Aerospace is French for Prosperity

Montréal continues to lead the way in Canada's already vibrant aerospace industry, boasting major operations from the likes of Pratt & Whitney, Bell Helicopter Textron, CAE, EMS Technologies and homegrown giant Bombardier.
        Numbers released in July 2002 from the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada showed that they brought in $14.8 billion in 2001, exported 77 percent of their overall output, and invested $617 million in R&D.
        Through a strategic alliance with Atelier d'Usinage Aéro, French aerospace company Mecachrome made the decision to enter Québec in March 2002. With Invest Québec, the firm is looking at a proposed $12.8-million expansion that will add 40 high-paying jobs to its present roster of 80.
        "By relying on Aéro, this alliance will enable us to draw closer to the leading prime contractors in the North American aerospace industry while significantly bolstering precision machining capacity in Québec with respect to certain critical or oversized parts," said Guillaume Casella, executive vice-president of Groupe Mecachrome.
        "With 40,000 jobs and $9 billion (US$5.7 billion) in sales, Montréal ranks, with Seattle and Toulouse, as one of the world's top three aeronautics centers," said Deputy Premier and Minister of State for the Economy and Finance Pauline Marois in welcoming the French firm.
        Jean Matuszewski says that even though Bombardier is being hit hard in tough economic times, it remains in one of the strongest segments of the aerospace industry for future years in regional and business aircraft.
        "What we also observe," says Matuszewski, "is a continuous flow of small investments for very specialized parts, pointing to a reinforcement of the industrial fabric of the aerospace industry in Québec."
        What draws them all is the cost of doing business. According to the Economic Research Institute's December 2001 data, the median salary in aeronautics is 35 percent lower in Montréal than in American aeronautics capital Seattle.
        KPMG data from 1999 indicate that operating costs like corporate taxation, wages and fringe benefits, electricity, transportation, telecom, interest rates and depreciation add up to a 25-percent advantage for Montréal in the same comparison.
        And just as many tiers of suppliers have clustered around Ontario's automotive hubs, so too are aeronautical services firms clustering around those OEMs. One is Abipa Canada, which employs 40 in the machining and welding of high-precision airframe components for such clients as Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney at its recently constructed 18,000-sq.-ft. (1,670-sq.-m.) facility in Laval.
        The KPMG study found that Canadian cities with aerospace clusters had overall business costs that were 7.8 percent lower on average than comparable cities in the U.S. -- an advantage that has only grown starker with trends in currency exchange rates.