KAMLOOPS – In the last edition we discussed our attendance at the annual BC Chamber of Commerce AGM and Policy Session, at which, we would be presenting eight recommendations to government. These recommendations were brought to us by business people in our community, and each one addresses a gap or roadblock to business success. After a strong business case was developed, they were presented to our members at our Kamloops Chamber Policy Session, where they were approved to bring forward at the BC Chamber level.
And we are happy to share that all eight of our recommendations were accepted at the BC Chamber level! This is a tremendous step forward in bringing these business-friendly changes to government.
You may wonder though – what’s the next step?
Our approved recommendations, along with those from other provincial chambers, have now been adopted by BC Chamber and ‘put on their books’. All adopted recommendations are put into the BC Chamber of Commerce Policy Manual, which BC Chamber representatives share directly with the Premier and each MLA, to determine if and how these recommendations can be made into new laws and policies for the province.
Additionally, as several of our approved recommendations are federal in scope, rather than provincial, these recommendations will be brought forward at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Policy Session in September of this year, and will go through the same process as what occurred at the BC Chamber level. All approved recommendations will then be presented to the federal government by Canadian Chamber representatives for possible adoption.
As you can see, the process behind this work is far more involved than many realize, and the Kamloops Chamber is one of the few chambers, both provincially and nationally, that has such a developed program.
We believe that working on behalf of our members to bring business friendly change to the provincial and federal governments is some of the most important work we can do, which is why we continue to develop our program and are committed to bringing new recommendations forward every year.
Our process begins again on June 28th with our Red Tape Roundtable. We invite our members to bring their business concerns forward at this session, in order to determine whether a plausible business case can be built to move the recommendation forward to the next step.
If you are facing a barrier to your business, contact our office – we need to hear from you in order to continue doing this important work.
To learn more about the recommendations that we have recently brought forward, visit kamloopschamber.ca/recommendations-to-government. To learn more about our process, visit kamloopschamber.ca/our-process.
– Deb McClelland is the executive director of the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce. She can be reached email at deb@kamloopschamber.ca.