Media briefing session Nov. 14

Before leaving for her 10-day trip to China November 17 to promote twinning opportunities, British Columbia's Community Services Minister Ida Chong met with media in Vancouver to brief them.  

Here is a transcript of the Minister's remarks on twinning opportunities.

Transcript

Ida Chong: I just want to say I appreciate your interest, obviously, coming to meet with me this morning as I prepare to leave on a trip to China this weekend coming up, on Saturday. I will be heading into Guangdong Province specifically, and I will be meeting with a number of mayors, as well as with the governor of Guangdong Province.

My specific purpose, of course, in going to China this time around is to look at opening doors and opportunities for our cities here in the province of British Columbia to connect with the cities and the municipalities in China, and specifically Guangdong Province, because that is the sister province with British Columbia.

I know the city of Kamloops recently went to China with a delegation. I know a small city on Vancouver Island, Cumberland in the Comox Valley has recently done a twinning. I know that Williams Lake has also had a twinning opportunity with a city. So we are encouraging not just our small towns but obviously our large towns but every town that wants to have an economic, cultural, social connection to a city in China to take advantage of those opportunities that are there.

So that’s essentially what my trip will be. It is about a ten-day mission, and at this point I can tell you I will, first of all, land in Shanghai and will be visiting there and taking a look, as well, as to the advancements that other ministers of my government have been there in terms of the Dream Home China project. I’m going to stop by and have a look at that.

From there I will be going into Suzhou, which is a twin city with the city of Victoria, the capital city. They have had that twinning arrangement for a number of years. The mayor of Victoria will be meeting up with me at that time and will be visiting Suzhou, and we will be reaffirming the twinning arrangement they have and confirming that it should now move from a cultural and social twinning to a more economic one.

From there we will return to Guangzhou and visit and meet with the Association of Chinese Mayors there, again explaining to them how our government structure in British Columbia works so they understand that the municipalities are small governments of their own and the opportunities that exist there and also then meet with the governor of Guangdong, again expressing our very strongest desire to have opportunities for both our provinces to do much more economically.

From Guangzhou we will be visiting two small villages. One is Jungsan, which is not far from Guangzhou. They have expressed an interest to twin with a city here in the Lower Mainland. I don’t want to say which city it is in case after speaking with them they determine it may not be a suitable match. But they are interested in a twinning opportunity.

From there we will go to Kaiping, another village, which actually happens to be my ancestral home village of my parents. The government of Kaiping has been to Victoria on about three different occasions, so I know they must have a very strong interest as well in developing a stronger connection through a memorandum of understanding of the twinning arrangement.

So we’re very interested in those few cities at present and any other cities that might be interested.

My meeting with the Association of Chinese Mayors I think will be very insightful as to what they may feel is possible, and I would hope that after we start with our initial talks this trip then I might return on a second trip, perhaps next year, formalize a few others or also find the cities that they may present to me that would be suitable for twinning opportunities.

So it’s a very exciting time for us here in British Columbia, and especially with China being poised to connect with us.

We already appreciate the fact that China sends over so many international students to British Columbia to study at the University of British Columbia, at Thompson Rivers University, at the University of Victoria, at the University of Northern British Columbia and at Simon Fraser University. We have huge numbers of international students attend these universities, many of them who come from China. Even at Royal Roads University I was at a recent graduation ceremony where I think half the class graduating were from parts of China. So we know that our international students, as well, are very interested, and I think that helps our cities as well.

So, beyond economics our educational opportunities will be there, and I know that the other ministers in my government will be embarking on missions as well to solidify possible arrangements.

So I just wanted to give you a very quick outline of my purpose there. It will be full every day, and I’m sure in the evenings as well. I will be returning home on Tuesday, November 27. I leave on Saturday, the 17th, so about a ten-day, very full….As you can appreciate, when you lose a couple of days of travelling, it means everything is very compressed in about a week’s time.

Minister Chong meets media

Certainly, we’d like to export more lumber. We know with the construction industry as high as it is that copper has been of interest to the Chinese construction industry

  We also want to see if the technological advances we’ve made in British Columbia are of interest. There was in my agenda — that may have changed or it may still be in my agenda — that I was going to visit a tech park in China as well, because we know that they are moving in great strides in technological advances. We are also doing that in British Columbia — for example, our technology in our fuel cells and our environmental technology; things, you know, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; you know, the kinds of fuels that we use, things that we have and these kinds of technology in British Columbia. Can we export that, and is China interested? Do we have cities that are linked?

Mining. Mining is a huge industry that's growing here in British Columbia. My colleague Hon. Kevin Krueger, Minister of State for Mining…. He left last week, and I think he's in China right now. Again, he brought over a delegation.

