{"id":23734,"date":"2019-05-09T16:52:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23734"},"modified":"2019-05-09T16:53:06","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:53:06","slug":"elliott-parsa-focus-on-business-growth-education-at-chamber-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/elliott-parsa-focus-on-business-growth-education-at-chamber-breakfast\/","title":{"rendered":"Elliott, Parsa focus on business growth, education at Chamber breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making it easier for\nbusinesses to grow was a common thread in a breakfast talk with local MPPs\nChristine Elliott and Michael Parsa last week, hosted by the Aurora &\nNewmarket Chambers of Commerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billed as a\n\u201cpost-budget\u201d conversation, the packed audience at St. Andrew\u2019s Valley Golf\nCourse peppered the local representatives with a wide range of questions\ntouching upon autism and education funding to the relationship between the\nProvince of Ontario and Municipal Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly\nfor a breakfast attended by local business people, creating an environment in\nwhich businesses can thrive was at the top of the agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things I\nwas tasked early on, directed by the Premier, was to go out and listen to small\nbusinesses all across the Province,\u201d said Michael Parsa, MPP for Aurora-Oak\nRidges-Richmond Hill. \u201cI started travelling the Province and heard directly\nfrom businesses [on] some of the challenges they were facing and we wanted to\ngive confidence back to job creators and those looking to invest in Ontario by\nputting in initiatives and incentives to give them an opportunity to say, \u2018You\nknow what? The government believes in Ontario again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key factor in these\nconsultations, he said, was employers finding there was a lack of skilled\ntradespeople in the workforce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCompanies would say,\n\u2018We\u2019re looking to grow, we can grow, we just don\u2019t have the personnel to do\nit,\u2019\u201d Mr. Parsa continued. \u201cWe have been talking a lot about this because it\nreally is important to point out the importance of some of these trade jobs out\nthere and to direct them as a viable career because some of them are very\nwell-paying jobs, viable, with great benefits in the future\u2026and we have to\nchange the way people think about some of these jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question of\nskilled labour was raised once again by an individual questioning the\ngovernment\u2019s changes to the education system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we do effects\ntomorrow, what we do today doesn\u2019t necessarily reflect today,\u201d said one\nattendee. \u201cThe big issue on the horizon is September; that is when the unions\nat the school board are all going to start going on strike because, yes, you\nhave added $700 million to the academic system here in Ontario, but school\nclassroom sizes are changing, support for special needs children in these\nclassrooms are changing. Classrooms are going to get\nbigger and, as a result, head counts are not the same today as they will be in\nSeptember. How do you, as a government, manage the situation? It is a tough\nchallenge you face.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Elliott, MPP for\nNewmarket-Aurora, agreed it is a \u201cvery big challenge\u201d but said consultations\nare continuing across the Province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is really\nimportant to sit down and speak with teachers to find out what the biggest\nissues are,\u201d she said. \u201cIn some cases financial, but in some cases it is other\nissues. In some cases, it is dealing with students with special needs without\nhaving other resources and that leads in the autism and other special needs\nquestions that I know there are children with some very challenging behaviours,\nso I think it is a question of helping teachers and educational assistants\nlearn how to work with children with different special needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is having more inter-ministerial\ngroups like the group that has just been formed to consult with parents of\nchildren with autism, social services, health and education, making sure you\ncan have a holistic view of the child and make sure they are going to be able\nto get the supports they need in the classrooms. I know from teachers I have\nspoken with that that is a significant concern for them. You need to sit down\nand discuss all the issues that are important to teachers; it is salary but\nthere are many other issues too that perhaps have not been fully dealt with in\nthe past. I think we need to sit down and talk about it and see if there is a\nsolution that can be found.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Mr. Parsa: \u201cThe\nthing that we looked at is during the consultation the minister and the\nministry had with parents when it came to education, we had over 72,000\nparticipants in this consultation. We heard from parents, we heard from\nteachers, we heard from participants of all\u2026 and the proposal and Bill that was\nput forward from the minister was as a result of these consultations. These\nconsultations are ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next\nweek: Healthcare and cutting red tape<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making it easier for businesses to grow was a common thread in a breakfast talk with local MPPs Christine Elliott and Michael Parsa last week, hosted by the Aurora & Newmarket Chambers of Commerce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/2019-05-09-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6aO","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 14:13:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}