean, we’ve just switched into practical mode here. Do the stress test, fight the fight. Fight the fight, push back as hard as possible on so much what is being proposed. But as we move forward, there’s gonna have to be adaptation to a radical new reality about the role of the national government and the role of trade investment. The last thing I’ll say is we’ve just spent the last four years trying to adapt to a new geopolitical order. Rising tensions with Russia, rising tensions with China obviously, the remilitarization of the United States, the reshoring of manufacturing in the U.S. All that’s just been flipped on its head i mean what is the g what is the U.S. posture with regard to Russia, with regard to China, I mean if anyone has an answer to that uh… you know

Mary W. Rowe They’ll put it in the chat, Bruce.

Bruce Katz But we thought we at least had some basic understanding, fundamental understanding across ideological factions about what the New World Order would look like.

Mary W. Rowe  All bets are off. Thank you. I can just encourage people in the chat to, after I’m giving you this exhortation chat, change your settings so that it says everyone, because otherwise it just goes to the the hosts and me, and I guess I’m the host, and the panelists, and we’re happy to hear it, but we want everybody to see it. Bruce, one question for you on the stress test. I love the language about that stress test. We at CUI are putting up a dashboard about Main Street impacts to try to give people a snapshot of, here are the things to watch to see what the impacts are and what kinds of mitigation measures might be possible. Um, anybody in your orbit looking at counter tariffs and the impact of counter tariffs on your economies?

Bruce Katz I mean, I would say we’re beginning to look at that, but to tell you the truth, there is so much coming at municipalities and counties right now, in terms of just like the basic fiscal architecture of federalism in the United States, entitlement spending, housing, transportation, support for vulnerable populations that are block grants, but not entitlements, procurement, direct contracting, federal workforce.  We’re talking about massive reductions in workforce. So we’re like first order here, essentially the dismantling of settled arrangements between the federal, state, and local governments over decades, which is now getting upheaved. Next order will be trade, investment, foreign direct events, and all the rest of it. But we’re not there yet, because there’s so much that’s coming. And when you read the piece, you’ll see references to, you know, Godfather, wartime consigliere is my, as you do a stress test, just put yourself into a certain mindset. This is an assault, essentially, that has to be basically countered, but then, you know, sort of taken into, with evidence, understood and then adapted to.

Mary W. Rowe You know, those of us that are, you know, fond of the resilience framing and talking about how do we make communities and economies more resilient, how are we constantly building our resilience, one of the things that we talk about is the sudden shock, you know, but generally people would think of that as being an environmental shock, a sudden flood or a power outage, or a snowstorm or something in Canada. But, you know, this is in many ways, as you’re suggesting, this is what’s testing of our community resilience that you’re experiencing, and all the things that you just laid out, Bruce, I think we forget in Canada that this is multi -layered for you, and for what municipal governments and counties and local communities are dealing with. It’s many, many, many, many cascading things, not just tariffs, so I appreciate that. I hope that our keen federalism in Canada watchers are on the broadcast today. If not, I’m gonna make sure they get this tape so they can hear your comments about how the longer term view here is a recasting of federalism in the United States, and that’s a very interesting conversation happening, not happening, happens all the time in Canada but not right this minute. Mostly what’s happening is a question about what our response will be to this economic challenge, but that’s a longer term piece and I don’t want to lose it, and another CityTalk will be in our future on that because Canada loves to talk about its constitution and how we’re organized, and maybe this is part of that. One of the benefits of this kind of shock is it’s going to do that. Stephen, I’m going to go to you next because you are a steward of arguably the largest regional economy in the country, and I’m interested what your particular perspective is about the impact of this time we’re in, on strengthening those regional collaborations, strengthening the kind of regional economic, competitive advantage that I know Toronto Global is all about, and how do you see this fitting and what Bruce just challenged you to ask, whether or not we’re doing the stress tests we need to. Anyway I’ll pass to you, I don’t think you’ve ever been on CityTalk, we’re glad to have you. Thanks for joining us.

