{"id":23769,"date":"2019-05-09T19:05:08","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23769"},"modified":"2019-05-09T19:05:17","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:05:17","slug":"red-tape-and-green-technology-colour-mpps-chamber-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/red-tape-and-green-technology-colour-mpps-chamber-breakfast\/","title":{"rendered":"Red tape and green technology colour MPP\u2019s Chamber breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Cutting red tape and boosting\nsupports for green technology added colour to a recent breakfast hosted by the\nAurora & Newmarket Chambers of Commerce for Aurora\u2019s Provincial\nRepresentatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MPPs Christine Elliott and\nMichael Parsa sat down with business leaders at St. Andrew\u2019s Valley Golf Course\nrecently for a meeting which focused on business growth, education and health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the audience members to\nask a question was a manufacturer of over three decades, who commended the\nProvince for moving to foster a climate that makes it more attractive for\nbusinesses to make capital investments in equipment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, however, he\nquestioned what the Government was doing to help businesses make the move into\na global arena and attract international investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is [about] giving\nconfidence back to investors and job creators because, quite frankly, we lost\nmany people who were not looking at Ontario anymore,\u201d said Mr. Parsa, who\nrepresents Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill. \u201cThe amount of red tape we had\nhere, the regulations that businesses had to deal with\u2026we lost many\nopportunities where people wanted to invest in Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citing the United States, Mr.\nParsa underscored his point with a hypothetical: if a manufacturer wanted to\nopen up new warehouse space south of the border, they would be up and running\nin six months. In Ontario, he argued, red tape means it could take over two\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking into putting in\na bill in the spring and fall of every year to remove [red tape],\u201d he\ncontinued. \u201cWe want to hear directly from businesses [like you about] some of\nthe red tape and over-regulation you\u2019re dealing with in your industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Ms. Elliott, who\nrepresents Newmarket-Aurora, \u201cI want to reiterate how important it is that you\nlet us know some [of] the biggest impediments to you. That is something we\ndon\u2019t just talk about and say we want to reduce [it] by 25 per cent and nothing\never happens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another attendee, George\nHughes, said up until he replaced his pickup truck with an electric vehicle, he\nwas spending upwards of $8,000 on fuel. Since going green, he said it costs\naround $500 a year to keep the car going, but the challenge he has is finding a\nplace to refuel the vehicle because there are so few places to plug in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Posing the question of what\nthe Government\u2019s plans are to increase the Province-wide use of non-fossil\nfuels to help offset the cost of running a business, Mr. Hughes was told by Mr.\nParsa that the Government is \u201casking businesses and people to go more green in\norder to reduce greenhouse emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe also have to do our part\nto make sure that it is convenient for the people,\u201d Mr. Parsa said. \u201cIt is\nearly on, and you\u2019re right, I personally looked at an electric vehicle for\nmyself and because of the travel I do it wasn\u2019t available in certain areas, it\nwasn\u2019t viable, we\u2019re not there yet, and you\u2019re absolutely right. We have to do\na better job. There are areas where I think all levels of government can work\ntogether to accomplish a certain goal and that is certainly one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other levels of government,\nhowever, had their own concerns to pose to the MPPs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among these representatives\nwas Tom Vegh, Deputy Mayor and Regional Councillor for the Town of Newmarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I first came into\nmunicipal politics, it was at the tail end of the Mike Harris government where\nthey downloaded a lot of the responsibilities and financial obligations onto\nmunicipalities, causing an average of $200 increase to property owners,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cOn the one hand, it helped with the Provincial deficit, but we didn\u2019t\nhave anybody else to download onto except the taxpayer [through] property\ntaxes. Going forward [over the next few years] perhaps you can provide some\nreassurances that you\u2019re not going to be balancing the budget by downloading\nresponsibilities onto the municipalities. That was not a good experience and it\nwas a bit of shuffling of the chairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This question was tackled by\nMs. Elliott who said, \u201cwe can provide that reassurance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn fact, we\u2019re taking on some\nof the responsibility in Toronto with respect to the subway system, $11 billion\nout of $28.2 billion budget. That is an upload, not a download. With respect to\nsome of the public health services, I know some people are feeling that that is\nbeing downloaded to a greater degree on the municipalities; however, the actual\nlegislation indicates it is the municipality\u2019s responsibility in the first\nplace. There is no obligation for any public funds at the Provincial level to\nbe provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat said, we know there\nalways has been that agreement between the Province and municipalities, so any\nincrease is going to be done over a gradual basis and is not going to be\nsomething that is going to require, in my view anyway, given the amount of\nmoney that is involved, it wouldn\u2019t require a property tax increase because we\nrecognize at the end of the day there is only one taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cutting red tape and boosting supports for green technology added colour to a recent breakfast hosted by the Aurora & Newmarket Chambers of Commerce for Aurora\u2019s Provincial Representatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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-23769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6bn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 12:50:57","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\/23769","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=23769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}