Meeting Minutes - Mar. 14, 2005

Minutes of the monthly meeting held at Queen's Park on March 14, 2005 Present: Thomas Saras Sremal Abeyawardene Maxwell Wynter Clyde McNeal Hassan Zerehi Anne Dawson Kendrick Bob B. Ubale Dominique Leval Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Shah Hotaki Marek J. Cooldyn William Doyle Marshall Jai Maharaj Emmanuel Ayiku Emily Mills Hasan Yilmaj Cindy Gu Aaron Behrane Dirk Tissera Tanya Nutall Ned Blair Majid Mirzohari Rahim Moton Massood Mansoorzadeh Sybille Forster Elizabeth Wolski Neel Nanda Iraj Emad Danielle Zhu Lucky Lanre-Ojo Shahram Saremi Eva Wasda Josivaldo Rodrigues Kenrick Bobb Emily Niles Luba Cherny Massood Khan Hermie Garcia Mila Garcia   Absents     Agenda 1 Minutes of the previous meeting 2 President's Report 3.Elections 4.Discussions 5.End of meeting   The Chair, Clyde McNeil welcomed everyone to the meeting. He asked the council to move a motion to approve the agenda of the meeting. Thomas Saras moved a motion to approve the agenda of the meeting. Kendrick Bob seconded the motion, which was carried by all.   Minutes of the Previous Meeting: Elizabeth Wolski moved a motion seconded by Sharam Sharehi to approve the minutes of the monthly meeting held on February 14, 2005. It was carried.   President's Report/Discussions: Thomas Saras began his report by mentioning about he meeting, which took place on February 24, 2005 with the Public Works Committee at the Delta Chelsea Hotel in downtown Toronto. He said the council made a very good presentation to ministry of Public Works highlighting the issues facing the industry. He told the Council that the following day he received a call from the office of the Deputy Minister of Public Works and had a long conversation with the D. Minister, which resulted in an invitation to Ottawa to further carry on the dialogue, with respects to the issues discussed on the February 24, meeting. As a result he traveled along with Massood to Ottawa on Wednesday March 9 to carry on the dialogue with the Ministry. He described the meeting to be a high level, which included the Deputy Minister of Public Works and other high lranking officials from the Department of P.W. The President then asked Massood to brief the members on the outcome of the meeting. Massood told the members that previously the members would have to pay a 15% fee to Cossette Media for Government advertising, but as a result of the negotiations and dialogue with the Ministry of Public Works, the members would no longer have to pay the fee to Cossette Media, and receive the net amount for their invoice and the Government would be paying the fees instead to Cossette media. The President then told the Council that members who have earlier signed a contract with their respective agencies would however have to fulfill their contractual obligation and will not get an exemption in the fees and commission. He said that in future the Ministry would include one or two members of the NPMCC during the process of policy formulation, with regards to government advertising in ethnic media. Thomas Saras mentioned that he received a call from Jae-Sang Park from Heritage Canada, who informed him that he would be coming to Toronto with another official of the Department of Canadian Heritage on March 23 to meet with Professor John Miller of the Ryerson University. The meeting with Professor Miller would take place from 10:00 to 12:00 noon; thereafter the officials from Canadian Heritage would meet with the delegation from NEPMCC (comprising of two or three members of the Council), at a suitable venue in Toronto. The following day on March 24, Thomas Saras would travel to Ottawa to attend an information sharing session comprising of 36 representatives from various ministries of the Federal Governemt, each responsible for distributing Government advertising from their respective Ministry. Thomas Saras would also make a presentation during this session on how the Government should distribute ads in the ethnic media. Thomas Saras told the Council that he was expecting the Deputy Minister of Public Works to submit her report on the outcome of the meeting held earlier with the NEPMCC. This report would be emailed to all the members. The Council would submit its own report after receiving the report from the Ministry. Thomas Saras, on behalf of the Council thanked Massood for taking out his time from his busy schedule and driving them to Ottawa to meet with the officials of Public Works Canada. Thomas Saras informed the Council that, Hon. Raymond Chan, the minister of state for multiculturalism, has send an invitation to the members of the NEPMCC to discuss on the Government budget allocated for multiculturalism, which will take place at 11am, of March 15 in Markham Chinese Village located at 4350 Steeles Ave East. Thomas Saras told the Council that he spoke to leaders of both the opposition parties and was suggested by them that the members of the NEPMCC could all take a bus ride to Ottawa and attend the question and answer period at the House of Commons. In this occasion the members will also meet with the leadership of both parties. Thomas Saras added that one of the issues he would bring up in the future dialogue with the Department of Public Works, is that only Canadian owned newspapers should be eligible for Government advertising.   