JULY 2014 Inside this issue: GM’s Report Member Spotlight Events Review Golf Recap Meet the New Board Season Seating Recommended Reading
CHAMBER at a glance
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a publication of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Positive Future Ahead
A
s I begin my term as president, difficult, whether from outside or when I look around Westman, I through shop local campaigns. Higher am pleased to see a strong busi- personal income taxes than our comness climate. We are buoyed by a coupeting provinces out west makes compeple of strong years in agriculture and we tition for employees difficult and dehave developing economic benefits of creases the spending power of income the oil and gas sector. From this, we are earners. Manitoba is also the only westexperiencing a growing population and a ern province with a payroll tax, making it momentum towards a second true city punitive for large employers to locate and service area in Manitoba. We have here. air service, WestJet has had very strong ridership numbers – we have even been In Brandon, Maple Leaf Foods is strugreferenced as a jewel of the Encore net- gling with its supply of hogs, resulting in work. We must recently continue to supannounced “I believe strongly in port Westjet to production not only provide days being Westman and intend on certainty to lost and making sure the chamber maintaining our production existing route being below makes a difference to the but encourage capacity. business community” future expansion Also loomin routes. ing is the negative publicity over the Temporary Yet, there are challenges. Provincially Foreign Worker Program, a key cog to we are struggling with an income state- Maple Leaf’s labor supply. At stake is a ment that shows expenses exceeding lot of jobs, and a lot of purchasing power revenues while having a taxing environ- that not only fuels our retail and service ment that carries higher levels of PST sectors but also supports real estate and and personal income taxes than our indirectly buoys our construction indusneighbors. A higher PST makes try. attracting people to shop here more
Todd Birkhan, Chamber President A year ago, Craig Senchuk announced that the chamber would be more strongly venturing down the road of economic development, and that this was more than a one year evolution. We intend to continue down this road. Its important to note, we are not in competition with the City in this endeavor; they play an integral part in this. We simply feel there are certain areas the Chamber is in a better position to deal with, being more in touch with the business community and not being saddled with the same level of politics. We intend to expand more strongly into the area of policy development in the current year. What do I mean by policy development? Determining what issues are of significant importance to the business community, developing a thorough (Continued on page 6)