So we know that we continue to have areas of similarities that we would like to pursue. We just need to find out what interest there is in China, and we believe there is definite interest there.

Reporter: Have you already talked to some mayors or government [officials] in China, and are there any particular agreements that you have in mind that you would like to accomplish?

Chong: I have spoken to mayors here in British Columbia. At the recent UBCM conference, which is the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference, in September here in Vancouver we launched our Asia-Pacific twinning toolkit, so we put it out to all the mayors that were in attendance here in British Columbia that we are looking at helping them look at these opportunities of twinning. So the mayors definitely know, and many of them picked up the toolkits — some of them are downloading them — seeing what it means, and then they will take them back to their councils.

So this just happened at the end of September. They’ll take them back to their councils, and their councils will decide, you know, what is suitable for their particular city, who they should look at twinning with. And then I will be following that up with the mayors, and I wrote a letter to the mayors and asked that they please let my ministry know, and if we get a list of various cities that are interested, that will help me prepare a plan on my subsequent trip, which as I say, could be next year or the following year.

So this trip will be my first trip as Minister of Community Services, responsible for local governments, to lay the groundwork, to let China know we're keen on advancing the present system of twinning we have, which is very informal. We'd like to formalize that and make sure that both of our respective jurisdictions have opportunities that I think will benefit our citizens.



I believe that British Columbia is poised to continue to lead in terms of being the Asia-Pacific gateway and to China. We have said so that we are one of the… We're the closest province, you know, in Canada to China, and because we have Guangdong province as our sister province, I think we've established that long-standing history of that connection.

So I do believe that we will continue in British Columbia. Our Premier in fact, will continue to ensure that we keep our connection strong because it goes back so many years. I know the Premier will be also attending China. As I make plans to leave, he will be making plans to go to China, and he's been there many times since he's been Premier because of the very strong relationship he has built, and I believe that will only continue to grow.

Reporter: Are there any government officials going with you this time?

Chong: I have one government official attending with me, because this trip is about laying the groundwork, and this staff person of mine in my ministry has been working very steadfastly in moving things along, making sure we have, as I say, the toolkit that… We're going to bring a DVD copy as well and show to some of the association of Chinese mayors group and to ensure that we, as I say, lay that groundwork so that next year, should I return, I'm hoping that there are a number of mayors who are interested and then lead a delegation of mayors to go back and actually have some concrete signings that take place.

But again, as you know, with China it's important that we develop the relationship, that they know what to expect from what we would like to see out of it and for them to share with us what they would like to see out of these relationships as well.

Reporter: Anybody from the private sector?

Chong: Not from the private per se. The mayor of Victoria is coming, because he obviously has a twin city right now with Suzhou, and he wants to reaffirm that relationship. So I think that will be a good start to show what we can do and even if there are twinned arrangements right now, we may be looking at those to strengthen them again, so this will be sort of a trial run of what we hope will be a very, very long relationship with twinning.

The last time I was in China was in 2003, and it was really interesting, because we had flown into Shanghai, then we went down to Guangzhou, and then we flew back up to Beijing. That was the last time, in 2003, when I attended with the Premier. But this time we're just…. We have to fly into Shanghai, into Pudong, into the airport there, and then we probably will visit Suzhou, which is very close by, and once we have visited and met with the mayor and signed a memorandum of understanding, we'll be flying into Guangzhou and visiting the two villages down there in Guangzhou.

So it's along the coastline there. I have not been in any of the other parts, into the northern parts of China, and I'm hoping that the next trip that I take will allow me to visit those parts that I've not been to. And I guess I should say I'm pretty grateful, because right now I think it's cold up in the north, just like in our province it's cold, and I understand down in Guangzhou it's very warm right now, like our weather here. So I'm hoping that the climate will be amendable to me right now as I go there.

I'm also hoping that because I don't speak Mandarin, but I do understand a bit of Cantonese and the village dialects as well that when I'm in Guangzhou I'll feel more comfortable. I remember meeting one of the, I guess, directors from the Guangdong government last time when I was in China here, and I told them I didn't speak much Cantonese, and I told them I speak what they call [inaudible], and he started speaking to me, and everybody was listening. It's an old language. That'll be interesting for me to see how many people, as I visit China, still can speak that language. And that's where I say our strong, longstanding relationship with China in terms of our historic relationship that goes back over 100 years I think makes us very poised to really connect with the Guangdong province and the cities around and surrounding there.

So again I want to thank you for all your interest in this, and I will be sending back reports. I'll let you know what happens there or what takes place and what kind of interest they've shown, and we'll have some pictures that we can send back.

But I'm very excited about this opportunity to just make our two areas that much stronger. I think it can only grow from here.