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Federal Finance official meets with area stakeholders

The idea of the round table meeting was to gather regional stakeholders in one room and discuss the positives and negatives in the recently released 2017 Federal Budget.  
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Ginette Petitpas Taylor and MP Anthony Rota speak to the media at Discovery Museum. Photo by Chris Dawson.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance made a pit stop in North Bay this afternoon to meet with more than 30 stakeholders from around the Nipissing-Timiskaming riding. 

Ginette Petitpas Taylor, joined Nipissing-Timiskiming MP Anthony Rota at the event which took place around noon at Discovery Museum in North Bay. 

The idea of the round table meeting was to gather regional stakeholders in one room and discuss the positives and negatives in the recently released 2017 Federal Budget.  

“A lot of the issues that were brought up were infrastructure matters, how the money was going to get to the smaller communities but we really had a constructive conversation about what was in the budget and the overall feeling was that they were pleased and positive with what was in there,” stated Taylor in a media conference after the lunch meeting at the local museum. 

Rota says it was nice to get into one room with all stakeholders from across his riding. 

“We all have various differences because it is a large riding but when you come together you realize there is a certain common thread and when we are all fighting together in the right direction or pushing in the right direction we get much further ahead than everyone doing it on their own,” said Rota. 

Petitpas Taylor will be heading to Thunder Bay and was in Newfoundland/Labrador yesterday taking part in similar meetings.  

“To us its important not to just hit the big cities but also rural, and northern Canada as well because so often many of these communities feel forgotten so to us it was really important to make sure we target these communities as well because we want to hear the real feedback, what real people are going through here, what are the real challenges these Canadians are faced with and from there we want to deal with them effectively,” added Taylor.

Mayor Al McDonald attended the meeting.  

He says any time you are included in the dialogue and they want to hear what your thoughts are, it’s always very positive. 

“We have a hard working MP in Anthony Rota, the budget addresses some of the challenges we face here, finding skilled people, we hear the mining sector is having a difficult time finding those skilled people so I think the budget hit some of the key points that we felt were really important in our city. 

“The fact that they recognize infrastructure is a key priority for municipalities so from our perspective its hit all the key points but until we see all the details come out, it’s kind of hard right now but we are actually very supportive of the budget.”   


Chris Dawson

About the Author: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson has been with BayToday.ca since 2004. He has provided up-to-the-minute sports coverage and has become a key member of the BayToday news team.
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