Monthly Meeting held on October 19, 2009 at Queen’s Park. Committee Room # 2.

Present:

Thomas S. Saras

Khan Khoda Taha Hassiani

Asha Rajak Irene Keroglides

Shahidul Islam Mintu Dumitru Pupescu

Ralf G. Mayer Velupillai Ashogan

Parry Long Paulraj Rajapandian

William Doyle-Marshall Vijayaletchumi Periyannan

Saad Alsafar Nell Nanda

Christiane Doerson Suleyman Goven

Margaret Huyemen (LCO) Ned Blair

Aaron Berhane Gerald Paul

Muhammad Ali Bukhari Hassan Zerehi

Becky Zhu Teshome Woldeamanuel

Tom Simpson Iqbal C. Khosla

Emmanuel Ayiku Srimal Abeyerwardene

Jonathan Anuolo Ranjit Wicks

Sultana H. Alomen Prem Arasuratram

Ermondo Donan Moorthy Sellathurai

Ahmed Shah Hotaki Rosemary Sadlier

Viara Dumitrova P. Sauathayaparan

Esmael Samtra Vu Sa

Hai Tien Lin Sanil Rao

Dorie Liu N. Longandalingan

Ron Fy Shou John Saraidaris

Hamlimi Mohammad Amin Hermie Garcia

Jason Hu Mila Astroga-Garcia

Suku Balasubramaniam Luba Cherny

Mohammad Tajdolati Andrei Mazarac

Riaz Hussain Bahram Bahrami

Muluken Muchie

Absent:

Bikram Lamba

Clyde McNeil

Agenda

1. Welcome Remarks by the chair.

2. Minutes of the previous meeting.

3. Roundtable with Hon: Dalton McGuinty, Premiere of Ontario

4. Presentation by the Law Commission of Ontario

5. Presidents Report

6. New Business (Motions)

7. Adjournment

Welcome Remarks by the Chair:

Thomas Saras chaired the meeting and declared the meeting open.

Ahmed Hotaki moved a motion to approve the agenda of the meeting. Mohammad Tajdolati seconded it. The motion was carried.

Minutes of the previous meeting:

Irene Keroglidis moved a motion to approve the minutes of the previous monthly meeting held on September, 2009. William Doyle Marshall seconded it. The motion was carried.

President’s Report/Discussions:

· The President is in discussions with the PMO to hold sessions with the council.

· Seminar has registered 80 people so far. The deadline to register for the seminar is October 31.

· The seminar will now take place on November 20, 21 and 22 due to non-availability of the Prime Minister on the earlier agreed upon dates.

· Applicants arriving from other provinces will be put up at Delta Markham Hotel, which is located next to Seneca Campus. Every member attending will get a passport. The Prime Minister is going to be present for the Gala dinner. The Premier of Ontario, Leader of Opposition, will be invited to be guest speakers during the educational seminar.

· The annual “Get Together dinner” is as planned on December 11.

· Thomas Saras asked the members of dinner committee what progress they have made in preparation of the event.

· The President suggested that guests attending the gala dinner during the educational seminar pay $100. There is only limited space available so the President urged members to inform his office as soon as they can on the ticket requirements for guests of the members of NEPMCC and their family members and friends.

· Motion: Muhammad Ali Bukhari moved a motion to make dinner ticket for guest attending the gala dinner during the seminar to $50. Emmanuel Ayiku seconded the motion. The motion was carried. So the members decide for the flat charge of $ 50.00 dollars for every ticket.

Roundtable with Hon: Dalton McGuinty.

President Thomas Saras invited the Premier to make his statement to the council

The Premiere of Ontario made the following opening statement to the council.

“Thank you and thank to everyone who works with the National Ethnic Press. I would like to thank Tom and everyone else who serves on the executive for the work that you do. I want to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to be here this evening. I just went around the table and shook all of your hands and I was thinking as I was doing that if I were in another part of the world, how many leaders in my position have the opportunity have the opportunity to work with as many representatives from as many different communities as we have here in Ontario and in Canada. You are participating in a marvellous adventure largely without precedent in the annals of human history. Most societies have been founded on this notion of sameness. Societies have traditionally developed on that basis. People said we will come together, we will all look the same, we will speak the same language and we will all practise the same faith. We will all enjoy the same traditions and the same culture and the same heritage and that way we will know us from them. Canada has a remarkably different ideal of what our society should look like. It is one that is founded on our notion, our understanding that our differences actually make us stronger, and make us better and that is something we celebrate. I am going to thank all of you for being here. Tom I am going to have a statement to begin with and then we can open it up for questions, are you chairing that?

Again I want to thank you for the work you do each and every day. You are helping to build a strong and diverse province, one that is open to the world and welcomes newcomers and that makes the most of its people. You strengthen our democracy because you inform people about our government and you give voice to their concerns. For example you brought attention to the need to break down barriers for skilled immigrants and that helped our government to raise awareness among Ontarians generally and you encouraged us and we did indeed take steps to provide access to our professions. You highlighted where Ontario could take advantage of new market opportunities and you know in Ontario we export about eight per cent of everything that we make. I am not sure there is any place in the world that is as export oriented as we are. You have helped create interest in our government’s trade missions to China, India and Pakistan. We returned to China recently with a mission focusing on environmental industries and we will be doing the same when we return to India later this year in December. We have always been bringing attention to the impact of the recession is having on all our families. I know the businesses you run are feeling that pressure as well. I want to thank you for working hard and being creative and providing jobs for people, for giving hope to other by celebrating Ontario’s strengths. I can tell you today that your contributions are needed now more than ever. People are making difficult choices focusing on priorities for getting through this. Government has to be there for people but we recognize we have to focus on priorities too. At a time when government can’t do all that we want we will have to do what is right and formed by our values. The harmonized sales tax is one of those things, it is not an easy decision on our part but I am absolutely convinces that it is the right decision. If it were easy, then many other governments before us, would have done it. Economists tell us it is the single biggest step we can take to strengthen our economy. The harmonized sales tax is in place in 130 other countries and four other provinces. When we made public the fact that we were going to put in place the tax, the finance minister from BC said we will not allow Ontario to get ahead. So they then announced they were going to go ahead with the tax too. Everyone knows the EU is a powerful trading bloc and many countries are knocking on the door trying to join the EU. One of the conditions attached to entry is that you have an HST. It is the price of admission, you have to be able to say we have a modern, progressive tax system in place that will enable our businesses to compete. We have got to strike the right balance and to help families adjust to the tax we are providing rebates and tax cuts to help with the transition. There are tax cuts for people, tax cuts for businesses. I encourage you to keep doing what you do best. Giving voices to the hopes, dreams and aspirations of Ontario families and I am counting on you to keep people informed about our government and our government informed about the concerns of the communities that you represent. For our part, our government will continue finding fiscally responsible ways to support those things Ontarians value most. Like education, health care and jobs. I think many of you know I grew up in a big family with 12 people at home. Ten kids and two parents and from time to time, things were a little tight so my parents always made the kinds of decisions that put the interests of the kids first. We always had everything we needed to do well in school. I can recall one particular time, one of my brothers had asthma and we needed one of those—in those days they were called vaporizer, a sort of mister that puts water in the air. We had to buy one and had to make sure we had enough money to buy something like that. He had a little tent over his bed when he was very young. Government is a big operation, it’s complicated in some ways but the values that inform what we do in government are the same values that we bring into our homes and develop in our homes. We have to make sure the important things are looked after. Final point I will make is something you all understand in your heart of hearts. We work best when we work together. We raise everyone’s quality of life when we lift each other up and the only way to move forward is to move forward together. I will conclude with a story which I may have told some of you, when I was young we used to walk to church on Sundays, we did not walk for fitness, we walked because we could not fit into the car. When I was sixteen I had a two-year-old sister and a three-year-old brother and lots of others in between. So I was a typically 16-year-old and my mother would say you have to slow down. I would say why should I? Bigger, stronger, I’m faster why should I have to wait up for them? And my mother being wise, like mothers everyone on the planet said, you have to wait up for them because we a family and no one gets left behind. In a family one of us meets with success, that is a cause for celebration by all of us. But in a family, if one of us is in trouble, then we are all in trouble. And we all have a responsibility to help out. Today my family is no longer 12. It is 13 million Ontarians. And my responsibility is to ensure that we move forward together. So that you very much. I’ll stop there, Tom. And I’ll gladly entertain any questions that folks want to put forward”.

