The Chamber recently submitted our annual pre-budget recommendations, entitled Recovery to Prosperity: An Economy Where Everyone Gets Ahead, to the Province of PEI ahead of their consultation deadline.
Our submission calls for relief or investment in nine key areas, including:
- Ensuring sufficient and timely planning, policy, communications, and resources to effectively manage COVID-19 to keep Islanders safe and businesses open.
- Increase supports to meet interest and demand for customized retraining and reskilling programs as the workforce and the work across sectors evolves.
- Continue improving upon primary healthcare to create a healthier workforce and attract talent into our province to fill workforce gaps.
- Review and update the Housing Action Plan for PEI to reflect the current housing supply shortage as a way to help improve workforce gaps.
- Review our K-12 educational outcomes and make the necessary adjustments to improve upon our assessment scoring to better prepare the workforce of the future.
- Maintain funding for entrepreneurial and career-focused immigration support services through PEI Connectors, and funding for employer EDI training through Lead The Shift.
- Ensure provincial supports are in place to continue with aggressive immigration targets locally to match the Federal Government’s effort, thus growing our population and economy simultaneously.
- Continue to increase the Basic Personal Amount to $12,000 by 2023 and tie subsequent increases to the Consumer Price Index, while exploring further ways to help low-income Islanders.
- Re-evaluate the provincial income tax bracket model to better align with the Atlantic provinces and leave more money in the pockets of Islanders, especially low-income Islanders.
These recommendations were formulated based on the collective feedback of the Chamber Membership, Board of Directors, and Advocacy Committee.
Click here to read the Chamber’s 2022-23 provincial pre-budget submission, Recovery to Prosperity: An Economy Where Everyone Gets Ahead.