Top Visited Cities in Canada (Source: Stats Canada, International Travel Survey 2008):
1. Toronto
2. Vancouver
3. Montreal

MasterCard Worldwide Centers of Commerce:
1. Vancouver
2. Toronto
3. Montreal

See a pattern?

Those who live in Edmonton know that our city is a great place to live, work, and play. We have an incredibly diverse and multicultural population, an amazing arts district, world-class educational institutions, a strong and stable commerce engine fueled by the energy industry, and a seemingly endless amount of festivals and events to attend all year round. We’ve got one of the largest retail shopping centers in the world, world-class sports facilities and teams, houses that don’t require a mortgage for life, and the largest stretch of urban parkland in North America (our River Valley is 21 times larger than Central Park in New York).  The list could go on… 

Yet relatively few people outside of our city know about us or think that we have a great place to live. I challenge anyone to travel abroad, tell someone you live in Canada, and have them guess anything but Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, or maybe Calgary.

I know many Edmontonians wonder why our international image is important.  Many of us prefer to be our own ‘best kept secret’.  Heck – we don’t want to grow and become crowded and have to “share” our roads, parks, river valley, facilities, events, and amenities with “outsiders”!  That’s admittedly a tempting argument because most of us hate crowds and we fear losing our favorite things to other people.  That’s just human nature. 

Unfortunately, the “growth is bad” mentality is a virtual death sentence for a city.  Unless you think we live in a vaccuum where the world is not changing or evolving, we can’t stay the same.  We can’t not grow.  There’s an undeniable fact in both nature & economics that holds true for people, for businesses, for communities, an indeed for cities: You either change and grow, or you stay the same and shrink (then eventually die).

A city cannot “stay the same” and expect to keep up.  We must change and we must grow – it’s the only way to remain competitive, maintain our high standard of living, and evolve our city to meet the changing needs and desires of our citizens.  And to grow, since we don’t have the birthrates to rely solely on “home grown” talent, we need to attract good, talented, smart people from around the world to live here. 

But this becomes difficult if nobody knows about us! 

So why are Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and even Calgary on “the lists” and well recognized around the world but we’re not?  There is indeed an argument for sheer size – the first three of these cities have a significantly larger population than Edmonton.  But I’m not convinced size is everything.  Calgary is the same size as Edmonton yet much better recognized around the world.  Other cities that are close to (or smaller than) us in population include: Dublin, Helsinki, New Orleans, Salt Lake, Abu Dhabi.  Size is definitely not the only factor.

The “big” Canadian cities have good international recognition because they utilize the big city mentality – they think big, they act big, and they play big.  And they aren’t afraid to celebrate their achievements and promote themselves. We need to do the same thing.  We have what it takes (arguably more than enough) to play with the “big kids”.  We just need to start thinking like the big kids - and get into the game and start playing…

For three days each and every July, Edmonton has the eyes of many nations placed firmly on our city when the IndyCar series rolls into town and its marketing machine captures the attention of media and fans throughout North America and around the world.  We have this fantastic INTERNATIONAL sporting event EVERY YEAR in our city that gives us incredible exposure to the world and gives us something to rally around and be proud of as a city. 

Yet what’s one of the biggest media and website blog frenzies not long after the event is over each year? It’s not the region-wide economic boost, the incredible attendance figures, the eerily consistent beautiful weather, or the great personal stories of the drivers and teams who loved our race.  Instead, we groan about the monetary loss of the event. And instead of engaging in some intelligent, solution-oriented discussions around how to solve that one relatively minor and very fixable financial issue (we’ve solved much bigger problems before!!), we make ridiculous comparisons of how many pot holes we could fill with that money. 

So rather than telling the world about our great event and using it as a way to boost our image, we end up telling the world that our roads have too many darn potholes!  This has to change. The ‘big kids’ don’t do this.

So come on, Edmonton. We know we’re a great city and we know we can play with the ‘big kids’.  Let’s think like the big kids, get in the game, play hard, win, and then celebrate our achievents!

Credits:
Written/Submitted by: David Hennessey
Edited by: Sean Collins and Ian MacGillivray

We have participated in every Edmonton Grand Prix and Indy starting with 4 seats in 2005 to the 60+ we had for this year’s event. The Indy has become our single largest customer and employee hospitality event of the year. We are already fielding requests for the 2010 race!

Aside from consistently being one of the most exciting events on the Indycar calendar, it provides companies like mine an ideal platform to promote our business and entertain our clients. I believe that far too few people realize how large an event the Edmonton Indy is for not only Edmonton but Western Canada. 

Far too often, we never realize what we have until it’s gone. We have seen the 3 traditional open wheel cities of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal loose their Champ/Indycar events and Montreal was left off of the F1 calendar. Toronto did get its Indy date back and it looks like Montreal will be back on the F1 calendar but ask the businesses that use or benefit from those race weekends how important they think the event is! 

The impact and overall benefit can not simply be judged by the reported profit or loss stated by the race organizers. The economic impact is real and there is also an instant recognition and respect that comes with being an Indy host city. To lose our event would be a colossal mistake.

It’s time to rally around this event, support it, and grow it to keep our reputation as one of the greatest host cities in North America and the World.  Just like my involvement in this event has grown over the years, let’s all step up and make this something even greater.

Torque It Easy,
Colin Livingston
President, CanTorque Inc.