Minutes of the monthly meeting of the NEPMCC. For Monday, November 9th 2015 .

Present at the meeting:

Thomas S. Saras
Maria Voutsinas
Ernesto Donan
Mohammad-Bagher Samimi
Teshome Wordeammanuel
Mohammad Tajdolati
Jopnathan Annobil
Suleyman Guven
Ricky Castellvi
Anita Chow
Isa Melo
Andrea Micirli
Marek Goldyn
Maria Swicfarechi
Mike Kolosowski
Ahmad Hotaki
Srimal Abeyewardene
Ranjit Wicks
John Saraidaris
Mila Astroga-Garcia
Hermie Garcia
Yohanned Ayalew
Mahder Getachew
Shahidul Mintu Islam
Raffi Der Bogossian
Ned Blair
Janusz Nirmczyk
Adnan Hasmi
Ahmad Rostamijan
Dumitru Popescu
Janus Raudkivi

Agenda of the Day.

The Meeting

Recap of Friday’s meeting with Canadian Heritage:
-This meeting eased tension and was educational on both sides.
-Meeting with the new Minister of Canadian Heritage is being planned.
- Discussion around changing program rules for ethnic media.

October 30, 2015- Lt. Governor Awards Ceremony:
-Her Honour was extremely pleased.
-It was a wonderful gathering.
-Discussion around incorrect names on a couple of plaques, which will be fixed, at a cost of $120 per plaque.
-Mistakes of this nature need to be avoided, as they are costly. In the future, the nominee may be responsible for covering the errors if they were not our error, or that of the printer.

Presentation by Quitto Maggi and David Valentin of Mainstreet Research:
-Quitto explained his companies past services, and how in 2011 they started releasing public polls.
-Most accurate pollster during the Municipal election in Toronto (primarily the Mayoral poll).
-Exclusive pollster for Post Media.
-Only pollster that predicted a Federal Liberal majority government.
-Quitto explained the challenges of Media, and offered to share information on a monthly basis to aid in content writing.
-www.mainstreetresearch.ca is their website for reference.
-David gave an overview of topics that they have conducted polls on. Examples include: teacher union payout in Ontario, Beer Store, Hydro One Sale, John Tory opinion poll.
Questions from media:
1) Raffi asked how many people do you poll- large sample sizes are used. 3000 for City, 3500 for Provincial, and 5000 national. They explained that they are able to poll a particular community: Punjabi, Mandarin and Cantonese translators are on staff. There was also an example given about how they worked with the Canadian Muslim Vote group in Vancouver, Edmonton, London and Toronto.
2) Marek asked about the Main street majority government predication on Oct. 13th- how did they come to that conclusion. They explained that they continued polling.
3) Suleyman asked why polls can sometimes be wrong. They used the Greek referendum as an example. Most pollsters predicted a YES win, yet they were wrong, as they used small sample sizes. This is why Main streat uses large sample sizes, and a number of checks and balances.
4) Suleyman asked why they thought the NDP results were so low. They explained that polls showed 70% of the population wanted change. 40% of identified Liberals would flip to NDP, 50% of NDP would flip to Liberals. They also mentioned that the Niqab debate may have hurt the NDP.
5) Thomas asked about the possibility to poll each ethnic community, and each paper within the community. Example: there are 5 Greek newspapers, what are your opinions on each paper.
6) The next question was surrounding the methodology that they use. It was explained that they use Smart IVR technology, and they gave us an overview of the different methods.
-Thomas ended the meeting by recapping that all members should ensure that names on plaques are correct.
-An overview of the Canadian Heritage Presentation was given, including how we were informed on completing the funding application. 65 members were in attendance, and some very good questions were asked.
-The application for 2015 is posted on their website: November 24th. They will NOT accept applications past the deadline. Ensure that your envelope is date stamped, and sent via registered mail.
- The next meeting is scheduled for Monday December 14, 2015, just three days after the annual Get Together event of the organization. The meeting will be held at the Toronto City Hall, committee room N# 3, from 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm. As this is the last meeting of the year, the president asked the members to attend in order to have a discussion about the future plans of the organization and its members.
At 9:30 pm and not outstanding any questions or any new business the president asked for a motion to adjourn. Mr. Tajdolati brought the motion to the floor that the meeting now is adjourned until the 14th of December 2015, at 6:00 pm at the Toronto City Hall, Mr. Suleyman Guven, seconded the motion. The president put the motion to vote, all the members voted for the motion, notwithstanding any against or any abstains, the president declared the meeting over until next month and thanked the members for their presence and participation.