Finance committee  First and foremost, I would like the opportunity to ask our members specifically about that, as I alluded to earlier, to get that specific information because, based on the timing of this meeting, we weren't able to go to our meeting. What our staff are telling us is that, of the

Finance committee  I think there are two separate issues in terms of the billion dollars that was sent for the requests related to hurricane Fiona. The additional for system hardening or in terms of potential other hurricanes is a separate item altogether.

Finance committee  Respectfully, $1 billion is a lot of money. I would never try to say how they're spending that money specifically. Our members are asking if there's an opportunity to assist these businesses. Insurance adjusters by the hundreds who were sent to P.E.I. have assisted many of our me

Finance committee  I would like to comment on behalf of our members that, yes, $1 billion has been set aside for requests related to hurricane Fiona. What our members are telling us specifically is that they're not sure how that's going to translate into specifics for the needs of business, whether

Finance committee  Thank you. We had our advocacy committee take a look at this with our members specifically. Because we had a small portion of our membership confirm when we were trying to prepare for this committee presentation, I would like to add that answer as a follow-up to this committee w

Finance committee  Thank you. I believe that percentage came directly from construction and housing. I just wanted to clarify that for the record.

Finance committee  I guess that for us our number one issue is the rising cost of doing business, as you mentioned, coupled with that of the labour force. It's not one prescription. I think we need to sit down and we need to collaborate and talk about what is really a winning solution for our marke

Finance committee  We're very supportive of immigration services in terms of the willingness and interest to learn new businesses, skills and opportunities, as well as anything we can do on the reduction of red tape to employ even students who come to our province. There's a vast network of them as

Finance committee  Thank you for your question and your comment. It's interesting: As Ian mentioned, when you think about it, there's an even larger group of small business owners when you add on our farmers, fishers and tourist operators from across the province. I would offer this committee a f

Finance committee  That's an excellent question.

Finance committee  Yes. For the benefit of the committee, I'm the volunteer chair and president of the board of directors of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce, and I also work in the energy sector in my day-to-day job, so I see it from a number of different fronts. Speaking just

Finance committee  I was just going to say that. Yes, there's going to be an economic cost.

Finance committee  One of the things we would like to do is take the time to formally submit to this committee some additional information. I think that our members are very supportive of the transition, whether that be to net zero or to reducing our carbon footprint. We certainly hear that from ou

Finance committee  I think that's a fair point, and I think the purpose of our coming here today is to also just mention to this committee the opportunities that this committee has in terms of other levers that you can pull, from a tax perspective, in addition to program support for our members acr

Finance committee  Good morning. Welcome to P.E.I. We too acknowledge the Mi'kmaq territory in which we work and live today and their over 12,000 years: past, present and future. At the Chamber of Commerce, we represent over 1,200 members who employ 25,000 workers in the greater Charlottetown, S