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Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce

Home / Daily Update  /  Daily Update: September 24, 2025

Daily Update: September 24, 2025

September 24, 2025 | Daily Update

In this edition:

  • Meridian celebrates Ontario’s small businesses making big impacts
  • Niagara and Hamilton EcDev partner on exports workshop
  • New by-law to regulate short-term rental accommodations in Port Colborne approved by City Council
  • NOTL settles with Hummel for $1 million
  • FCC lays out strategies to diversify Canadian food exports
  • Ontario minister picks up trade mission pace as tariffs heighten need to diversify
  • Slower population growth continues during the second quarter of 2025
  • Can virtual strategies attract more people to careers in the construction trades?
  • Everything you need to know about Carney’s first five nation-building projects
  • Focus on Finance & Economy

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Picture credit: Chanelle Malambo/peopleimages.com / Adobe Stock

Niagara Region Economic Development has partnered with Hamilton Economic Development and FITT to host a free export workshop on October 29th, which will help businesses tap into high-growth markets in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. The workshop is limited to 25 businesses.

Click here to read more and apply.

Wooden model houses next to an egg-timer

Photo credit: Andrii Yalanskyi / Adobe Stock

New by-law to regulate short-term rental accommodations in Port Colborne approved by City Council

At their meeting on Sept. 23, 2025, Port Colborne City Council approved a new by-law to License, Regulate and Govern Short-Term Rental Accommodations in Port Colborne. The new by-law will come into effect on November 1, 2025 and will regulate all pre-existing and future short-term rental accommodations within the community.

Click here to read more.

A gavel on top of a book

Picture credit: S… / Adobe Stock

NOTL settles with Hummel for $1 million

As approved by Niagara-on-the-Lake Town Council during its September 23, 2025, Council Meeting, and subsequently accepted by Hummel, a settlement of $1 million was agreed to. The Town had previously failed to investigate the concern and seek legal advice on the December 5, 2018 Interim Control By-Law, and acknowledged that it followed a process that did not provide sufficient notice or opportunity for public input.

Click here to read more.

A stylized image of stacked shipping containers against a map of the world

Picture credit: nespix / Adobe Stock

FCC lays out strategies to diversify Canadian food exports

Canada has an opportunity to diversify $12 billion of food and beverage exports to non-U.S. markets to protect against trade disruption, enhance global competitiveness and build a more resilient agriculture and food system. That’s according to a report by Farm Credit Canada (FCC) titled ‘The $12-billion trade shift: Canada’s opportunity to diversify food exports beyond the U.S.‘

Click here to read more.

The Honourable Vic Fedeli, Ontario Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade | Picture credit: Brad Demers / GNCC

Ontario minister picks up trade mission pace as tariffs heighten need to diversify

Tariff tensions with the United States and a more pressing need to diversify Ontario’s trading partners are prompting the province’s minister responsible for economic development to pick up the already robust pace of trade missions abroad.

Click here to read more.

A crowd of people seen from above

Picture credit: Dmytro / Adobe Stock

Slower population growth continues during the second quarter of 2025

The population of Canada reached an estimated 41,651,653 people on July 1, 2025. This is an increase of 47,098 people (+0.1%) from April 1, 2025, and the lowest population growth rate in a second quarter since the second quarter of 2020 (+0.1%), when growth nearly halted because of border restrictions at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Click here to read more.

Picture credit: Andy Dean / Adobe Stock

Can virtual strategies attract more people to careers in the construction trades?

The Future Skills Centre (FSC) recently reported on a project for developing a trades recruitment system for the unionized Canadian construction industry.

Partly a summary of the labour situation in the trades, the report also contains suggestions for attracting “new blood” to replace workers who are retiring.

Click here to read more.

Photo credit: Vlastimil Šesták / Adobe Stock

Everything you need to know about Carney’s first five nation-building projects

Click below for a glance at the first five projects named by Prime Minister Mark Carney to be fast-tracked as part of his nation-building plans, plus some insight into a high-speed rail project that’s in the federal government’s sights for accelerated development.

Click here to read more.

Focus on Finance & Economy

The Canadian economy is weak and struggling to find its footing as the trade war with the United States drags on. But, early indicators appear to show it has, against the odds, dodged an outright recession.

“While the Canadian economy is under clear stress, the current contraction does not meet the definition of a recession with the data we have available,” said Jeremy Kronick, co-chair of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council.

GDP numbers set to be released on Friday will likely confirm that diagnosis.

The economy shrank in the second quarter of this year. In April, May and June, the GDP contracted by 1.6 per cent on an annualized basis.

A recession is largely considered to have occurred when the economy contracts in back-to-back quarters.

Click here to read more.

Through the Daily Updates, the GNCC aims to deliver important business news in a timely manner. We disseminate all news and information we feel will be important to businesses. Inclusion in the Daily Update is not an endorsement by the GNCC.

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