Brampton mayor Patrick Brown and several councillors have been racking up the frequent flyer points in search of foreign investment.

Council approved an allocation of $1.875 million in February for a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) strategy and plan aimed at lobbying foreign businesses to set up shop in Brampton and/or drive foreign investment to the city.

“The FDI strategy focuses on driving investment in Brampton’s priority sectors including: Advanced Manufacturing (including food and beverage manufacturing), Health and Life Sciences, and Innovation and Technology,” said the City on its investbrampton.ca website.

“We will be travelling to other countries to meet senior representatives from companies to pitch Brampton as an investment location. This travel may consist of attending trade shows/conferences, or it may include attending pre-arranged meetings with pre-qualified companies, or some combination of these activities,” adds the website.

The Guardian has requested expenses for all foreign travel by the mayor, councillors, their staff and city staff several weeks ago, but that information was not received by the time of this publication.

To date, the mayor and/or councillors have travelled to five locations with more FDI missions planned next year.

Wards 2 and 6 Coun. Michael Palleschi travelled to Boston, Massachusetts on Sept. 22 for a MedTech conference. Brown and wards 7 and 8 Coun. Pat Fortini travelled to Cologne, Germany Oct. 5 to 9 for the Anuga Food Fair.

The mayor was joined by wards 3 and 4 Coun. Martin Medeiros and wards 1 and 5 Coun. Paul Vicente for a web summit in Lisbon, Portugal between Nov. 4 and 7.

Beyond those three trips listed on the investbrampton.ca website, other missions have included a trip to Nigeria by wards 7 and 8 Coun. Charmaine Williams in early November, and a trip to Turkey by wards 9 and 10 Coun. Gurpreet Dhillon later that month.

The city said the latter two trips, while part of the foreign investment strategy, were not City-led and were organized by the Nigerian High Commission and Canada-Turkey Business Council, respectively.