Stephen Lund Thanks. Yeah, thanks, Mary. Thanks for the invite. Boy, you know, a question like that two weeks ago or three weeks ago would have been different than today. The reality is, you know, we’re in a different world. You know, Toronto, and again, there are so many great cities across the country. I can speak specifically about Toronto and the GTA. You know, Toronto is the fastest growing city in North America, you know, there are more cranes in Toronto than the next 13 biggest cities in North America, right? So that gives you a sense. And when I tell my friends in the U .S. that number, they never believe me, but it’s true. More cranes than any North American city by a long shot. So things were humming along in Toronto. And I think what we’re seeing now is, holy smokes, guys, we’ve got a wake up call. You know, tariffs under any of three scenarios. Full on tariffs and reduction and incorporating in taxes in the U.S. from 21 to 50%, that’s scenario one. Number two, limited tariffs or limited timeframe. And number three, no tariffs. What are we going to see? Who knows? Likely one or two. So what does that mean for us as a country, first of all? It means, first of all, how do we react? That’s going to be a lot driven by politicians, but also have a role to play in each of our cities. And how we react is going to be important, but one thing it will, and should do is provide a wake up call for all of us in Canada to really take an inward look to see other things that we should be focused on to fix, to make us more competitive internationally. Are there new export markets we should be looking at? Should we look at our tax structure in place? Should we look at our provincial trade barriers, right? Should we look at immigration? Like all those things, and I can give you a list I made of 14 different things that we can look at. All those things that we should be looking at, from a specific city/region perspective, the question is, okay, you know, what do we do in downtown Toronto? What do we do GTA? What do we do province -wide? I think what you’re going to see is more coordination throughout each region across the country to say, what are the things that we can do together? Everything from bilocal campaigns, to procurement campaigns, to getting our government to help support our startups and our scale ups by buying from them, to looking at international markets, whether it’s Korea, Japan, wherever it happens to be. Again, 77% of our exports go to the U.S. How do we get in that position in the first place? U.S. Has been our best trading partner, our closest friends. You know, is the relationship fractured? For sure. Is it long -term or short -term? I don’t know. Bruce is counting down the days. But at the end of the day, this is a wake -up call for us across the country. Every city and region across the country needs to do that stress test that Bruce mentioned, right?

Mary W. Rowe So, Stephen, one of the things that I think, you know, as we, I was joking the other day that we’re reaching that moment again, as we reached with COVID, where the words exasperate and exacerbate becomes synonymous, they just become the language and people just use one or the other. But we don’t mean it. It’s something that existed before that got worse. Stephen, one of the things that I think the organizations like Toronto Global have, in many ways, rested on, was that the focus for many years was to attract foreign investment into an economy. And in many ways, this is kind of a turning the tables moment where you’re going to have to say, well, actually, we’re going to have to focus our mandate a little differently. Because, am I right or not?

Stephen Lund Yes and no. I take issue with that a little bit. So first of all, what we will see if tariffs come to place and if the U.S. puts in more competitive measures around taxes and stuff, we are going to see, like it or not, companies from Canada move to the U .S. And we’re going to see some of our startups move to the U.S., access capital, things like that. However, having said that, Toronto and Canada, Toronto, we compete with the world. we compete with the Londons, the New Yorks, the Tokyos, right? And, you know, we will continue to do that and we do it really well. And we brought over 300 companies here in the Toronto region. So it’s really twofold. It’s one, look at new markets to attract international investment because that really helps to drive economies. Two, double down and make sure that the companies that are here have a reason to stay.

Mary W. Rowe But I’m interested, I mean, I’m gonna come to Isabelle next because she’s in the belly of the beast here, because isn’t one of the challenges, Stephen, that you do your very best to be a regional organization? And I don’t know how many municipalities are actually part of Toronto Global.

Stephen Lund 24.

Mary W. Rowe Like 24, my God.

Stephen Lund It’s the GTA.

Mary W. Rowe Yeah, yeah. So this is one of the challenges. We all joke about that. Like, I was in New Orleans last week and… And interesting talking to them, Bruce, you would have been fascinated how New Orleanians are approaching this. They turned to me and said, “well, we’re used to being at odds with Washington. There’s nothing new for us”. But Stephen, one of the things that’s interesting about competitiveness within regions, that’s one of the things that I know Toronto Global has had to summon … to somehow… Because if I’m in New Orleans and someone says, do you know my cousin in Toronto, that cousin could easily live in Oakville, or Mississauga, or Markham, and the New Orleanian just says it’s Toronto. And so I know that’s one of the challenges. We’ll come back and talk to you about that because, is this is a moment to kind of really strengthen those regional connections? But Isabelle, I sat in your office and we talked last year about the opportunity that the Amazon H2Q bid gave you to collaborate with the City of Ottawa. So talk to us about Gatineau, for Americans viewing and other Canadians who don’t know where Gatineau is, right across the river, you can stand at the House of Commons, you see Gatineau. It is right there. And it is part of the National Capital Region. It’s attached to the government of Quebec, obviously. But it is a, it’s a region. So Isabelle, welcome to CityTalk.

