2024 is in the rear view mirror and Quinte News is looking ahead at the next 12 months.
We spoke with the newly minted Member of Provincial Parliament for the Bay of Quinte riding Tyler Allsopp.
He says front and centre economically is the relationship with the United States and the incoming Trump administration and threatened tariffs.
” … that Canada and the US are better together. In the case of Ontario, we do $500 billion a year in bilateral trade with the Americans. That’s effectively split right down the middle when you factor out the energy that we ship down.”
He says we are the number one trading partner to 17 U.S. states and number two to 11 others.
Allsopp says there are a number of major infrastructure priorities across the riding.
“For Belleville we’re looking at that Belleville east arterial road, the HART Hub in Belleville is something I’ve been working very closely on as well. In Prince Edward County we’re talking a lot about County Road 49 obviously. Waste water infrastructure, whether that’s in Belleville, Prince Edward County, or particularly Quinte West. There’s quite a need for that. They’ve also submitted some proposals for 2nd Dughill Road.
There have been plenty of rumours about the Ford government calling an early election.
“We have a date set for June of 2026. Those decisions (to push ahead the election date) haven’t been made yet. Obviously we want to see what happens with the incoming president, obviously what happens in Ottawa. With some of the tumultuous events there, even just in the last couple of days. No decision has been made on that, we’ll see what happens, but I think we’re in a great position.”
He says they want to focus on primary health care. Allsopp says access to a family doctor was the number one issue he heard while campaigning in the fall.
