NEWSLETTER August 2016 Letter from the Chair The Yukon Chamber of Commerce has come a long way over the last few years thanks to the wise and committed leadership of Darielle Talarico and Rich Thompson, the hard work of our President Peter Turner, and the dedicated staff and board members who have all seen the Chamber through an incredible revitalization. When I was first invited to sit on the Yukon Chamber board, I accepted because I was excited about what the Chamber was doing: finding ways to become an effective voice for Yukon’s business community by speaking out on territory-wide issues with the goal of making the Yukon a better place to live and do business. We’re getting better about how we advocate and how we develop policy. We’re moving from a reactive approach to speaking out on issues to becoming proactive, engaging in research, engaging with our members, and engaging outside of the business community to make sure that we are well-informed, understand multiple perspectives, and have given due consideration to the diversity of opportunities that we have available to us for improving the Yukon’s economy. We’re redefining how we engage with our Community Chamber Members and have created opportunities for our Business and Industry Members to get actively involved, too. We now have Policy Development Guidelines that make it possible for any Community Chamber Member or Business and Industry Member to bring forward policy resolutions of their own for consideration to our membership. Once passed by our membership, these resolutions become the official policy of the YCC. This year, we expect to fill a policy position with the goal of making that resource available to our Community Chamber Members. We’ll also be working with our Community Chamber Members to clarify how we can support each other and how we can publicly communicate issues of importance through our respective chambers.
News & Events Featured Events: Opportunities North Conference in Yellowknife September 7 – 9, 2016 *See poster in Newsletter Whiskey Revealed Whitehorse, September 15 *See poster in Newsletter Centre for Northern Innovation in Mining Breakfast & Tour This event is for chamber members only September 16, 2016 8:00 – 9:00 AM RSVP 667-2000 Upcoming Election Debate Details to be announced *See write up in Newsletter Keep an eye on our website and our Facebook page for event details.
We have issues-based committees tackling challenging and important topics like energy, transportation infrastructure, and trade. The Energy Committee, for example, has launched the ‘Fueling Yukon’s Economy’ initiative. It’s a public conversation about how we acquire and use fossil fuels in the Yukon and it’s an exploration about how we can reduce our environmental footprint while simultaneously creating jobs and strengthening our economy. I’m very proud of the work that they’ve been doing. This year, I hope we’ll be tackling other issues that we know are important to our members, such as housing and labour-force development, and ensuring that the environmental regulatory system is effective, but also efficient and reliable. So, if you’re a member of the YCC and you know of a way to improve Yukon’s economy, we want to hear from you — whether it’s by getting involved with your local Community Chamber of Commerce, getting involved with an issues-based YCC committee, or by bringing forward a policy resolution of your own, let the collective power of our membership add strength to your voice.
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