Hamilton, Tuesday, October 13th, 2015: The Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with it’s partners Ontario and Canadian Chambers of Commerce has released a series of documents aimed at our members, Hamilton businesses and any other concerned citizens in the lead up to the Federal Election on October 19th. We encourage everyone to evaluate the official political parties based on how they match up to our platforms. The platforms were generated based on extensive consultation and reference significant concerns and recommendations for businesses across Canada.
Ontario Chamber of Commerce: Spotlight on Ontario
The 2015 federal election comes at a pivotal time for Ontario. Our businesses face increasingly fierce global competition for investment, markets, and talent. Sectors of traditional strength are still recovering from the economic downturn. A series of concurrent public policy initiatives threaten to weaken Ontario’s competitiveness and our investment climate.
Now, more than ever, we are looking to our federal political parties to demonstrate an understanding of—and provide solutions to—Ontario’s economic challenges.
Spotlight Ontario assesses the Conservative, NDP, and Liberal party campaign commitments as they relate to nine key policy areas that matter to Ontario businesses, including infrastructure, Employment Insurance, and economic development.
The report commends all parties for their commitments to lower the tax burden on Ontario’s small employers. However, the report also expresses disappointment in the lack of attention given to key issues for Ontario businesses, including improved funding for the province’s regional economic development funds. The report also raises a number of red flags and calls on all parties to consider how their commitments will impact Ontario’s business climate.
Please visit our previous media release for more information: https://www.hamiltonchamber.ca/federal-parties-need-to-spend-final-weeks-of-the-campaign-defining-economic-vision-for-vote-rich-ontario-hamilton-chamber-of-commerce/ or for a one page summary of the OCC analysis please click: Spotlight Ontario One Pager
Canadian Chamber of Commerce: A Canada that wins.
While there are a great number of issues hindering the success of Canadian businesses, the Canadian Chamber election platform focuses on four critical elements and outlines the necessary measures the future government must take to allow businesses to compete and win in domestic and global markets. These four main elements are: access to a powerful workforce, access to capital, access to technology and innovation and access to markets.
Policy improvements in all of these areas are needed for Canadian businesses to get an edge on their competitors, allowing them to create quality jobs for young people, reinvest in new technology and generate the wealth necessary to improve schools, infrastructure and social programs that will benefit all Canadians in communities large and small.
We encourage businesses and citizens into getting involved in making business issues matter on the election trail.
The Canadian Chamber Platform can be found here: Canadian Chamber of Commerce Federal Election 2015 Platform: A Canada that Wins
The Canadian Chamber has also created a handy grid tracking platform announcements by the official parties: Canadian Chamber of Commerce Federal Election Platform Policies: Summary
The platform principles are also articulated in infographic format here:
We encourage all our members and concerned citizens to share this blog post and raise awareness for the Federal Election Platforms and how they impact business in Hamilton.
For more information please contact:
Huzaifa Saeed | Policy & Research Analyst| Hamilton Chamber of Commerce | e: h.saeed@hamiltonchamber.ca | T: 905-522-1151 ext: 230
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