PORT HAWKESBURY - The Strait Area Chamber of Commerce celebrated its members' successes and looked ahead to major regional developments of the future, while simultaneously bidding farewell to an executive director who helped to guide the chamber and the local business community through the roughest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Misty MacDonald gave the final address of her three-year tenure as SACC executive director to close out the 2023 "State Of The Strait" conference, which took place on March 22 at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre. MacDonald thanked current chamber president John Ouellette, past presidents Dean Hart and Bob MacEachern, and the chamber's membership coordinator Susan Fox for helping her promote the region's business interests during a time that saw provincial public health restrictions shutting down many local businesses for months at a time. MacDonald is stepping away from her chamber post to put more time into her own business interests. 

Also on this week's edition of Roundtable: 

15:08 - Guest interviewer Taylor Linloff, a Port Hawkesbury-based LGBTQIA+ activist, sits down with Cape Breton Transgender Network founder and Cape Breton Pride education coordinator Veronica Merryfield to discuss this Friday's Trans Day of Visibility activities in Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia. 

45:07 - Northside-Westmount Liberal MLA Fred Tilley, who also serves as the Liberal Caucus Chair and the party's Finance Critic in the Nova Scotia legislature, expresses his concerns that the provincial PC government's newly-announced budgetary commitments to Nova Scotia's health-care system lack the direction and focus required to recruit and retain the doctors, nurses and other medical professionals required to plug the holes that currently exist in medical clinics and emergency rooms inside and outside of Cape Breton.