Isabelle Veilleux Yes thank you, and thank you for the invitation. Yes, Gatineau, just a little bit of context, is the fourth biggest city in the Quebec province, so the province of Quebec, and as you mentioned Mary, what’s particular about Gatineau is that we’re really located a stone throw away from, you can’t see it from my office because it’s snowing right now, but I actually can see the Parliament Hill from my office in downtown Gatineau, so it’s that close, the proximity. And also, as you mentioned, the downtown core of Gatineau is part of the region, the capital of our nation. So we are integrated in terms of proximity, but two provinces, two, you know, different systems, regulations, language and jurisdictions. So, a few, it’s like, we’re a region of 1.4 million people, 400,000 in Gatineau, over a million in Ottawa, but it’s the same community, but very specific challenges. And if we talk about the challenge that we’ve been sort of working on over the last few years, that, you know, it presents some opportunities, but also, in terms of, you know, recognition of certain diplomas or scholarships and whatnot, it makes it difficult sometimes for people to live in Ottawa and work in Gatineau, and vice versa. So we have some regulatory issues that we deal with here, but the tariff situation actually is an opportunity for us to put this forward and maybe have our provincial governments look at this issue and look at maybe lowering some of these barriers to trade, like inter-provencial trade. So for us, we see it, there is an opportunity there in terms of our businesses in Gatineau. We have, like I mentioned, 1.4 million population, like very close, physically, but… the bureaucracy and all the complexity due to our different regulations makes interprovincial trade more difficult for our businesses. So maybe there’s an opportunity there.

Mary W. Rowe Isn’t it interesting, though, that economic opportunity can sometimes be the thing that compels you to work across some of that, all of that complications? When you don’t need to, you just put up with it, but when you’re suddenly in a situation like the Amazon H2Q bid, we better try to do this, or the tariffs, we better try to do this. So as you say, it’s an opportunity. Isabelle, just mechanics, just so people are clear, and I’m gonna come next to Jeanette, she’s got the same situation. We have thousands of people who cross the Gatineau-Ottawa border one way or the other to go to work. Yes. They take one bus system across the bridge and they take another bus system on the other side of the bridge. It’s kind of crazy. But it is also one of the predicaments we have with people working increasingly, not from other offices, is that that has affected the viability of those transit systems because the federal public service hasn’t been coming back into the offices frequently, so they’re not on that bus as much, right?

Isabelle Veilleux Exactly, yes. And it is an issue, like the connection between the two provinces, and the two cities is an issue. As you know, there’s no train in Ottawa, and Gatineau has its own tramway project. We want the connection with Ottawa. Just there is a perfect example of how complex it is, you know, with the different levels of government, the funding and whatnot. So it is an opportunity for us to maybe look closely, more closely at these issues and also create maybe some committees collaborating on these issues and have a dialogue, closer dialogue on these issues.

Mary W. Rowe Yeah, yeah. I mean, necessity being the thing that compels us into that place. Stephen, you know very well the dilemma with fare integration. How long did it take us to get comparable fares in the GTA? A long time, where I could use one transit card to go bopping around. Yeah, so these are just all part of the layering that we’re going to talk about. Jeanette, you are absolutely in a pivotal place where thousands of people go back and forth, and they live in one place and they work in the other, they live in Detroit, they work in Windsor, they live in Windsor, they go across to Detroit. So talk to us a little bit about where you are, what your particular perspective is, and we’re happy to have you to CityTalk. So please, jump in.

Jeanette Pierce Yeah, so glad to be here. And, the thing about going last is I wanted to say, I have things to say about every single thing that talked about.

Mary W. Rowe That’s fine. You’re allowed to do that. That’s the benefit of being last. Go for it.

Jeanette Pierce  Yeah, I don’t know how much time we have, but so yeah, so for those that aren’t familiar, and a lot of people aren’t, Detroit, like I am three blocks from the Detroit River. I can see Canada. I can see Windsor, Ontario from my backyard. So I must be qualified to be vice president, but.

Mary W. Rowe I was gonna say, there’s your Sarah Palin moment. Just saying.

Jeanette Pierce Uh, so, um, so it is very close. It’s 2 ,500 feet across the Detroit river. So not unlike, you know, Ottawa, uh, and Quebec and, uh, except two different countries, right? Um, our region in, uh, in Detroit … So we have, you’ve probably heard about Detroit’s population loss, if you’ve heard about it. But, we’ve got 700,000 people in the city of Detroit, 4 million in our Metro area. Uh, and I really love the municipality talk because that’s something that we talk a lot about. You think 24 municipalities is a lot, in our metro area we have 131.

