Kelowna: While most of Canada was celebrating Queen Victoria's birthday and the reigning Sovereign's official birthday earlier this month, the Kelowna Chamber spent time putting the finishing touches on two new national policies that it feels can be real changemakers.
Patrick Bobyn, Chamber President, is optimistic about both policies succeeding when considered by the national Chamber members. “Six years ago, our Chamber put forward a policy addressing the impact of crime on businesses. While we have seen meaningful progress and positive outcomes since that time, the reality is that many of the same challenges remain – and in some cases, have intensified.
“Our new national policy has support from chambers in provinces across the country. It’s called ‘What Price Safety?’ and makes concrete suggestions for tax relief and improvements to the justice system that should result in better outcomes for businesses,” says Bobyn.
The second policy promotes the expansion of a national energy strategy, incorporating many of the long-term plans announced earlier this month by the Prime Minister. Growing clean energy through solar, wind farms, LNG, and making electricity more available to the housing industry locally in the Okanagan are ingredients of the policy’s five-year energy transition recommendations.
Both policies will be presented to the Canadian Chamber by Bobyn, and the Kelowna Chamber CEO, George Greenwood, later this year in Victoria.
The Kelowna Chamber is also supporting another important policy, this one recommending immigration policy improvements, co-sponsored with the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce.