Ron Cannan, Member of Parliament for Kelowna-Lake Country is seeking input from constituents regarding the upcoming federal budget.

The Prime Minister has expressed his commitment to maintaining the economic recovery through job creation and an emphasis on balancing the budget and is encouraging Members of Parliament to fan out to their ridings across the country and get ideas from their constituents.

“The Government is looking for low cost solutions to create more jobs and has signalled it is not interested in any big program spending ideas,” said Cannan.  “It’s been my experience that the best ideas are local ideas.  If it works for Kelowna, it will likely work for the rest of the country,” he said.

Cannan said he is especially interested in hearing from the local business community since small business in particular is the key sector for job creation.

Cannan will be co-hosting a Pre-Budget Roundtable with the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, January 20th from 12:30 to 2:30 at the Coast Capri Hotel.

Guest speaker will be newly appointed Minister of State for Finance, the Honourable Ted Menzies who will be spending the day in Kelowna also meeting with various individuals and community groups gathering ideas for Budget 2011.

“At this meeting Kelowna’s business community has a direct link to the federal budget process,” says Kelowna Chamber President Wes Shields. “It’s an opportunity to bring your ideas to the table and make your voice heard in Ottawa.”

The event is open to the public and there is no charge to participate but registration is necessary.  Anyone wishing to participate can register by going to the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce website at www.kelownachamber.org and clicking open January 20th on the calendar of events.

Cannan said that he is also seeking input from constituents who may not be able to attend the roundtable and asks that constituents drop him a line before Friday January 28th at ron@cannan.ca with any ideas they may have for Budget 2011.

“As we head into the second year of the recovery we are seeing a positive but still tentative upturn,” said Cannan.  We want to keep that momentum going.  We want to maintain confidence in   our consumer and business sectors to shore up our local and national economy so that we can reach our goal of balancing the budget by 2015/16,” he said.


For more information contact Ron Cannan, MP – 250-470-5075
Weldon LeBlanc – Kelowna Chamber of Commerce 250-470-3407