New tools for entrepreneurial immigrants: web portal, business matchmaking part of North Bay immigration strategy.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: NORTH BAY

Business succession planning in North Bay is taking on an international flavour.

The City and it's North Bay Newcomers Network are rolling out a business immigration matchmaking program this spring through a partnership with Sudbury, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

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Maria Tremblay, a City of North Bay economic development officer and chairwoman of the Newcomers Network, calls it a "new tool" in the city's immigration attraction and retention strategy, an initiative she has been championing for five years.

North Bay's economy is powered by dozens of small and medium-sized business owners, some who are getting ready to retire and want to give the keys of their retail stores, restaurants and small hotels to someone who can sustain it.

Combined with the recent launch of a city immigration web site, North Bay's immigration team plan? to hit the road this year and make their sales pitch at immigrant service centres in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

Big cities with ethnically diverse populations are natural magnets to immigrants but the lure of good-paying jobs and business opportunities may draw them out.

Through presentations and familiarization tours of North Bay, the city and the newcomers network will showcase to foreign entrepreneurs and skilled workers all the local retail and commercial properties up for sale.

"It will be marketing similar to an E-Harmony for dating, only it's business to people," said Tremblay.

Newly-arrived business immigrants in Canada have only three years to get a business up and running, and operating successfully, to retain their landed status.

"This helps with succession planning in keeping doors open of local companies," said Tremblay.

The Newcomers Network was born out of the city's business retention and expansion plan five years ago when local businesses and manufacturers were asked what the city could do to help them grow and create jobs.

What employers expressed was a frustration in finding skilled labour and professionals in the North.

One way to address that was to attract talented immigrants.

Instead of looking abroad, the city decided to tap into a secondary stream of newcomers who were already domiciled in Toronto or Montreal.

"There are enough trained professionals in the GTA that are - underemployed for us to source from," said Tremblay. "The process is easier if they're already here."

Attracting migrants is one thing...