Premier says Ships Start Here paid off, talks with Israeli PM
Posted Oct 24, 2011 01:58:58 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Even though Defense Minister Peter MacKay has criticized the province’s spending of $620-thousand on the Ships Start Here promotion campaign, saying any lobbying, advertising, arm-twisting, or tub-thumping was just like pouring that money into Halifax Harbour, the premier is standing by the spending.
In a phone call from israel to one Government Place, Premier Darrell Dexter says the Ships Start Here program acted as a catalyst to get the whole suply chain involved in promoting the bid and a sense of pride in the province. He says you’d get it if you were in the tent at the shipyard last week.
“And heard the workers in the yard chanting at the top of their lungs ‘Ships Start Here’, know the value of that campaign,” said Dexter.
Dexter says we got more benefit out of Ships Start Here than from any promotion other than, perhaps, the Canada’s Ocean Playground campaign.
Dexter has met with the President of Israel as part of his week-long trade mission in the region.
Dalhousie University has inked a memorandum of understanding with the Hebrew University of Perusalem. Dester says Israel is a world leader in technological innovation, and we have stong schools.
“We have some of the finest academic institutions in the country, but we have not been producing the number of spinoff companies and businesses and the kind of intellectual property benefits that we should be,” said Dexter.
The relationship between Dal and Hebrew University will establish joint research opportunities in medical research, oceanography and water and waste management. The agreement will also help faculty post-doctoral students travel between the schools.
