Consulting with you

I think a good Member of Parliament should, whenever possible, should consult directly with the people they represent as often as possible. We can do this through mailings and correspondence, phone calls, door to door visits, private meetings, and public meetings like townhalls. The other methods are all good, but I would like to deal with townhalls this week.
I view townhall meetings as a chance for us to get together as a community, to learn about the issues that affect our lives, and to work towards finding solutions to the shared problems we face. They are also a chance for you to let me know if I have been focussing on the right issues or missing the boat on those that matter the most. These meetings are generally inexpensive to host and what they do cost generally goes directly into the various community organizations that share their facilities.
For my part, these meetings have proven to be very useful so far. After the first two rounds, I’ve found that while we all live in the same riding, we often face very different issues. For instance, during the round of budget townhalls last January, I was very surprised to hear just how much the infrastructure and Employment Insurance needs varied from community to community. Shortly after those first gatherings, I decided to hold several rounds of meetings across the riding over the next year to exchange opinions and ideas, and to ensure that you have the effective and accountable representation you deserve.
The two rounds of meetings that I’ve hosted so far this year have been of more general in nature, but the next two are slated to deal with the forestry crisis and the AbitibiBowater bankruptcy more explicitly. I’ve heard from many families over the past few years that have found themselves in a constant struggle to make ends meet because of the decline of the forestry sector. The recent bankruptcies of Buchanan Forest Products and AbitibiBowater have taken the problems in our communities to another level, and thousands of jobs, pensions, and small businesses across the riding – from Fort Frances to Thunder Bay – are now threatened. At the same time, we are also hearing very little from the employers and our federal government as to what they plan to do to help. It’s been hard at times to keep up with developments in these cases, so the next two meetings are devoted to sharing information from my end about programs that may exist to help you during this uncertain period, and for you to share your personal stories with me about you have been affected so that I can bring them to the House of Commons, the national media, and into households across the country.
Please feel free to write or call my office if you have any thoughts on the townhalls that I’ve hosted to date, and likewise if you have any ideas for future meetings. Have the meetings been useful so far? Have we had enough of them, or too many? Let me know.
The details of our next two meetings on the forestry crisis and the AbitibiBowater bankruptcy can be found below. Please join me to see what we can do to get through this crisis together.
Thursday May 21, 2009.
6:00 - 6:30pm – Coffee, 6:30 - 9:00pm - Meeting
La Place Rendez-Vous Hotel, 1201 Idylwild Dr.
Fort Frances, ON.
Friday May 22, 2009.
6:00pm - Meet and Greet, 6:30-9:30pm - Meeting
Da Vinci Centre. 340 Waterloo St. S.
Thunder Bay, ON.