OCC DOUBLES DOWN ON FLOOD VICTIM FUNDING
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
Reporting from Minett
A Muskoka Victim Services’ flood relief donation doubled overnight.
After the Ontario Chamber of Commerce AGM & Convention donated $1,070 and issued a matching challenge Thursday night, their board matched it Friday.
Convention chair Rocco Rossi made the annoucement before lunch today.
The money is representative of the OCC’s 107th year of business association.
And it comes as the province also announced Friday that Muskoka residents will now be eligible for provincial recovery assistance.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing says it is for primary residences and their basic contents, as well as to small businesses, farms and not-for-profit organizations.
But it does not apply to cottages or other secondary residences.
The program helps cover emergency expenses and the costs to repair or replace essential property that aren’t covered by insurance after a natural disaster.
All this comes as Premier Doug Ford toured Muskoka again today en route to speak the the OCC members here this afternoon.
He was also scheduled to meet a number of local mayors, including Muskoka Lakes Township Mayor Phil Harding.
Harding said in his welcoming remarks to the convention delegates that he planned to bring up the burning question on the minds of a lot Muskokans.
That of the Muskoka River management plan, which some say failed residents this spring.
He said in his own community, that the Moon River is up 6.5 feet and that a half dozen families have been forced out of their homes voluntarily. While one family, he said, had to be evicted for safety reasons that could see their home at risk of collapsing into the river.
John Fraser, Interim Leader of the Liberal Party, said told conventioneers that the Ford government was moving too fast with its agenda, as it approaches the one-year anniversary of its June 2018 election.
He decried the speed with which the Progressive Conservatives are “taking things apart.”
Things are “falling through the cracks.”
He said the government “has to slow down.”
Fraser said after he doesn’t believe Ford gets that climate changes need to happen and that carbon-pricing is good for Ontario and the country.
This, the Ottawa South MPP said, while admitting in a Q&A with the OCC that his love for cars has seen him recently buy a “beater” — a 1999 Toyota Corolla — and dream about buying a 1970s station wagon so he can take two months and go skiing and sleep in the back of it.
Harding had urged the OCC to alter their name from the plural Ontario Chambers of Commerce to the singlular “Ontario Chamber of Commerce,” to better reflect one common voice.
It’s a theme Fraser picked up on.
He urged business leaders that they should impress upon the premier the need to “leverage” the strength of volunteers as witnessed in Muskoka and nearby his own riding, which he said wasn’t affected.
Ottawa South is on the Rideau Canal; east Ottawa is on the Ottawa River, which is flooding.
Gravenhurst Mayor Paul Kelly told those assembled that he was “inspired” by the performances of the mayors of Bracebridge, Huntsville and Mukoka Lakes, the way they handled the flooding.
“You don’t know what that’s like until your in your in all those meetings.”
Later Friday Ford held a news conference in the office of MPP Norm Miller.
