Midwestern

Local officials participate in virtual ROMA Conference

Central Huron Mayor, Jim Ginn was part of three delegations at this week's Rural Ontario Municipal Association virtual conference in his role as Chair of the Western Warden's Caucus.

He said one multi-minister meeting included eight or nine ministers and they discussed four specific issues at that meeting.

"Broadband, obviously, and then financial stability and then our supply chains," said Ginn. "We really looked for Made in Ontario supply chains. We have really run into a lot of problems where you can't buy a snowmobile, you can't buy a motorcycle, you can't buy a washing machine."

Ginn said the supply chains have dried up because of lay-offs, or travel restrictions or other problems like that.

Ginn says they also discussed the shortage of skilled tradespeople.

"The other one was jobs and skilled trades and one of the concerns we raised was if we get this funding for broadband, we can only go so fast because there's only so many people that are installing it, so we need to get those companies up, expanding, get the equipment that they need, so that we can get the broadband in-ground quickly."

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