Cathedral High School students worked together to grow geraniums, which were then donated for neighbourhood beautification projects funded by HCF small grants.

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Let's sell this city

Council told to lure 100 new companies and create 2,500 jobs a year

By Peter Van Harten
The Hamilton Spectator (Feb 25, 2006)

Mayor Larry Di Ianni and city council have their "marching orders" for the year ahead: Attract 100 new companies to Hamilton in the next three years and create 2,500 new jobs a year for the city for the next five years.

Those were the two targets picked by a roomful of business and community leaders at yesterday's third annual Power Conference.

A "tiger team" of business and municipal leaders should be created to go out and sell the city and get those 100 new companies, said Jean Taillon, a Bell Canada vice-president.

Kitchener has already shown it can be done and there are opportunities to attract health-care companies to Hamilton, he told the conference.

At the conference -- a combination fundraiser and think tank -- attendees pick the two best ideas for the mayor and the city to try to tackle from 10 ideas pitched by five conference panelists in five minutes each.

The theme of economic revival and revitalization in Hamilton dominated the ideas presented. Richard Koroscil, president and CEO of John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport, called for more job creation.

He said hundreds of graduating students from McMaster University, Mohawk College and other institutions were leaving the city and their families because they couldn't find jobs here.

From 1981 to 2000, there was a 19 per cent population growth but only a 1 per cent growth in private sector jobs.

"And to make problems worse, 25,000 people leave our community every day to go to work in other communities because that's where the jobs are," he said.

Hamilton had gone from being a city where the commercial tax base provided 70 per cent of needed city funds to now requiring residential taxpayers to pick up 70 per cent of the load.

Carolyn Milne's pitch for the city to call on Hamilton's youth and listen to their ideas just missed out on being voted one of the top two for the mayor to take back to city council.

The president and CEO of Hamilton Community Foundation said young people under the age of 25 make up 35 per cent of the city's population but are largely ignored.

Their potential should be tapped; they should be brought together in forums to present their ideas; taxes should be raised to give them universal access to recreational, cultural and arts programs; entrepreneurial leadership programs should be created; a shadow youth city council should be set up, and a youth editorial board established at The Hamilton Spectator.

"Families would be lining up to move to Hamilton because of our reputation for being so youth friendly and companies would be moving here because of that reputation," Milne said.

Louise Dompierre, president and CEO of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, proposed a new civic square area downtown with shops, restaurants and craft stalls among the civic buildings to make the underused area come alive.

Mamdouh Shoukri, vice-president of Research and International Affairs at McMaster, called on Hamilton to reflect on the past innovation of Dofasco, Stelco and Westinghouse to spur the city on to create new innovative and knowledge-based industries.

McMaster's new innovation research park could be a magnet for the new businesses, he said.

Other ideas presented were: having the Chamber of Commerce move its headquarters from the bayfront to downtown; recognizing the importance of the arts community; ensuring there was training to give 5 per cent of the 2,500 new jobs yearly to the unemployed; raising the level of philanthropy so that 50 per cent of Hamiltonians instead of only 7 per cent leave money to charity, and a three-year tax holiday for new creative and "funky" businesses that come to the downtown area.