Maine officials seek diplomatic contacts in Quebec

QUEBEC CITY – The success of Gov. John Baldacci’s economic mission to Quebec last week will not be measured in immediate monetary gain but by how much diplomatic progress is made on a host of issues, according to Richard Coyle, president of Maine International Trade Center.

Coyle, who accompanied Baldacci to Quebec last week, said that the Quebec trip should be called an economic mission rather than a trade mission. A trip to Ireland last year was initiated by Mainers seeking to generate more trade overseas, he said, and has generated $7.5 million in export sales from Maine to Ireland.

The Quebec trip, on the other hand, involved higher-level contacts between Maine and Quebec government officials and covered a wide variety of issues. Baldacci met with Quebec Premier Jean Charest to discuss issues such as law enforcement information and intergovernment relations.

“This is different,” Coyle said. “The governor was invited to come to Quebec by the premier.”

Private citizens who accompanied Baldacci were looking to establish contacts in Quebec more than anything, he said. “These people were not looking to make sales,” Coyle said.

Because Quebec and Maine share a common border, there are other issues besides trade that affect the two entities, such as border control, infrastructure and immigration, according to Coyle. The better officials on each side of the border know each other, he said, the better their common issues can be addressed.

“We need to build up a rapport with our Canadian counterparts,” Coyle said.

Speaking to Quebec officials, Baldacci said that despite the international border, officials in each region can negotiate some of their own agreements without having to go through their respective federal governments.

“Rather than bothering Ottawa or bothering Washington, D.C., we should deal with our problems ourselves,” the governor said.

Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, said Tuesday that over three days last week he and other legislators met with business leaders and officials in Quebec’s Bas-St. Laurent region, which borders northern Maine, and with the mayor of Quebec City.

Martin, who estimated he has made 20 diplomatic trips to Quebec as a legislator, said that the lawmakers went to Quebec to promote economic, cultural and political cooperation between Maine and Quebec, “especially tourism. That’s really the big one in Maine.”

Clyde Dyar, director of Teague Biotechnology Center in Fairfield, said Tuesday that he has made annual business trips to Quebec for the past six years and that he just now is starting to reach some concrete deals with his Quebec counterparts.

“I think it takes two or three trips, or two or three years, for them to get comfortable,” he said.

Dyar said the Teague Center signed a memorandum of understanding a year and a half ago with a similar organization in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and said he’s hoping to reach another agreement with an incubator organization in Quebec City. The agreements could help direct technology students across the border to work for private companies and could help companies looking to business both in Quebec and Maine, he said.

“That’s a natural gateway for us to do that,” Dyar said.