Tariff threats holding companies back says SLEP leader

Heather Wright/The Independent

The head of Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership says there are nearly 50 organizations “actively considering” setting up shop here.

But Matthew Slotwinski says the potential for massive tariffs from the US government is making companies nervous enough to put their plans on hold.

Slotwinski provided his annual report to Lambton County councillors Feb. 5. He told council the organization is talking with 99 clients, 48 of which are actively considering Sarnia-Lambton for a project in the future.

Those projects, he said, could bring $3.5 billion dollars of investment to the area. Eleven of those potential projects would invest more than $100 million.

And Slotwinski says there is a potential for about $350 million of expansion in existing businesses.

But when he was asked what the possible impact of US President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariff threat on Canadian goods, Slotwinski said it has already slowed development.

“As recently as this week, we saw a major investment lead that had come as far as doing site visits in the area to suggest that project is on long term hold at this point in time, until there is some level of certainty,” he says.

“There was a major project that was investigating St Clair township last year, where the word was, it is St Clair township or is nowhere in the world,” Slotwinski said speaking about Diagio’s plans for a Crown Royal plant there.

“And ultimately, because of political uncertainty at that time, before the election had even taken place, it was decided that it was too uncertain for the project to ultimately move forward.

“We have lost projects. We have projects that are no longer moving through the pipeline as a result of this. And I think that’s something where we’ll see some instability for some time.”

Councillors wanted to know what SLEP was planning in the face of the tariffs.

“The reality is, we don’t know what’s going to happen in as little as 30 days from now, and how that’s going to impact certain businesses, so it’s difficult to be completely proactive when we don’t know what we’re being proactive towards,” he said.

But Slotwinski did again urge local municipalities to be proactive, urging them to invest in getting industrial land ready for development.

“We lose investment because we often aren’t on par with engaging jurisdictions. We need to be proactive in readiness to drive capital investment and job creation,” he said.

Sarnia City/County Councillor Brian White asked, “are you basically suggesting that one of our municipalities, if not the county, purchase a property so that it is ready for development…Is that ultimately what you were indicating that we were behind other jurisdictions by not having one of those sites ready?”

Slotwinski says municipally owned industrial land has “significant advantages.

“When you own a property, it provides you the most leverage for truly making it investment ready, for deciding how proactive you’ll be in pursuing certain types of investment to the area and how you’ll ultimately deal in driving that investment,” he said.

But Slotwinski added municipal governments could work with private land holders to bring services to them.”

“When you don’t have control of the land, it’s hard to justify, in many cases, bringing the infrastructure to that land,” he said.