November 2015 Inside this issue: GM’s Report Member Spotlight New Members Events Review Anniversaries Workforce Development Time for Social Media
CHAMBER at a glance
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a publication of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
A Change that Canada Wanted
O
n October 19, 2015 Canadians elected a new federal government. The election came on the heels of the Brandon Chamber’s delegation arriving home from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Annual General Meeting hosted in Ottawa. While there, the delegation of voting members were informally polled during the meeting; over 300 business leaders across Canada predicted a Liberal minority. Even a large group of the smartest business people in the country weren’t able to predict the change that Canada wanted. The Canadian Chamber AGM was an invigorating event for the local Brandon Chamber executives to attend. Over a weekend, delegates from Chambers across the country met to discuss local and national issues, exchange ideas, debate, and most importantly adopt a policy agenda and advocacy strategy for the coming year. This event truly solidifies the notion that there is strength in the Chamber network; the passion that this group has for ensuring that Canadian’s have the keys to success is unmatched. The AGM saw formal and informal discussions ranging from politics, the upcoming election, innovation,
competitiveness and the role that the Chamber had to play in each of these issues. I’ll touch on each of these issues through the remainder of this article. Your local Chamber, along with Chambers across the Canadian Network worked from a strategic document entitled: “A Canada That Wins” throughout the federal election campaign. “A Canada That Wins” highlighted Access to Powerful Workforce, Access to Markets, Access to Capital and Access to Technology and Innovation as the necessary ingredients in the recipe for Canada’s competitive success.
“the passion that this group has for ensuring that Canadian’s have the keys to success is unmatched ” If you attended the Candidates Forum that the Brandon Chamber hosted on October 8th, you would have heard candidate responses to questions posed from each of the four pillars of the “A
Jordan Ludwig, Chamber President Canada That Wins” platform, which I’m hopeful it helped inform your vote. We’re in an interesting position here in Brandon now, with Conservative Member Larry Maguire now sitting in the official opposition. While I’m certain that Larry will agree with the Chamber network that we’re concerned about Liberal policy to return to budget deficits in the coming years, I would hope that Larry can use their commitment to invest in hard and social-infrastructure to Brandon-Souris’ advantage. Time and again, we’re reminded that competitiveness is the most important metric when measuring business and economic success. Competitiveness leads to innovation, and in turn to increased productivity, new products and processes. It’s not a secret that Canada has fallen behind in global (Continued on page 6)