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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - OCTOBER 2013
O
VER THE LAST
year, the
province of Manitoba has seen
many changes to its business land-
scape, including a controversial in-
crease to the Manitoba PST announced
in the spring budget.
With a new president on board,
the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce
have been actively advocating on be-
half of the business community on the
PST, and other issues and changes.
Chuck Davidson, who has now
been serving as MB Chamber president
and CEO since May, spoke with CIO to
discuss current developments in Mani-
toba’s business community. Davidson
was formerly the Vice-President of the
Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce.
What is different about working with
a provincial chamber for you, coming
from the Winnipeg Chamber?
When I was with the Winnipeg
Chamber I worried only about Winni-
peg businesses, and with this organiza-
tion I worry about businesses in all of
the 63 Chambers that we have across
the province.
I have to make sure I act as a re-
source for all of those local Chambers,
and make sure they are getting value
from the relationship. There is a lot
more travel, meetings with businesses,
and listening firsthand to what the
challenges are—and it’s important that
I’m really connected to them. I want to
make sure they can be successful.
A Chamber is an important voice
in your community. It’s important to
make sure you have strong local cham-
bers in communities because they are
the pulse of the business landscape.
Our job is to focus on creating
wealth and jobs in local communities.
When governments are looking at eco-
nomic issues they look to local cham-
bers to decipher what those issues
are—we play that go-to organization
on a provincial level, and it’s very criti-
cal.
What has the Manitoba Chamber
accomplished over the last year?
We have really been closely look-
ing at the focus of the organization,
and examining where it needs to be.
One of the issues is workforce
challenges. Many communities in
Manitoba are not able to find that
skilled workforce that’s needed in or-
der to run successful businesses. So
the chamber has been instrumental in
looking at changes to the immigration
program, and this program has been
very successful in Manitoba. There was
concern from the business community
that there were going to be changes to
that at the federal level but we’ve been
able to make sure that we raise those
warning bells. We have made sure
that at the federal level, they aware of
things that are of concern to the busi-
ness community.
Another area we have watched is
the increase to the PST by 1%. That’s
something that wasn’t favourably
looked on by the business community,
but we were able to take a leadership
role by really galvanizing the business
community and making sure they had
a voice at the table—to give the gov-
ernment an idea of the potential im-
pact a tax increase would have. We’ve
done a good job being able to commu-
nicate with our members and making
sure that there is communication be-
tween local chambers and our provin-
cial government.
What is the Manitoba Chamber
doing to improve Northern Manitoba
development?
In Northern Manitoba specifically
there are many communities that are
reliant on specific sectors (mining, for-
estry) to survive, and that means that
unless we’ve got a clear plan in those
industries for northern communities,
those communities will struggle.
We need to develop a good solid
northern development strategy, and es-
tablish how to make it easier for those
critical industries to operate. Once
again, the biggest challenge is work-
force issues, i.e., recruiting doctors and
skilled tradespeople to work in remote
communities.
Those communities need sup-
port on housing issues, daycare for
instance, and the education system. I
was able to see firsthand some of the
nervousness in northern communi-
ties that question whether or not their
towns would be around in six years
once certain industrial projects have
been completed. Northern develop-
ment is a huge opportunity that we’re
not leveraging.
How is the Manitoba Chamber
working with other provinces on these
issues?
We are trying to take a leadership
role getting stakeholders at the provin-
cial level around the table. We want
to advocate on behalf of solutions that
will work for cross-provincial issues,
including issues in the Aboriginal com-
munity. Also, we really want to adopt
Chuck Davidson - President & CEO
MANITOBA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
