When talk turns to trade in Arizona, Mexico tends to dominate the conversation, but we shouldnโt forget the importance of our neighbors to the north, officials say.
Canada is the stateโs No. 2 trading partner, with $3.7 billion in bilateral trade in 2015.
And Canadiansโ roots in Arizona go deep, said Glenn Williamson, honorary consul of Canada for Arizona and head of the Canada Arizona Business Council.
โDouglas is named after a Canadian mining engineer,โ he noted, and Chandler was named after a veterinary surgeon from Quebec.
Historically, many Canadian farmers would spend their time in Southern Arizona after harvest season, Williamson said.
โThey would pull their crops in and then come down, spend four or five months and then go back and do their thing,โ he said.
Maricopa County has since supplanted Southern Arizona as the destination for many Canadiansโ winter homes, with Canadians owning more than 20,000 houses in that county, about 94 percent of all residential foreign-owned properties.
While not as many Canadians make their home here, Pima County has benefited from Canadian-owned companies such as Bombardier, Stantec and Oracle Mining, said Patrick Cavanaugh, business services coordinator for the county.
Bombardier is Southern Arizonaโs top aerospace industry employer and has been a major provider of jobs since it acquired Gates Learjet in 1990.
Its Tucson Service Center offers full maintenance of business and commercial aircraft, along with modification, refurbishing and paint services. The company employs about 850 people and plans a $1.5 million renovation of its aircraft interior refurbishing and customization shop, officials said.
And Canadaโs presence in the region continues to grow, Cavanaugh said.
Fortis Inc., Canadaโs largest investor-owned utility, bought Tucson-based UNS Energy Corp., the parent company of Tucson Electric Power, in a $4.3 billion deal in 2014.
Mattamy Homes recently purchased 173 acres of city-owned land near South Houghton and East Irvington roads for $8.2 million, and Walton International Development and Management has become one of the largest landowners in Pinal County, officials said.
Overall, there are about 350 Canadian companies operating in the state, with about 146,000 Arizona jobs depending on trade and investment with Canada.
Along with trade and direct investment, Canadian tourism is also big business for the state, with Arizona ranking in the top 10 U.S. destinations. More than a million Canadians visited in 2015, spending about $1 billion.
โThereโs a reason why going to Toronto is important to the (Arizona) governor, or why the Greater Phoenix Economic Council has five sales trips to Canada going on,โ Williamson said.
Different strengths
Still, itโs not hard to see why Arizonaโs focus tends to be on Mexico.
Though the number of Canadian companies in Arizona is much stronger than Mexicoโs โ more than 300 compared to fewer than 30 โ in exports ($2.2 billion versus $9.1 billion) and tourism ($1 billion versus $2.6 billion), Mexico dominates.
โWeโre a border state, so itโs no different than a border state like Michiganโs relationship with Canada,โ Williamson said. โYou tend to go geographically.โ
And, as in other things, there seems to be a split between Southern and Central Arizona.
Out of the more than $2 billion spent by Mexican visitors, about $1 billion is spent in Pima County alone, officials said, while almost three-quarters of Canadian tourism dollars are spent in Phoenix and Central Arizona. Tucson International Airport does not offer any direct flights to or from Canada, while Sky Harbor has multiple daily flights from several regions there.
Canadian companies account for about 4,000 jobs in Pima County, twice that of jobs from Mexican companies, but Mexico is still the second largest foreign employer. Compare that to Maricopa County, where Mexico barely makes a top 10 dominated by more than 16,000 jobs attributed to Canada.
But itโs not an either/or situation where resources should be dedicated to the country that does more for the state or a region, officials said. Instead, they said, itโs about learning how these countries contribute the most to Arizonaโs economy and directing efforts accordingly.
โFor Arizona to grow, you have to make decisions based not on who yells the loudest or what proximity is, but what does the data show us,โ Williamson said.
Last year, the Maricopa Association of Governments and the Canada Arizona Business Council set out to compile a list of international companies doing business in the state.
Pima County officials said they are building off that list and are in the process of compiling data on all the Canadian companies operating in the county.
โThat gives us an advantage in terms of trying to make sure that weโre doing outreach with them and seeing if thereโs opportunities for other Southern Arizona companies that might fall into their supply chain,โ Cavanaugh said.
Enhancing the countyโs relationship with Canada is part of the Pima County Economic Development Plan for 2015-17, which includes action items such as determining the impact of Canadian real estate investment, expanding air service to Canada, growing tourism, and finding development opportunities for Canadian companies wanting to do business with Mexico.
Although Tucson does not have a formal Canada strategy, Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said the county and the cityโs goals are aligned.
Along with the presence of Canadian businesses in Southern Arizona, he pointed to CAID Industries, Raytheon, Sargent, Securaplane, Universal Avionics and Breault Research as important companies in the area that export to Canada.
More can be done to attract Canadian business, he said, but part of that involves the regionโs continued focus on Mexico and the cityโs reputation for building relationships there.
โWe have to remember that three-way relationship between the United States, Mexico and Canada,โ Rothschild said. โCanadians Iโve spoken with have commented that our willingness to work across the border makes them more interested in investing here, because they see us as that gateway into Mexico.โ