Mary W. Rowe Oh my god, are you serious?

Jeanette Pierce I actually, when we … Our organization helps people understand Detroit, one of the main things that it is, and this is even for locals to understand because we don’t hear about it a lot, is one of the major dominoes to so many of our challenges has been this historic separation. So 131 suburbs, half of them are under five square miles and there’s no regional government officially that makes them talk to each other. There’s a place that’s 0.5 square miles that has a mayor.

Mary W. Rowe That’s local democracy for you, just saying …

Jeanette Pierce Yes, yeah. So I’m also on the board of the Michigan Municipal League Foundation … you know you can count how many municipalities … anyway so I totally understand that. We have a city bus system and a suburban bus system. Recently, we have been working … We got a regional transit organization and we can talk all about that separation and then now we talk about Windsor, Windsor Essex has about 300 ,000 people and they are right there. One of the things that has come out of this um already, you know so we’re talking big macro stuff which is so important with Bruce and everybody, you know on the ground like daily stuff right so because of this trade conversation and tariff conversation even in not having happened yet, was one the reasons the Mayor of Windsor gave for cutting the bus that goes between Detroit and Windsor. That’s a hundred -year -old bus and, you know, transportation system, and that’s what it does. Just goes back and forth for those job seekers, for visitors, for … And you cannot get across the border. You cannot walk. You cannot bike currently. We are building … we have a tunnel and a bridge, both a hundred years old. We have a new bridge opening this fall. The Gordie Howe Bridge … you guys got to name that one, right? It’s a bridge between us. Gordie Howe was a Red Wing, but he was actually obviously Canadian. Um, so that’s huge. I mean, on some of the big numbers, right? Like, so we talk about the trade partners, obviously America and Canada, but then just Michigan, right? So 25 % of all the trade between America and Canada comes through Detroit. Wow. 50 billion … the state of Michigan imports 50 billion from Canada and exports 27 billion. The state of Michigan – 10 million people. And 5 million of them live here in southeastern Michigan. So we have 4 million in our three county. And if you go to our larger, you know, 11 county, we get 5 million, half of Michigan’s population.

Mary W. Rowe I’m just gonna stop you because these are such great numbers and your internet is a bit jumpy for me. I don’t know if it is for other people, but just we’ll cope. If we have to cut your video, we will and we’ll just hear you, but let’s hope we can keep it on. But I’m just interested. First of all, 25 % of the trade traffic comes through Detroit Windsor, first thing. Second thing, 50 billion, right? Coming in from Canada into the Michigan economy of 10 million people. So, you’re a quarter the size of Canada in that one state and you take 50 billion in and you send how much back?

Jeanette Pierce 27, about half of that, 27.

Mary W. Rowe  I love your stats, aren’t these fascinating to figure out how much per person is coming in. Okay, keep going, we’re on a roll.

Jeanette Pierce So there’s some big scene-setting stuff. But on the ground level… how is this impacted? And one of the things that I focus on a lot is connections, relationships, people on the ground who don’t necessarily know or understand all these things that are being talked about, but how is it impacting them? So obviously the bus is one. I’ve been on a couple of Canadian radio shows. Some of us have been talking, this might actually strengthen our relationship because we’re in this crisis together, right? And that’s what I’m trying to really push for. But one of the examples though, you know, and Bruce kind of mentioned it – it’s like well how does everyone feel about the tariffs to Canada? It’s not … I mean it’s big but we have you know, education in Detroit right? The transit  in our region, uh… our non -profit, we have like a very strong non -profit system. Grants, you know, there was one executive order for a hot minute that was like … I like to use the example, you know, unfortunately, but it’s like, we are neighbors, our house is on fire, you guys are getting a lot of smoke and you’re worried. And this fire could spread, you know? And you’re really mad at us for that fire. There’s also a lot of that. There’s a lot of anger, but at the end of the day, our house is on fire and we could use help more than, you know, anger because it was only, and so those are some really important stats, you know, only one third of the American voters voted for Donald Trump. One third voted for the Kamala, basically, and a third didn’t vote. So when, you know, I see a post yesterday, I wake up to a post, one of my colleagues in Canada and she was like, “I cannot … my husband and I are not coming to America until … To Detroit that means, right? Until these four years are up. And he’s like, I go to concerts …

Mary W. Rowe You see, she says that, and then the line goes dead.

Jeanette Pierce And that’s really, and then a whole slew of people say… Can you hear, is this better?

