Toronto mayor visits New Delhi to promote Canada's largest city to Indian business, students

Canada’s second-most internationally beloved politician with the initials JT was inNew Delhi Wednesday to speak to business leaders and politicians“to let the world know Toronto is open for business”.

The twenty-odd minute speech was dubbed, “Opportunities in Toronto in the evolving global landscape”.

Tory insisted he was here as a salesman for Toronto, the first mayor from the city to visit India in 20 years. Premier Kathleen Wynne visited in February 2016, and the chatter before Tory began speaking anticipated a visit to India from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (the other "JT") later this year or in early 2018.

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Mayor Tory’s sell should be easy. Whenever I tell Indians here I myself come from Toronto,they instantly become visibly excited and tell me of their four thousand relatives who live there.

Tory began with facts: Canada is a safe and stable parliamentary democracywith 1.2 million people of Indian-origin living there, good for three per cent of the country'soverall population. One out of every two people in Toronto wasborn outsideCanada.

Tory emphasised that Torontowants Indian students to enroll inits high-qualityschools, and was glad to saythat some graduates would head back to India while some would remain in Canada, toboth country's benefit.

The Toronto film industry got special mention, as cinema could be the heart of the cultural link between the two countries. For decades, many American movieswereactually filmed in Toronto (it can easily be dressed up to look likeAmerican cities, and Canadian taxes greatly lower production costs). It's easy to see why Toronto wants to capturethe growth potential of linking up with Bollywood.

Toronto has historically been pitched as a centre ofcommerce anda haven for multiculturalism,but the cliche for the latter hasreceived anupdate. Even conservatives like Tory pitching Toronto-multiculturalismare too sophisticatednow to sayracism there does not exist, so they add a caveat: We’ve made progress, but we must do more. This was a major theme. While this contains some of the passive smugness the world may not know to detest Canadians for, the cliches Tory invoked is too true to dismiss, especially at a time when the United States and many European countries are closing their borders.

Trump loomed large, but Tory artisticallyavoiding sayinghis name aloud. He repeatedly said he was unwilling to comment on the situation elsewhere, including in Europe, and said that Toronto is simply sharingits positive story that has led to its success.

Tory claimed he is “furiously resisting polarisation”, and that he has categorically denounced racist incidents when they do indeed come up in Toronto, for which he said he is roundly commended by citizens people.

With him was the newly-elected Toronto city councillor Neethan Shan, the city’s first Tamil councillor. Tory referred to Shan as “a breakthrough”, and said it was important for visible minorities to see themselves in the institutions that impact their lives, in order to instil trust.

Tory spoke about bus shelter ads featuring a white and black person with a caption prompting the viewer--whowould you hire? He cited this as evidence that the government is deliberately trying to provoke people into thinking aboutbarriers different people face.

While this comes from a man who during the 2014 mayoral race claimed white privilege does not exist, whether the mayor himself has genuinely evolved on this file or whether he’s speaking for the city broadly, the thrust of his point about the city holds. He was selling Toronto, not him.

Tory framed inclusivity as both something that arises naturally in Torontonians because it’s the decent thing to do, rather than something to merely say out ofrote political correctness, but also framed inclusivity as being a powerful case to drawbusiness.

He pointed to a Toronto-based piracy-detection company that chose to locate there because, surely among other reasons, it was the easiest place to find people who speak so many languages from around the world.

Anecdotally, so manyIndians have told me they would lovetovisit if not move to Canada that Tory’s speech to win them over seems hardly necessary, until you remember he was talking less to individual Indians than to Indian business.

Tory started his trade missionto India at the Delhi-based headquarters for the digital payment companyPaytm,and will meetofficials from Tata, India's largest conglomerate, about "expansion plans".

Tory closed byissuinga personal guarantee that he would “bend over backwards” for “entrepreneurs and risk takers” in order to welcome them and give them access to “smart people there”.

Indians seem to have always hada soft spotforCanada, and maybe particularlyToronto, but inan era of post-demonetisation and PresidentTrump, it's nice to seeToronto make an extra effort to welcomethem, and their money, to the city.

(WION)