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Location and industrial policy

Location decisions are taken in rooms where the word location is never used.

Support for investment, siting and transformation projects across federal, provincial and municipal level.

What it is about

An investment project rarely fails on money and almost never on technology. It fails on zoning, an environmental assessment or a municipality feeling bypassed.

Location projects touch all three levels of administration at once. The federal level sets the frame and funding, the province decides spatial planning and much of the permitting, the municipality decides zoning and local acceptance. Skip one of those levels and you lose time that cannot be recovered later.

The second level is public. A project perceived as a burden attracts resistance even when it is legally sound. A project that can be explained as an opportunity for the region gains advocates you cannot buy.

The points that decide

  • Three levels

    Federal, provincial, municipal. All three early, not one after the other.

  • Permitting

    Complete documentation is the most effective accelerator.

  • Region

    Jobs alone no longer convince. Concrete local benefit does.

  • Transformation

    Converting an existing site is politically easier than a new one.

How we work on it

  • Stakeholder & Network

    Simply "knowing" people adds nothing. Robust relationships of trust with decision-makers do.

  • High-Level Strategy & Campaigning

    A business strategy becomes a communications programme that reaches its goals faster.

  • Professional Analysis & Monitoring

    Curated monitoring of initiatives, draft legislation and public debate - assessed against your business goals.

All services

Frequently asked

When should political support begin?

Before the site decision, not after. Once land is bought you negotiate without an alternative, which is the weakest position in the whole process. Testing several sites for political feasibility belongs in the early phase.

How do you handle a citizens’ initiative?

Early, directly and without lecturing. Initiatives usually grow from a concrete concern, often traffic, noise or water. Anyone taking that concern seriously and addressing it where possible negotiates about conditions. Anyone dismissing it negotiates about the project.

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