BURLINGTON — The Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce is planning to use up to $100,000 from the state to foster economic ties with Quebec.
Gov. Peter Shumlin announced the award at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Burlington with House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, and business leaders.
The money will come from the Vermont Enterprise Fund, which was designed to create incentives to attract or retain major employers. The cash was once earmarked for IBM.
Patricia Moulton, the secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, said the $100,000 will be used to increase trade between Vermont and Quebec, attract Quebec companies to Vermont, and establish “cross-border collaboration.”
Smith said the state already has a “real partnership” with the Canadian province in tourism, but he would like to improve how the state gets Quebec companies to bring jobs to Vermont.
“It’s a market that’s 90 miles away – I guess depending on how fast you drive and how far away, or easy it is to get across the border – but it’s one that is probably not tapped as much as we can,” Smith said.
Tom Torti, president of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the group will spend much of the $100,000 to hire a new staffer. Some of the money will help pay for a promotional campaign, materials, and travel expenses to conferences.
Torti said he has not decided whether the money will be distributed through a grant or a contract. The partnership with the Shumlin administration has been in the works for a few weeks. “We have to prove that this money is going to be used in a way that has a return on investment,” he said.
“If you believe in the triple bottom line — of people, environment, finance — then Vermont is the place you want to be,” Torti said. He said companies that want to make profits by squeezing their employees should look somewhere else.
Shumlin held the news conference just before a meeting on Vermont-Quebec Enterprise initiatives. He said the administration met in March with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard to discuss the region’s business ties.
“We need to do everything we can to bring jobs from Quebec to Vermont,” Shumlin said. “When folks in Quebec think about Vermont, they think about the best skiing in the world. … They don’t necessarily always think ‘a great place to expand my business, and bring jobs.’”
The $100,000 cash award to the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce comes from an appropriation in S.138, the economic development bill.
S.138 represents a compromise with the Legislature, Moulton said. The administration opposed a plan to use up to $725,000 from the Enterprise Fund for a first-time homebuyer credit and other programs lawmakers wanted to support. The final version of S.138 includes $425,000 in spending from the Enterprise Fund.