Mary W. Rowe We’re gonna take your video off and keep your sound on … go ahead, wrap up, keep going.

Jeanette Pierce So he said he’s not coming for four years and there was all these comments of “I got rid of my music tickets. I got rid of my theater tickets. I’m not going. I’m not going”. Right? I want to kind of respond to that, though, which is Detroit … to your point about New Orleans, we’ve never had, you know, we’ve survived without government support for a long time. And that is that one thing is that crisis breeds innovation. We’ve had more than our fair share of crises. And therefore we have more than our fair share of innovation here and people binding together on the ground is how you get through these crises. And we know a lot about that.

Mary W. Rowe Yeah, let’s … Thank you, Jeanette, and absolutely, I hear you on all the points that you’re making. This is why we want to have this conversation. We’re going to ask everybody to put their cameras on and we’ll have the Hollywood Square’s look so I can see everybody’s faces. And I think this is the challenge for us is, as you say, your house is on fire and we’re getting some smoke. We, of course, over here kind of feel like our house is on fire too, but it’s very valuable for us to hear what you guys are saying on the ground, what the reality is for you. You know, if we … This business about buying local and not spending money in the United States, I think that is an interesting challenge. Stephen, you must look at that too, because you’re obviously trying to support your members. You’re trying to encourage more business investment and more business growth in the Toronto region. And what is … How do we reconcile that with people wanting to vote with their pocketbook?

Stephen Lund Yeah, um, first of all, I know lots of people that aren’t traveling to the States right now. [Mary: right. Me too.] You know, buy local, um, the challenge with buy local is, you know, Heinz ketchup has a plant in Quebec, you know, with 500 people give or take, whatever … Um, that could be an American company, but employing Canadians in Canada. Do we break these lines? So those are some of the challenges that we face. I mean, we all want to buy local. I think one jumped out to me which was in a condo building, some woman in the condo building put a list of four pages of products to buy that are Canadian products, right? And I think, you know, it’s an issue when everyday people are talking about it. And again, I go back to – don’t waste a good crisis. I wanted to make two quick comments if you don’t mind. One was, you talked about downtowns and shout out to Sue Utech who points at Halifax has done a remarkable job in terms of what they’re doing downtown. I just came from a meeting this morning talking about downtown revitalization in Canada. Those are some things that we really need to take a look at. Jeanette talked about stats. Here’s some stats that not many people … might not know the numbers, but there’s a trillion dollars of trade back and forth between Canada and the US. The U .S. has a deficit of $64 billion with Canada, including energy. Take away energy, which we sell at a discount. The U .S. has a surplus, a trade surplus with Canada of $29 billion. So just knowing those numbers, I think, help a lot. But again, it’s “what can we do?” Back to your question, sure, but also double down … you know, what we do, we work around the world, like we’re tracking investment around the world, right? Go look at new markets, our exporters, you know, we have to look at new markets. Um, how can we be more competitive? You know, what’s our tax system like? Look inward and look outward.

Mary W. Rowe It’s gotta be both. It’s gotta be both. You know, it’s a good economic practice to look at import replacement. That’s how economies grow. You’re buying this from somewhere, you find a replacement for that so you no longer have to buy it and you source it locally and then your economy grows and then you create something and somebody else buys it. So there’s nothing wrong with us doing that, that’s how economies grow. Bruce, when you’re cobbling together the regional strategies that you’ve done in Dayton and various places, talk to us about how that kind of work could in fact bolster an economy to be more resilient and less affected by these kinds of geopolitical, God knows what’s ahead next.

Bruce Katz Yeah, so I think what’s really important is what Trump represents is a kind of economic nationalism which is not just in the Republican Party. President Biden with CHIPS and, you know, science with inflation reduction act with our military production was very much focused on reshoring. And many of those investments had “Buy American” provisions which was a major issue with Canada three or four years ago. So what’s really important is to understand that across parties in the U .S., there is a different philosophy about, you know, what is our role in the global economy and, you know, quote unquote, have we given away too much? Have we offshored and outsourced and all that? So the kind of diagnostics that we’ve been doing in the U .S., which apply, you know, under Biden, apply under Trump, is “What is the current state in any given city or metro of direct federal contracting, which largely comes from our Department of Defense, NASA, et cetera.” Number two, “what is your role around critical technologies, AI, robotics, genomics, quantum computing? I mean, the list goes on and on that are accelerating today, across multiple sectors. They’re not verticals, they’re horizontals. So what’s your starting position?” Canada has some great starting positions. And lastly, “what is your position in the energy transition?” Because it’s not just about renewable energies. I think we’re seeing a reintroduction of nuclear because of the demands on the grids and the electrification that is happening across the board. So you do all those analyzes and you get a sense within your metropolitan area or your province or your state, what is your starting point? And then you get to the question, Mary, what could be more hyper -localized? But these starting points, you know, are radically different from place to place. And I will say that for the last 10 years, in the U .S., this is a very positive thing, we have gone from superstar cities dominating in a post -industrial economy, the San Francisco’s, the Seattle’s, the Boston’s, the New York’s, the DC’s, to a much broader reshuffling of cities and metros that now find a stake as we reshore and manufacture. And that’s really critical to understand from a Canadian perspective that some of what’s happening here really crosses partisan divides. It’s very much a more accepted view that we need a different economic philosophy in the United States. All that said, what Trump is doing is reckless and purposeful. Because they really are testing all these different systems to see where they can get away with stuff.

