Originally published September 4, 2018 in eNews
Written by Alexandra Valcour
Summer may be ending; school may be starting up again; pumpkin spice lattes may be back; but rest assured the best news is yet to come: we are back in full force here at the Chamber! With six events to attend, including our Business Excellence Awards, and our committees all starting back up, we could not be more excited!
The House of Commons will be resuming on September 17th; MPs will be back in Ottawa and they will be back to the grind. There have been reports that Prime Minister Trudeau may call an early election, but equally as many claims that these reports are inaccurate. So, we will simply have to wait and see. Currently, the Canadian federal election is set for October 21, 2019. The Ontario Legislature will resume on September 24th; in the rare, month long summer session, the newly appointed government made some intense decisions. Two bills were passed during this sitting – one to downsize Toronto City Council and the other had multiple changes including back to work legislation for York University and the cancellation of the green energy program. Many other issues and changes were introduced or discussed, but no final decisions have been made. An important one of note, is the discussion on scrapping cap and trade. This was introduced right near the end of the session, and therefore will be hotly debated when the legislature resumes this month.
In other news, the Association of Municipalities Ontario (AMO) had their annual conference in August. This is a meeting of 1,900 participants from almost all of Ontario’s 444 municipal governments, to work together to address shared challenges, to learn from one another and to create new opportunities. There were over 70 sessions for participants to partake in, with topics ranging from cannabis legislation, to disaster preparedness, rural economic development to Smart Cities campaigns and much more. For more information or to see presentations that were given visit the AMO website at www.amo.on.ca While it has been a relatively busy and productive summer, we anticipate and even more productive and news worthy fall. So, keep your eyes peeled for all the important news. In particular, you will want to watch out for the next installment of “From the Front Lines” where the Government Relations committee will report back on how these issues may affect you and how we at the Chamber are advocating for you and your business through all these changes.
Until we meet again…
