By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Gov. Kelly Ayotte said she sees great potential for recruiting Canadian investors to come to New Hampshire to establish their businesses here and she is willing to go there to help recruit businesses.
Ayotte said the state’s business model is among the reasons she feels that the Granite State has a story to tell, with no income or sales tax.
The idea to add new businesses, particularly to the North Country, comes as the incoming Trump Administration continues to talk about imposing 25 percent tariffs on imported Canadian goods as a means to increase pressure at the border and help eliminate illegal immigration and the drug fentanyl.
On Wednesday Ayotte told reporters this could be a way to increase business here at a time when the state is likely facing reduced revenues.
It might mean directly competing with Vermont, which has an office in Montreal focused on business recruitment in the Green Mountain state and a highway system that easily connects the two.
“I actually see great potential there,” said Ayotte.
One ace up the state’s sleeve, she said, is Benoit Lamontagne who is a native of the province of Quebec and works in business recruitment for the state Office of Business and Economic Affairs.
Ayotte said she has spoken to him about the advantages the state has over its neighbors.
“So I look forward to building those types of relationships a lot more,” Ayotte said.
The Trump Administration has halted plans to implement a 25 percent tariff for one month, along with one with Mexico. Taylor Caswell, commissioner for the BEA, said while there has been some concern, there may also be some opportunity to recruit Canadian businesses here.
Ayotte noted that there is “a lot of flux of leadership in Canada right now as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced plans to step down, they will work out those issues on border enforcement which are important to both countries…..
“My goal as governor is always going to be to continue building economic opportunities with Canada …and we have a lot to sell in terms of our tax structure and I think we can beat Vermont any day of the week.”
Lamontagne, a long-time business owner in the North Country goes to the Eastern Provinces of Quebec and at business gatherings speaks their native language and promotes the state’s low tax.
He said though some initially think it’s a gimmick to get them to move their businesses south, he is serious and they learn that this no broad-based tax is a real thing here.
Lamontagne works for the state’s three northern counties.
He acknowledges its tourism sector is likely more vulnerable to impacts of a potential tariff war with its direct neighbor Canada where goods, particularly wood products but also subway parts and other goods could face a 25 percent tax under threats from President-elect Donald Trump.
Energy products are also a likely price concern if products are under a tariff.
Caswell said in a recent interview that while the threat may be leading to some short-term positive impacts from businesses stocking up in anticipation of such a move, it could have long-term degrading effects on New Hampshire if it materializes not only to goods but tourism, the state’s second largest sector of the economy.
He said the state needs to look no further than the COVID-19 experience, when the borders closed to tourism and showed how important that sector is to the state’s Seacoast area and other regions including the Mount Washington Valley.
He said threats of tariffs under a new administration in Washington is “a difficult situation because we have established really strong, long-term relationships with all the Eastern Canadian Provinces,” including Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes.
Trade is a two-way street and prospects for a negative impact is particularly not welcome in the north country where the U.S. Census data shows that while the median income in the state in 2023 was $97,000, in Coos County in 2023, the median income was $58,000.
Because Canada is such an important trade partner, Caswell said, “There might potentially be a disruption of that which no one wants, that is going to present a challenge on a number of fronts.
“We hope that that can all be worked out as we go along,” he said.
Also looking at the importance of the trade between the state and Canada is Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, who served on a panel at a Canadian trade event in November at the Mount Washington Hotel where he discussed the possible impacts of a tariff dispute.
The big worry, he said, was what would come.
Kenney said he is a free trade advocate and that he believes these threats are used mostly as leverage and not likely long lasting if imposed. He said he tried to assure the business leaders that the state stands with them as its most important trade partner.
Kenney noted there are already signs that the attention of both Quebec, the state and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection are working together to tighten and oversee the northern border after former Gov. Chris Sununu said a meeting on border security took place just at the end of 2024.
Sununu said those meetings were not about Trump’s potential tariffs but a face to face meeting on the efforts that he has previously undertaken to create more border security in the north country.
Lamontagne, the North Country Industrial Agent for the state Department of Business and Economic Affairs, said “It’s all about relationships,” in a previous interview at the State House.
Lamontagne seems to be on a first name basis with not only public leaders in the state but many people in the state. A 2018 article in Business New Hampshire Magazine labeled him “Mr. North Country.”
He handled business recruitment in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and advanced what is called the “603 Advantage.”
Lamontagne is also a volunteer, convener, promoter and in one unlikely case, as a border negotiator on behalf of a Canadian business owner in New Hampshire stuck at the border.
The state has a law, which the late Executive Councilor Ray Burton saw through, which requires the state to have such a position, said Caswell noting in his Department of Business and Economic Affairs he and Lamontagne hold the only statutorily required jobs.
“I do believe that is a Ray Burton legacy, so Ray wanted to be sure that the north country was always taken care of,” Caswell said following a recent executive council meeting.
Kenney said he agreed that Lamontagne provides an invaluable link.
Over the years, Lamontagne has served on many boards including Selectman in Colebrook, the Colebrook and Coos Economic Development Corps, the Community Development Finance Authority in Concord and is a current member of the NH-Canadian Trade Council in Concord.
For 30 years he ran two retail businesses, Radio Shacks, in the north country.
He was born in Granby, Quebec. His family moved a few months later to Stewartstown, New Hampshire. He is fluent in French due to his parents and grade school with the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary who insisted on a half a day in English and half a day in French.
Canada is “certainly our largest trading partner to begin with and you know, especially in the mid-20th Century, a lot of Canadians came here to settle. And so those relations strengthened, and the exchanges going back and forth…a lot of the new development we see in the north comes from Quebec. See, we are neighbors…”
In the past few decades trade has been mostly wood products, but it is expanding.
“I know that there are a lot of automobile parts that go back and forth so that is a major piece, but mostly it is the smaller manufacturing.”
On Wednesday, the state’s new governor said she sees possibility and is willing to head north of the border with hopes of economic development coming out of a bit of uncertainty.