Mary W. Rowe I think in Canada there is a lively discussion about the economic future of the country. And this is just putting it in much … It’s amplifying it and making it a more agitated conversation. But I’m interested to hear from Isabelle and Jeanette about strategic investments because if this jolt, this perceived, maybe real, threat becomes … whether it stays perceived it becomes more real … Does that give us an opportunity to then shape how public investment could be, as happened with the Biden administration, there was some decision making there around infrastructure, capacity, you just said new technologies. From your perspective, Isabelle, do you see an opportunity to double down on that kind of enabling infrastructure? Like, Jeanette just talked about the bus being canceled. I’d like us to figure out how we not have that happen. But Isabele, do you have a sense of that? Is this a moment where … Or do you think people are just so panicked it’s going to be hard to have that conversation?

Isabelle Veilleux That’s a hard one. Honestly, with everything that’s going on with the different messages that we’ve been getting and it’s very confusing and it’s hard to follow also. So I’d really like to have a crystal ball to see, you know, in one month how it’s going to pan out, but honestly, right now, what we see is that there’s a little bit panic arising in the business communities and with entrepreneurs. They’re trying to prepare, but they’re not sure how far they can go. But that being said, to answer your question, yes, of course, I think that the governments have a responsibility to look at their ability to leverage the economy with government spending.

Isabelle Veilleux And if I can talk for the City of Gatineau, it’s something that we’ve looked at in terms of our buying, you know, our suppliers, if they’re local, if they’re regional, provincial, and to try to support as much as we can our local economy. Obviously, we have a role to play. But I mentioned the tramway. That’s a large investment. There’s also a hospital that’s going to be built in Gatineau in the coming years. So these are very large infrastructures that will require billions in investments, so for sure the opportunity is there also to support the economy through these major public investments.

Mary W. Rowe You know, somebody in the chat, it might have been Richard Gould, I’m not sure, I’m sorry, if I’m not citing the right person, is talking about ZIBI. And if people don’t know about ZIBI, google it Z -I-B -I. Really interesting experiment of a residential development, mixed use, mixed income, mixed typologies, historic site, cultural spaces, really interesting. And it straddles, it’s in the middle of the river, straddling Quebec and Ontario. What an interesting kind of possibility that that describes. Jeanette, when we think about, I mean, we’re always trying to maintain these different scales, hyperlocal – there’s Isabelle straddling, you know, she’s local, but she’s in a province that’s different. You’re doing the same thing. You have to straddle two national borders.

Mary W. Rowe In your years of experience in Detroit, they have made investments in essential infrastructure. Universities are important, very important, right?

Jeanette Pierce Yeah, we have a lot of investment. We have a lot of investment coming into Detroit. A lot of it is by local people, though, and our philanthropy, right? But just three projects are $5 billion of investment, all local companies that are doing it. So we have a billion -dollar project by Dan Gilbert, the second -tallest building in the state that’s going to be opening. Our Michigan Central abandoned train station that was the epitome of Detroit’s decline is now the home of innovation. and it’s got a billion -dollar campus. And Henry Ford Health is doing a $3 billion project with Michigan State University. And that’s just three projects. So we have been investing in tech and AI, all of that stuff too, right? And obviously cars, you know, they’ve been computers for a long time, right? So I always said like is Silicon Valley gonna start building cars or are we going to get better at the tech side and we’ve gotten a lot better at the tech side and attracting and retaining talent is a big part of it.