The Premier gladly entertained questions after his opening statement.

Muhammad Ali Bukhari, Suleman Guven, Srimal Abeyawardene, William Doyle Marshall, Gerrard Paul, President Thomas Saras and other members participated in the roundtable discussions.

The Premiere candidly answered questions to a wide range of topics such as

· Public Transportation

· Conduct of Insurance companies

· Proposed Monument celebrating International Mother Language Day

· Development of the game of Cricket in Ontario as a sport

· E-Health Ontario

· HST

· Survival of Ethnic Media.

President Thomas Saras thanked Premier Dalton McGuinty for addressing the member of the Council, which was followed by a picture taking session with the members of NEPMCC.

Presentation by Law Commission of Ontario:

President Thomas Saras invited the delegation representing the Law Commission of Ontario to make their presentation to the members of the council.

The following are the highlights of the presentation:

Launched on September 7, 2007, the Law Commission of Ontario has a mandate to recommend law reform measures to increase the legal system’s relevance, effectiveness and accessibility; to clarify and simplify the law; consider technology as a means to enhance access to justice; and stimulate critical debate about law and promote scholarly legal research. While the LCO’s projects may involve all areas of provincial law that affect a wide variety of constituents, its mandate does emphasize selecting areas for study that are underserved by other research.

The LCO has released its report relating to the charging of fees for cashing government cheques and its recommendations about how to divide pensions on marital breakdown. Its other projects currently involve older adults, persons with disabilities, vulnerable workers and families. The Osgoode Hall Law School Scholar in Residence has undertaken a project relating to cross-border litigation.

The LCO is independent of both government and interest groups. It does not receive its agenda from the government, nor is it obliged to review matters at the request of the government. Furthermore, the government is only one of the LCO’s five funders. Nevertheless, the LCO recognizes that at least one measure of success is the extent to which its recommendations are “taken up” by the government of the day. Therefore, government’s interest in a proposed project is a factor in selecting among potential projects. This process is facilitated by the inclusion of the Deputy Attorney General on the Board of Governors and the inclusion of an appointee of the Ministry of the Attorney General on the Research Advisory Board. Nevertheless, the LCO may conclude that it has other reasons to implement a project, even if the government does not evidence interest in it, since it will be difficult to identify the government’s future interest in the results of complex project and consistent with the injunction to “stimulate critical debate about law and promote scholarly legal research

The Delegation of Law Commission of Ontario entertained questions from the members of the council.

Suleman Guven, Irene Keroglidis, Manzoor E Khoda, Gerrard Paul, Muhammad Bukhari, William Doyle Marshall, Hermie Garcia, Mila Garcia, Perry and others participated in the discussions.

Thomas Saras encouraged members of the council to bring pressing legal issues to the notice of the commission. He also encouraged the delegation representing LCO to periodically inform the ethnic press of their new initiatives. To this regard he proposed in seeing the delegation again in a monthly meeting to further carry on the dialogue.

The delegation thanked President Thomas Saras for inviting them to address the ethnic media.

New Business:

Muhammad Ali Bukhari proposed to honour the President during the Gala dinner for his leadership and dedication to the cause of ethnic press and media. The President politely thank and declined the proposal as he is doing the work he is elected to do, so that the future generations do not face the hardship that the media has faced previously and before they started publishing.

Adjournment: Hassan Zerehi moved a motion to adjourn the meeting Dr. Tajdolati seconded it. The motion was carried. The chair adjourned the meeting at 9 pm. The next meeting would take place on November 9, 2009 at committee room # 230, main legislative building, Queen’s Park, second Floor.