Hamilton Chamber advocates for Long Range Goods and People Movement Policy and the Implementation of a One Business Number for Ontario

· by Huzaifa Saeed

Hamilton, May 5th, 2015:  The Hamilton Chamber of Commerce delegates attended the Ontario Chamber of Commerce Annual General Meeting in Cornwall, ON this past weekend. A cornerstone of the event is an annual policy resolution session where individual chambers are allowed to submit policies that are then voted on by the membership for adoption as OCC Advocacy Priorities.

We are happy to report back that the Chamber had both of it’s policy resolutions were approved by the attending delegates.

Here is a quick summary of the policies:

1) Goods and People Movement Long-Range Multi Modal, Integrated, Transportation Plan: Ontario’s transportation system is crucial to the economic well-being of Ontario and to the country as a whole. The efficient movement of goods and people, within Ontario and into the U.S. directly, affects business and impacts Ontario’s ability to compete with other jurisdictions. To help facilitate the movement of goods and people, transportation planning at the local, regional and provincial levels is critical. At the present time, Ontario does not have a province-wide transportation plan, and current regional plans do not adequately address the inter-regional movement of goods and people.

The policy calls for a 30-50 year province-wide Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) to address the movement of goods and people between regions and across borders. To read the full submission please see: https://www.hamiltonchamber.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/OCC_LTTransporationPlan_HCOC_AGM15.pdf

2) Implementation of a One Business Number:  Government programs serving the business community require a means of establishing and managing client identity. In Canada, the multiplicity of business-government interfaces at each level of government its associated programs has resulted in various numbers and types of business client identifiers assigned to an individual business.

The Business Number (BN) provisioned through the Federal Government has been adopted in various provinces for various uses, with its implementation resulting in reduced red tape and cost savings for businesses.

The Province of Ontario (through Service Ontario) has engaged with municipalities over the last decade on the prospect of adopting a common business number to ease government red tape and reduce inefficiencies. The BN is currently being utilized in Ontario for a limited number of purposes.

We would like to the government to explore and implement to fully implement use of a singular BN in collaboration with interested municipalities.

To read the full submission please see: https://www.hamiltonchamber.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/OCC_OneBiz_HCOC_AGM15.pdf

To see the full list of approved OCC policies: http://www.occ.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2015-Final-Policy-Resolution-Debate-Results-May-2.pdf

We will continue advocating on behalf of our members on the associated topics.

For more information please contact:

Huzaifa Saeed | Policy & Research Analyst | Hamilton Chamber of Commece| h.saeed@hamiltonchamber.ca | T: 905-522-1151 ext: 230