Thank you Bob.

Good morning everyone. It is great to be here in North Grenville this morning. I am pleased to see such a great turn out today. 

Interest has far exceeded our expectations.  I am sure your time will be rewarding and I thank all of you for taking time from your busy schedules to participate with us.

We are here to take steps toward preparing us to meet the future.  The riding of Leeds and Grenville has been blessed with a strong economic base with many assests.

But things are changing and as we have seen over the past 10 months almost anything can happen and it can happen quickly. We need to be ready to face threats and take advantage of opportunities.

As this current recession ends, and there are signs that its worst impacts are behind us, we will need to be ready to face new economic realities.
Back in January I held a public meeting on the budget and the comments I received at that meeting and also by email and by regular mail, led me to believe that it was time to once again hold an economic development roundtable in the riding.

I looked back to the Beatty-Runciman roundtables that were held 10 years ago. I had the opportunity to participate in them and determined that this was an excellent model to use.

After talking with Bob Runciman, we both agreed that it was time to do it again so we enlisted the help of the Leeds-Grenville Economic Development Department and the three Community Futures Development Corporations that serve Leeds-Grenville.

All enthusiastically agreed to help out and I must say I am pleased with the co-operation and the speed at which this event was organized.

There were many positive results for our communities coming out of the Runciman Beatty effort. One of our goals this time is to once again help people connect, communicate and to ensure we are all working together to maximize the use of our resources.


We are holding a one-day session here today and then beginning in the fall, we will host a series of monthly meetings directed at individual sectors of the economy such as, industry, agriculture, tourism, education and training, bio-technology and retail.

These meetings will take place in different communities throughout the riding and will be advertised in advance.

In Leeds-Grenville we have an enviable record on economic development. We have a strong spirit of cooperation and dedicated people who work daily to make better the economic situation right here in Leeds and Grenville.

We have the resources available, through the county’s economic development department, as well as municipal resources and departments and we have the three CFDCs all working locally to enhance our economy

I know I spend a great deal of my time working on economic development issues from funding for the CFDCs and the Eastern Ontario Development Program, to gas tax funding, to infrastructure funding.

So far our government has delivered for Leeds and Grenville, with even more to come. I am proud of my success in lobbying and advocating on your behalf.

All these programs and the money that they bring provide growth, development and help pave the way to a better future.
   
Now we have an opportunity to take a look at where we are and what we need to continue to grow in the future.

It is my belief that Leeds-Grenville is in a good position to take advantage of potential growth in a number of areas.

As an example of how we can work together we can look at the Canada Winter Games.

In 2010 Brockville will host the Canada senior games. The committee working on this has been developing winter senior games in the area for a number of years. Each step they take brings bigger results.

At the end of the day, this means more business and more opportunities.

Holding the one day summit and then the sectoral meetings next fall and winter will help those involved with economic development to define where to best place their resources as well as helping each group review their challenges and opportunities.

Economic development is best accomplished on the ground here in the riding using local people with local knowledge.

That is why I am such a strong proponent of the CDC model of economic development.
This model clearly reflects community priorities, determined by local citizens.

This series of meetings will help increase that base of knowledge so that we can even more effectively focus our efforts.

Before I wrap up I am currently seeking input on whether or not to ask the Government of Canada to consider changing the name of the St. Lawrence Islands National Park to the Thousand Islands National Park. 

Recently I saw one of the Parks Canada ads on TV promoting Canada’s national parks. The park was featured prominently with a little girl actually talking on the shoreline.

The ad did say SLINP, however that park could be anywhere from Kingston to Newfoundland.

So I am seeking your guidance on whether or not to promote this change. 

Thank you all again for being here today, I look forward to the day’s deliberations and I hope all of you will remain involved in this process over the coming year as we all work to make our economy in Leeds and Grenville even better.