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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - OCTOBER 2012
ONTARIO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
A
LLAN O ’ DETTE , PRESIDENT
&
CEO of the Ontario Chamber
of Commerce, spoke with CIO about
the key opportunities and challenges
facing the Ontario business commu-
nity, going into 2013. O’Dette currently
serves on the Ontario Ministry of Citi-
zenship and Immigration’s Expert
Roundtable on Immigration. He is a
board director for the Markham
Stouffville Hospital, and sits on the
Mowat Centre Advisory Board (Uni-
versity of Toronto).
O’Dette is active on the boards of
Life Sciences Ontario (LSO), the On-
tario Medical Association Student Bur-
sary Foundation Fundraising Commit-
tee, Theatre 20, and the Civic Action
Steering Committee. He is also a mem-
ber of the advisory board for the Mas-
ter of Biotechnology Program at the
University of Toronto and is a member
of the Mount Sinai Hospital Board of
Governors.
__________________________________
CIO:
The Chamber’s strategy
“
Emerging Stronger: A Transformative
Agenda for Ontario” really hones in on
five key challenges for Ontario busi-
ness: productivity, the workforce, fiscal
balance, international opportunity, and
competitiveness. What is the thread
that links these areas together?
AO:
Our top line is this: we want
to focus on fostering a culture of inno-
vation and smart risk taking in order
to become a productivity leader. On-
tario’s innovation gap is a major bar-
rier to future wealth and prosperity.
What’s behind all of the areas in
the OCC’s strategy is the main ques-
tion: how can Ontario businesses grow,
how can we enable them to export?
We need to take advantage of the di-
versity of our communities. At the root
of these areas is how we identify our
key challenges and how we restore
our fiscal balance, and also how do we
take advantage of opportunities in the
global economy.
Approximately 80 per cent of all
of our trade is with the United States,
almost all with Michigan, and most of
that is auto sector related. We need to
think fundamentally about what and
where we can trade successfully in
other parts of the world. Less than two
