Ontario's Treasury Board president is touring the province to get feedback on ways to make government more efficient for business, and he heard a lot in Windsor.
Peter Bethlenfalvy, the treasury board president and Progressive Conservative MPP for Pickering-Uxbridge, held a closed-door roundtable meeting Friday at the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce.
"We're finding great ideas to make government more efficient, modernized government," said Bethlenfalvy. "Finding the savings that we committed to in the election. And this is part of turning the consultation online into a face-to-face conversation with people."
Bethlenfalvy said that Ontario alone has over 380,000 regulations on the books, which can lead to bureaucratic nightmares for business people. In comparison, he said British Columbia has 200,000.
The process began with the offering of the online consultation called Planning For Prosperity, A Consultation for the People.
The majority PC government received about 15,000 submissions over the course of three weeks' time, and Bethlenfalvy said they ranged from healthcare to education to labour.
With the Windsor-Essex area needing skilled tradespeople, Bethlenfalvy said it was a subject that generated a lot of suggestions and that the Ford government is willing to help nurture it.
"We need to involve the demand on trades and talent, that's the important part of the business competitiveness," said Bethlenfalvy, adding that lowering hydro costs is also a priority.
According to a release from the Treasury Board, a preliminary analysis of the online consultation feedback said most of the suggestions they received involved government services like Service Ontario. Provincial benefits, taxation, health and education were also popular topics.