Pointing to the success of the Automotive Research and Development Centre (ARDC), a joint initiative of DaimlerChrysler Canada and the University of Windsor, and the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council, Zetsche recently told an audience at the "Changing Fortunes" Round Table in Spruce Meadows, Alberta, "I strongly believe that developing innovative, progressive and

ONTARIO FACTS Ontario's GDP accounts for 42 percent of the Canadian economy — Greater Toronto's GDP alone accounts for 20 percent. The province's 2002 population hovered just over 12 million, with over 5 million living in the Toronto metro alone. At 55 percent, Ontario had the highest share in the OECD of adults aged 25-64 with completed post-secondary education. Canada as a whole came in at 53.9 percent, while the U.S. was at 37.3 percent.

constructive partnerships between academia, government and industry will be increasingly necessary to remain competitive in the global marketplace."
      Zetsche sees the Canadian marketplace as an ideal staging ground for the European marketplace, among others. So do many others, especially in Ontario. According to Statistics Canada's Private and Public Investment Intentions Survey, businesses plan to increase total capital spending on plant and equipment in Ontario by 2.9 percent in 2004 to nearly US$40 billion. And in its most recent survey of business conditions for manufacturers, Statistics Canada reported that 22 percent of Ontario manufacturers plan to increase production in the coming three months, while 15 percent expect cutbacks.
      Another forum for partnership for Ontario has always been its decided education and skills advantage, a national as well as provincial attribute that consistently boosts Canada into the handful of nations at the top of global education-level rankings.
      "I think the college and university programs available to business are one of those hidden assets in Ontario that we could very well call an incentive, in an American sense, but we just don't," says Wassmansdorf. "Some of it is very specialized, like aviation engineering, or entire programs dedicated to manufacturing and instrumentation. At the university level, the University of Waterloo has one of the top-ranked mathematics and computer engineering programs worldwide, and we've seen customers move toward or specifically choose the Kitchener-Waterloo area, because of the intellectual capital that comes out of Waterloo and the local college. My alma mater of Queen's University, with several others, has the Center for Automotive Materials and Manufacturing."
      Indeed, the Cambridge-Kitchener-Waterloo area has seen a 2004 investment from Oemeta Chemische Werke GmbH, an industrial lubricant company joining the 400 area companies in the transportation sector. But the area's knowledge base is well diversified, having also seen recent contact center investments from Arvato Services in Kitchener (which is already adding up to 250 jobs to its original 400) and Teleperformance USA in Cambridge. Executives from San Jose, Calif.-based electronics design firm Nuvation cited the University of Waterloo's engineering prowess as a top factor in the location of their new design center for embedded systems. The new center will only employ four at the outset, but plans to hire up to 30 engineers over time. And, as it happens, the university was the alma mater of Nuvation CEO Michael Worry.
      Xerox is partnering with Hamilton, Ont.-based McMaster University on another project, the Xerox Centre for Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation, slated to open in 2005. Xerox Canada has operated a research center in Mississauga for some 30 years, and already employs more than 50 McMaster graduates among that center's 150 employees.
      Certainly Mississauga and the nearby Pearson International Airport are a big part of Greater Toronto's business infrastructure. Mississauga's nine separate employment districts have all seen their share of corporate growth in recent months, especially in the city's targeted biopharma and financial services sectors. Building permits issued between January and July 2004 included a US$5.6-million, 54,747-sq.-ft. (5,086-sq.-m.) facility for AstraZeneca and dozens of industrial/office spec buildings in the Gateway district, Meadowvale Business Park and Western Business Park. In fact, some 4,000 acres (1,619 hectares) within more than 300 parcels in the city is destined for development "for employment purposes," say city economic development officials. In addition, a parcel of more than 200 acres (81 hectares), formerly a shale quarry, is in the beginning stages of remediation for industrial and warehouse redevelopment.