Discussions: Following the President’s Report there were discussions on various topics. Luba Cherny suggested that the Council should step up its lobbying efforts for important causes. Sybille Forster-Rentmeister said that the Council should work as one cohesive unit. Jai Maharaj suggested that the Council should come up with periodic editorials, which should be published by all members. He also suggested that members could print in their cover pages or on the editorial page that they belong to NEPMCC. Clyde McNeil suggested that the Council should explore the idea of making its own agency of record, which would deal with distributing government advertising.   New By Laws: Thomas Saras moved a motion to approve the new by laws (article three) and the new positions, which were mentioned in the minutes of the monthly meeting of February 14, 2005. The motion was carried by all.   Elections: Thomas Saras asked the executive board to submit their resignations before the elections could proceed. He also took over as the chair to conduct the elections. The first position, which was elected, was that of the Chairman. Maxwell Wynter nominated Clyde McNeil for the position of the Chairman and Jai Maharaj seconded it. Clyde McNeil was unanimously elected as the Chairman of the Board. The new Chairman accepted the position. He said we need to make everyone work together. After being elected Clyde McNeil took over as the chair to conduct the rest of the elections.   Maxwell Wynter nominated Thomas Saras for the position of President/CEO. Anne Dawson seconded it. Thomas Saras was unanimously elected as the President of the NEPMCC After being elected the new President said, “ Let’s make a group which is unbeatable” There were two candidates for the position of Senior Vice President-Education. Elizabeth proposed the name of Sybille Forster-Rentmeister for the position of Senior Vice-President (Education). It was seconded by Sharam Sharehi. Dominique Leval proposed the name of Cindy Gu  for the same position, it was seconded by Anne Dawson. Members caste their votes in secret ballots. The results were given Sybille Forster-Rentmeister the winning votes. As a result Sybille Forster-Rentmeister was elected as the new Senior Vice-President (Education)   The nomination committee nominated Maxwell Wynter as Senior Vice-President –Public Policy. Maxwell Wynter was unanimously elected as the new Senior Vice-President (Public Policy) The nomination committee nominated Srimal Abeyawardane as the treasurer of NEPMCC. Srimal Abeyawardene was unanimously elected as the Treasurer of NEPMCC The nomination committee nominated Dr. Ubale as the Ombudsman, which was carried by all There were four candidates for the position of Vice-President –Public Relations, they were Cindy Gu, Ahmed Mohammed, Hermie Garcia and Sharam Sharehi, The results of the ballots favoured Cindy Gu; hence Cindy Gu was elected as Vice-President (Public Relations) The following candidates were nominated by the nomination committee and were unanimously elected by the council Kenrick Bob- Secretary Anne Dawson- Controller Tanya Nutall- Vice-President (Fundraising) Luba Cherny- Vice-President (Cultural Affairs) Elizabeth Wolski-Vice-President (Social Affairs) Dominique Leval- Vice-President (Francophone Affairs) Hassan Zerehi- Vice-President (Print) Jai Ojah Maharaj –Vice-President (Radio and electronic media) Ahmed Shah Hotaki –Vice-President (Special Event) Neel Nanda- Recording Secretary   Just after the elections of all the Vice-Presidents were concluded, Masood Khan pointed out that he had submitted his name to the nominations committee and was interested in one of the elected positions. However it was not clear as to which position he was interested in running for. There were numerous discussions in this issue. The chair asked him if he would be interested in running for any other positions, which were still to be elected, to which Masood Khan did not show any interest   The following candidates were appointed by the council as Agent-General of their respective Provinces. Basilio Giordano  QUEBEC Helen Wang   MANITOBA Heather Robinson  SASKATCHEWAN.          Thanh Quy Nguyen  ALBERTA Ropinder Hayer-Bains   BC Yana Amis –OTTAWA/HULL   The Following candidates were unanimously elected as the chairperson of their respective committees Hermie Garcia-Civic Relations Ahmed Mohammed- Federal Relations Iraj Emad- Provincial Relations Eva Wasda- Outreach Teshome Woldeamnual- Community Mila Garcia-Editorials and Policy   The Council decided that the appointment of the chairperson of the editorial committee would be deferred till the next monthly meeting. New Business: The chair of the meeting Clyde McNeil welcomed the new members to the meeting. They were: Danielle Zhu- Senior Producer NTDTV Toronto Bureau Lucky- African Society Newspaper.   Ahmed Shah Hotaki told the council that a member of the Afghan Community was killed by the Police in Oshawa. He hoped that Council would influence the authorities to run an investigation in this incident. Cindy Gu informed the council that a quarter million Chinese people have renounced their membership from the CCP as direct result of the editorials published by the Epoch Times. Mila Garcia told the Council that situation in Philippines is grave regarding press freedom and high number of journalists are killed or persecuted in that country on a regular basis. That number is second only to Iraq.   Thomas Saras asked the members to contribute for advancement of the industry and the ethnic Community. He thanked everybody for their participation towards this in anticipation.   End of meeting: Maxwell Wynter moved a motion to adjourn the meeting, which was carried by all The chair, Clyde McNeil adjourned the meeting at 9:30 p.m. The next meeting would take place on April11, 2005 at Queens Park. Neel Nanda,Recording Secretary Kenrich Bodd,Secretary