Tariff tensions with the United States and a more pressing need to diversify Ontario's trading partners are prompting the province's minister responsible for economic development to pick up the already robust pace of trade missions abroad.
Vic Fedeli, who Premier Doug Ford has dubbed Ontario's No. 1 salesperson, is in southeast Asia right now. By the end of his trip on Oct. 2 he will have marked trade missions to 15 countries, counting multiple visits to some countries he is more aggressively courting, and he has plans to hit another eight before year's end.
"The boss (Ford) says to me — I sit beside him in the legislature — he says to me, 'Buddy, what are you doing here?'" Fedeli recounted in a recent interview.