Mary W. Rowe I was gonna ask you about talent because Isabelle you had mentioned this and I think when we talk about inter-provincial barriers – Bruce for your benefit, we have all sorts of rules (and Jeanette) that you know restrict the movement of goods within Canada, the horizontal piece that we all know we need to strengthen. But it’s not just goods, it’s also professional certifications and accreditations. We haven’t had as mobile a labor force ss we need and I know Isabelle, from my meetings with you, that there are people that take jobs in one of either the Quebec or the Ontario side, but they continue to reside in a particular place because of their entitlement around healthcare, I think. I’m trying to remember what it is. That’s kind of crazy, right?

Isabelle Veilleux Yeah, and it’s one of the issues that I mentioned earlier in the conversation that because in Quebec, let’s say in the construction industry, there are recognitions of certain trades. And if you’re a plumber, let’s say, or if you’re an electrician, you need to have certain certifications that are not the same in Ontario. So, you know … And it is one of the industries that is really strong here in our area. So, yeah, just one example of the issues that we have in terms of recognition of the competencies of the trade force and makes it difficult.

Mary W. Rowe I mean, I’m wondering if we, you know, we’re gonna run out of time as we always do on these things … we always say CityTalk is the beginning of a conversation, not the end. But to all four of you, if you were to prioritize over the next two or three years, where you see, and I want to specifically talk about public investment, because I’m conscious that I can hear it starting, that if these tariffs are applied and counter tariffs are applied, there’s going to be a push from Ottawa, certainly, that they will feel the public is supporting, to provide some kind of relief. And I’m wondering if we want to have some input into how those public investments … could they be investments that would lay the track for a stronger economy when we come out of it? Stephen, over to you first.

Stephen Lund Energy. We’re have the second most reserves in the world in oil, the third or fourth and natural gas. Like I just think if you talk about infrastructure, one major thing I’d focus on is energy infrastructure. Biggest impact bar none.

Mary W. Rowe Housing’s not in there?

Stephen Lund Oh, I mean, Mary, you asked me one thing. There’s so many different things. [Yeah, I hear you. I hear you]. These specifically themselves … We have a huge issue, right? You can’t grow a country by a million and a half people and build 100 ,000 houses.

Mary W. Rowe Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephen Lund Housing infrastructure, you know, public transport in the big cities, there’s no question about it. So totally, they’re all important. And maybe it’s the three I would say, you’re right, energy, housing and public infrastructure in terms of transportation.

Mary W. Rowe Transportation. I mean it is a bit … Bruce you used the wartime consigliere framing … It is a little bit like that, isn’t it. Because somehow … I’m too young but post second world war there was a very specific strategy to invest in infrastructure, right?

Bruce Katz That’s right.

Mary W. Rowe It would require deficit spending, it would require all sorts of risks. Bruce, what do you … could we see that? Could you imagine that? That we’re gonna improve the basic conditions, the enabling conditions that we know in universities, transit, energy, all the things Stephen just listed, housing. Could we imagine governments saying that’s what we’re gonna double down on?

Bruce Katz Well, if there was consistency to this, I would say yes, but that’s not what we’re seeing. The House of Representatives voted a budget resolution the other day. They’re gonna continue tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans. They’re gonna basically take a hammer to Medicaid, take a hammer to food nutrition. They’re sending signals about our National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, vaccines, if you want a new business to get into, get into health security, because we’re unraveling it in the U .S. So the only thing, and this is not even clear, where I think you will see additional funding in the United States, is around defense. And so that was what drove the post -World War II investment in infrastructure. The interstate highway system in the United States was about defense. Basically sort of a Cold War kind of intervention. I do think, just building on what Stephen was saying before, we are going to learn in the U.S. how to de-federalize. We have more capital than we think in our cities, metros, and states. We have more power than we know in our cities, metros, and states. And that’s what’s gonna be tested here. Now, what I worry about is the transfers to people who are in very dire straits – elderly people with disabilities, very low income. This is an assault on the poor in many respects. And I think that’s the hardest thing to de -federalize is a social safety net. Housing, energy, transportation, I think we’ll figure that out because we could leverage up private investment for those things. But an assault on the poor, that’s what I really worry about as we move through the next critical couple of months.

Mary W. Rowe Again, as I say, I don’t know where there our folks on this particular session who are really concerned about how things are organized in Canada, where the resources go, how federalism fails communities in so many ways in Canada are on this call, but the notion of de-federalizing would also cause anxiety for Canadians who are advocates for human rights and who look to the national government to be the enshriner and the protector of human rights. But I also know that if Carol Saab on this call, the CEO of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, she is exactly saying, “don’t you see the quality of life and the productivity of our country is dependent on the quality of services that are generally provided by municipal governments” and they don’t have the resources or the tools to be held accountable for them and so push more down. So it’d be interesting to see if that’s one of the benefits. Back to Isabelle and Jeanette on the ground. Do you imagine this being a moment where where we could be steering a certain kind of investment. Is that something Jeanette you think about?

