Area MPs are heading back to Ottawa tasked with pushing for action on a number of local issues.
The NDP's Tracey Ramsey and Cheryl Hardcastle had a closed door meeting with the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce on Thursday and President and CEO Matt Marchand feels the membership was able to get its key issues across.
"Our membership raised important issues along the lines of cost of power, trade, jobs — what can we do better?" says Marchand. "Transportation came up, that's another big issue."
Windsor-Tecumseh MP Cheryl Hardcastle (left), Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Matt Marchand (centre) and Essex MP Tracey Ramsey (right) speak to meeting after a closed door meeting on September 8, 2016. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Ramsey, representing the Essex riding, feels there's some common ground with the governing Liberals to get some action on the issues raised by the chamber.
"We have heard them [Liberals] express an interest in having a manufacturing-auto strategy, now it's the point of getting them to the table and creating that," says Ramsey. "It's been nearly a year for the new government and it is time for action."
Ramsey adds the impacts of the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal were also addressed in the meeting and stresses the agreement has no benefits for Windsor-Essex, which is the message she'll be bringing to Ottawa.
Windsor-Tecumseh's MP, Hardcastle, says the NDP will continue to push for national strategies which she feels will help address many of the issues locally.
"We need them especially now in terms of the free flow of goods. We heard today one of the top issues was about our border and our skeleton crew there," says Hardcastle.
MP's are set to sit again beginning September 19.
