President’s Report - AGM, August 2007
Our fiscal year for 2006 / 2007 has been very successful for the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce. Our Chair, Andre Roothman and the Board of Directors have been kept very active during the year and I would like to thank them all for their participation, dedication, and input into the Chamber. It is a time consuming and often thankless task to be Chair of an organization such as the Chamber of Commerce; and so I would like to take this opportunity to thank Andre for his time, energy, and contribution. There were many important issues we had to deal with this year, but Andre and the Board of Directors came forward when called upon and the business community owes them a debt of gratitude.
Our Mission: The purpose of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce is to promote trade and commerce to contribute to the economic, civic and social well being of Whitehorse.
I would like to recognize Mayor Buckway for her active participation at Board Meetings and Chamber planning sessions. The Mayor’s involvement, representing the City of Whitehorse, has helped develop our working relationship with the city.
In order to achieve our mission the Chamber has been involved in developing several projects through the year and doing so by creating partnerships. The idea that “working together works” has been guiding the Chamber this year as we have developed partnerships on order to represent the business community better. All of the partnerships we have entered into have been in order to better the conditions of the business community as well as the City of Whitehorse. Listed below is a brief description of some of those partnerships: (in no particular order)
Department of Highways
The Chamber administers the Urban Visitor Sign program along the Alaska Highway within the Whitehorse City limits. This year new structures went into place and many businesses have seized upon the advertising opportunity that a highway sign offers. Many of the old billboards have been removed and the rest of them will be coming down within a few months. We should have a very attractive, clean and well kept sign program in full operation next summer.
As well the Chamber is working with the Department to design a new Kiosk for the rest stops to the south and north of Whitehorse. These kiosks should go into place next summer and will be a real catalyst to get more visits from the highway into Whitehorse.
Department of Justice
The Chamber has partnered with the Department of Justice, the RCMP, the City of Whitehorse and the Department of Social Services (Youth Justice Branch) to create a Business Crime Prevention Strategy. You can find this strategy on our website at www.whitehorsechamber.ca. As part of the strategy the partners have created a Business Crime Prevention checklist, which is also available on our website with other crime prevention information. We also partnered with the Department of Justice and the Youth of Today Society in a graffiti clean up project which was very successful. We are working with our partners to make Whitehorse safer.
The Workers Compensation Health and Safety Board / The Northern Safety Network
The Whitehorse Chamber has a seat on the Stakeholders Advisory Board organized by the WCB. As a member of the Stakeholders group we have input representing the interests of the Whitehorse Business Community. As well we act as a watch dog for businesses and have been working very hard on the WCB Act Review and the follow-up to the submission we made to the Act Review Panel in 2006. As well, the Chamber has partnered with the Northern Safety Network to create and implement a program, funded by the WCB, to improve safety in the workplace and generally to make small to medium sized businesses more aware of the need for safety programs in their business. The Northern Safety Network has helped more than 50 businesses so with this free program. If you would like some assistance in making your business a safer and better place to work please contact the Northern Safety Network at 633-6690.
Department of Economic Development
The Chamber has worked closely with the Department of Economic Development and the Yukon Chamber of Commerce on a Joint Chambers Committee to promote economic development. Through this committee we have developed Trade Missions to Abbotsford, Leduc Nisku and have received delegations from these cities and other areas. Also, we have met with Commissioners General from several countries including China, and the U.S. to promote the Yukon. As well as these activities we have worked with the Business and Trade Branch to help develop, promote and build Yukon businesses to increase their capacity to impact markets outside of Yukon. We have been able to bring in guest speakers, and with others such as the Business Development Bank of Canada we partner in organizing Small Business Week every October. We have also partnered with the Regional Economic Development Branch to Chair a Committee looking into the Labour Market crisis in Whitehorse and Yukon. The final report for this work should be made public early in September.
The City of Whitehorse
The Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce has been involved with the City on Waterfront development, the Porter Creek Lower Bench development, Sustainability Planning, the Downtown Plan, the Retail Strategy, and we have advocated for increasing the ceiling heights of buildings in the City, parking issues, the design of the wharf along the Waterfront and land development. Also the Chamber has made presentations to City Council on bylaw issues including the green space bylaw, the referendum, taxi issues and the Board of the Chamber has met with the members of Council and the Mayor. The Whitehorse Chamber helped in the creation of a shuttle bus service from the airport to the hotels in Whitehorse. This service is growing and has helped the City alleviate some of the complaints we have been getting about taxis. The Chamber also sits on a Crime Prevention Policing Advisory Committee which has been established by the RCMP in partnership with the City.
The Whitehorse Chamber is proud to be active in several other areas in support of the business community. We sit on committees, we have participated in the development of a business of sports strategy which is being implemented by the Yukon Convention Bureau, we supported the Canada Winter Games by developing a network to the business community and passing on the schedule of events for each day of the 2007 Canada Winter Games, and we helped the business community in benefiting from the business of the Games.
The Chamber fields calls every day from people asking about business, preparing to visit Whitehorse, planning a trip and major investors wanting to learn about the economic climate of Whitehorse. We have also assisted individual businesses in finding employees, applying for foreign workers, and by acting as a liaison between Government and Business.
There is so much more that we do on a day to day basis, but we don’t have the space to continue. I would like to conclude by mentioning two programs that the Chamber offers:
- The Yukon Business Development Program which assists businesses in growing and expanding their operations by the creation of a Business Advisory Board made up of experts in any given sector from anywhere in North America. In this manner a local business is able to gain the experiences of people who are recognized in their field as being the best there is.
- We have been offering a Service and Customer Satisfaction course for over a year now and we have had excellent success with this course. We are partnering with Yukon College to get this course on line and we are hoping to be able to try it out before the end of this year.
If you would like to know more about the Chamber and our activities please do not hesitate to contact us at 667-7545 or by e-mail at business@whitehorsechamber.ca .
Thank you for your support,
Rick Karp
President.