The two biggest organizations for B.C. business want Prince George in on an important disucsssion about B.C. business.
At no time, said representatives for the BC Chamber of Commerce and the BC Business Council, have the stakes been higher for all sectors of the economy, and all private enterprise, to set aside pride and competition and pull together for long-term success. That is why they jointly created the "BC Agenda for Shared Prosperity" campaign.
The only way to win back the economic and social losses since the global downturn - plus steer clear of American and European fiscal storms, mass infrastructure decay, and a huge baby-boomer bubble burst on the near horizon - is to work together on a made-in-B.C. set of business conditions, according to BCBC president Greg D'Avignon and BCCC president John Winter.
They were in Prince George on Friday for the first of several anticipated local meetings.
"The opportunity for developing shared prosperity has often been positioned as a contradiction or a zero sum game of confrontation in B.C.," said Winter. "However, increasingly our economic opportunities will require a stronger focus on leveraging our strengths and building a common fact base to make decisions."
The chamber has a typical membership profile comprising small to medium sized businesses while the business council membership tends to reflect medium to large sized businesses. D'Avignon said the combination ensured the majority of the provincial business community was covered, since both groups had strong contacts all across British Columbia.
"Because of the commodities nature of Prince George's economic history, it's a city that's seen more ups and downs than almost anywhere else," he said. "You have created some mechanisms to move through that, come together as a community, you've demonstrated and ability to pick yourselves up and dust yourselves off, or rally for something important you want for your community. There is a lot for the rest of B.C. to learn from that."
The B.C. Agenda for Shared Prosperity has held five of nine scheduled meetings in regional centres to gather input about the directions business leaders and entrepreneurs want B.C. to go in over the next 10 years. Action plans and follow-up meetings will be written up by the two groups.
Aiding the process is a special advisory board the two organizations have struck, including resident northerners Gerry Martin (co-owner of Kra-Mar Investments, the Northern Drugs store chain, and Shames Mountain Ski Corp.) from the Skeena region, and UNBC president George Iwama of Prince George.
"Against a backdrop of unprecedented global change, British Columbia has the opportunity, at this time in our history, to elevate the way we think and do things in B.C. in order to create a stronger sense of shared prosperity," said Winter. "We hope the BC Agenda for Shared Prosperity enables this discussion and looks innovatively at the priorities we should have as a province."
"It is irresponsible to not tell the truth for political reasons," said D'avignon. "People say big business shapes its thinking to suit their shareholders, and some of that has some truth to it, but more than that, I don't know a single CEO who doesn't wake up in the morning thinking about their community and who doesn't want to make B.C. a better place."
Member businesses of either organization are encouraged to check in with these agencies to find out more about taking part in this province-wide visioning process.
