Area business leaders have their say

Mayor Victor Fedeli, MP Anthony Rota congratulate North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce President Sean Lawlor for an a well run business forum.

Local business leaders along with representatives from all three levels of government turned out to the Clarion Pinewood Park Tuesday for serious economic discussions during the North Bay and District Chamber of Commerce business forum.

President Sean Lawlor says the whole concept of the meeting was for business leaders to have to say about what they see as priorities for the upcoming federal budget.

“I think the session we had today went great, I couldn’t be happier with the attendance we had about 80 people out from different sectors from the economy,” states Lawlor.

“Discussed a full range of issues and obstacles facing the various sectors in our local economy and more importantly we discussed the solutions or recommendations to deal with them.”

Lawlor says now the local chamber takes their findings and submits it to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce for their submission to the Feds.

“Then a succinct message is going to be delivered to the federal government through the Minister of Finance prior to the budget speech on January 27th,” he says.

“We are also going to keep our members up to date on a regular basis as to our progress on how we are dealing with some of the issues that were identified today, so that literally zero dust gathers on the documents that we’ve worked on today. We are going to put this stuff into action and make sure something happens with it.”

MP Anthony Rota says this forum was helpful in his role as MP as the collective voice of the North Bay Economy is now a document he can use to further the riding’s case.

“Basically what my job is as MP is to take the ideas and take what is going on in the riding to Ottawa so that any legislation or bill reflects what is going on in my riding and that is part of my job,” he notes.

“With this I have a report I will be bringing with me and depositing at the Finance Minister’s office.”

Unlike the last proposed budget both Lawlor and Rota feel that the Harper government is in no position to have documents like the ones submitted by North Bay and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce fall on deaf ears.

“Well I think the federal government has finally acknowledged that we’ve got a situation here that requires some action which is an important step in the process,” says Lawlor.

“Now we are waiting of course to see what the final results of all the consultation are going to be and my suspicion is that it is going to be a budget and stimulus package that literally has something in it for everyone.”

“I don’t think the federal government can afford not to do that and I don’t think we as Canadians can afford not to have them do that, right now we are facing challenging times unlike anything we have ever experienced and it is going to require some different thinking to be able to get through this,” he adds.

“You know I would hope that they listen to people, again with Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty they haven’t been listening very well and I am hoping that this does not fall on deaf ears … even if a couple of the ideas get taken up by them I think we’ve made success,” states Rota.

“Stephen Harper doesn’t listen to people, he does what he wants, but if we put the ideas and put our requests in front of him at least there is something there we can say you can work with and we hope to see in the budget.”