Jeanette Pierce I mean, we’re always focused on local because people have ignored us for so long, right? And seeing what we can bring in and support local and also as a city that’s 90 % people of color. We’ve been left off a lot of things before, right? So just really quick, you were mentioning the, you know, the investment that … yeah, Canada I think will likely get public investment and Bruce replied to it as Americans, we’re not going to be getting public investments.

Mary W. Rowe Your public investments being stripped away.

Jeanette Pierce Exactly. I mean, you guys could look at what we did with ARPA though, right? Like that was like the government coming in and saying, hey, we had a crisis and here’s some money for everybody. So that is going to be really difficult for us. But the one thing I always try to remind people is that good and bad are not mutually exclusive. There can be horrible things happening. You can have major challenges. But there’s also a great small business at the end of your corner. There’s a nonprofit doing amazing work. And if you can find those as well, then you have the energy to keep working on the challenges. So that’s … because people get focused on the bad and it’s important because we got to solve those challenges, but good and bad are not mutually exclusive. And especially right now, we got to focus on the successes that we do have, big and little, to fight this big crisis.

Mary W. Rowe The yin and yang. Isabelle I’m asking you a question that’s really hard but you are the person who is straddling two provincial borders – Do you think if you had a more formalized regional authority, would that make collaboration between Ottawa and Gatineau easier?

Isabelle Veilleux Yes, well, that’s a very good question and it’s something sometimes that I Dream about, but I think yes, it’s something that’s an ideal, obviously it would solve a lot of the issues we discussed here today. But is it … In terms of reality will happen in the short term? We can dream, and we can have a vision. I think that what we can do, however, in terms of community, is work … like if we were like a district, you know, and work with the different cities and the different Chamber of Commerces and different partners and businesses like we were one economically.

Mary W. Rowe Yeah, I mean, Stephen, I’m sure you think this way too, that we have to act as … civil society organizations like ours have to occupy this kind of horizontal space. And the dilemma is whether you don’t necessarily have the accountability or the representation. Steven, you must straddle this … You are using soft power, as they say, all the time.

Stephen Lund Just reading a quote or a question in here. … “Convince municipal leaders that local could mean metropolitan region rather than just a neighborhood”. Right. I mean, it’s a good point, whether it’s Ottawa, Vancouver, Halifax, Toronto. I mean, there’s so many small municipalities that we have to remember that a win in one could be a win in the other. And I think we’re being forced in to think, I think, it’s a combination of really minor local and municipalities and how do we make things happen with … how do we leverage our partners around us to work together? I think that’s gonna be the –

Mary W. Rowe Well, and the federal government, in the last incarnation of it, was trying to do some of that, incentivizing by saying the Housing Accelerator Fund, the Permanent Transit Fund, have to have a regional component. So I think we just have to keep our hands on as many tillers as we can grab. With the minute left, just 10 seconds from each of you, what would you double down on and focus on over the next, it’s such a short window, I don’t know, two months, three months. First to you, Jeanette, what would you focus on?

Jeanette Pierce Relationships … the human connection and relationships, that’s what can get us through this.

Isabelle Veilleux I echo that, bringing communities closer together and collaboration.

Stephen Lund Well, I agree with the first two points. I would say awareness of Canada internationally, including with all of our partners in the US.

Mary W. Rowe Bruce, last word to you.

Stephen Lund Do a stress tests, understand who you are and what your exposure is.

Mary W. Rowe Well, listen, as Irv Weinstein used to say, from Erie, Pennsylvania, the evening newscast I used to listen to as a kid when I was … an American newscast that I listened to in London, Ontario … He used to say, “pictures at 11:00” … So the story continues to unfold here. We appreciate you being part of the discussion with our CityTalk audience across the country. Who knows what’s next? Fasten your seat belts, we’re on for the ride. Thank you for joining us at CityTalk. We’re next week talking about Placemaking. Tomorrow we launch, sorry, today … We launched a report called Let’s Talk About Placemaking. It’s launching today in Montreal with many, many partners, en français, Isabelle, you’ll be glad to know. And we’ll see you back here for CityTalk next week to talk about Placemaking. But honestly, the tariff conversation, economic uncertainty, top of mind for as long as we need it to be. Bruce, great to see you. Thank you, Stephen, for joining. Jeannette, wonderful to talk with you. And Isabelle, great to see you again. Thanks, everybody.