P.E.I. looks to grow marine industry at conference

The organizers behind the Opportunities in Canada Conference, hosted by Innovation PEI, are hoping to showcase the province as an excellent place to build or grow businesses that specialize in advanced marine technology.

Doug MacDonald, asenior investment officer with the province, said the goal is to grow the marine industry in a similar fashion to the aerospace industry.

"It [the aerospace industry] only started with a couple of companies with less than 30 people at Slemon Park," said MacDonald.

"If you fast forward to 2016, our largest employer is Vector with more than 400 people working at that site. If we could do the same in the marine industry, we'd be extremely happy."

He saidP.E.I has a lot to offer the marine industry, including low costs, not a lot of bureaucracy, and several training institutions on the Island.

Macdonald said 50 companies from across Atlantic Canada and around the world are attending the conference, and he hopes some of them can lure people who left P.E.I. for work back to the island.

"If you look at what's happening in Western Canada, there's been a lot of layoffs," he said.

"If we can attract high quality marine companies here, there's a lot of similarities in the type of worker they're looking for, and we can repatriate those people back to P.E.I. that have been travelling out west over the last 5-10 years."

Island companies participating in the conference include Portsmouth Atlantic, MarineNav and NorCan Marine.

The cities of Charlottetown and Summerside, as well as Holland College and UPEI, will be represented at the conference.

The conference continues on Monday and wraps up on Tuesday.