The Town of Princeton is making sure its voice is heard at the provincial and federal levels.
Last week, Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne travelled to Ottawa to attend the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Annual Conference and Trade Show 2025 from May 29 to Jun 1. More than 1,500 elected officials from coast to coast attended the largest pan-Canadian gathering of elected officials, and Coyne took advantage of the opportunity to discuss important issues with Members of Parliament.
Coyne met with members of the Liberal Party, such as Karina Gould and Gregor Robertson, and voiced his concerns surrounding key issues that Princeton is facing.
"I met with Minister Gould and talked to her about housing and disaster recovery," Coyne said during the Town of Princeton regular meeting of council on June 4.
Coyne then met with Minister of Housing Gregor Robertson for a quick chat where he invited the former mayor of Vancouver to town for a visit.
To make his point about housing concerns even further, Coyne also met with Conservative Scott Aitchison, the Shadow Minister for housing.
"We discussed housing needs and expectations," Coyne said. "I asked him, rather than just all of us competing for the same level of funding, that when they are debating these things in Ottawa, that they look at a stream for small communities as well as the one for the big communities, because it's not fair that we're all competing on the same level for the exact same funding — it just it doesn't work out."
He also said that the 45-minute discussion seemed like it was receptive, as Aitchison brought it up again later during another conversation. Coyne added that it was a good conversation full of a lot of discussion on collaboration.
After a "good chat" with Green Party leader Elizabeth May, Coyne then attended a homeless encampment workshop.
"There's some good stuff happening across the country," Coyne said. "I got some research ahead of me to figure out some of that stuff on how we can maybe apply it to our own community."
Coyne then went to the House of Commons and attended Question Period, which he found interesting and almost cinematic.
"It really is funny because they jostle around the side of the House to make it look like it's full," he recalled. "Next time I watch Question Period, I'm going to see if it's the same thing going on behind because they really are moving a lot to try and make it look like when they're making a point, that there's a lot of people behind — it reminded me of the school yard, and I'll leave it at that."
