2022 was a reasonably successful year for the PG Chamber of Commerce according to outgoing CEO Todd Corrigall.
“The tail-end of the pandemic was sort of early in 2022 around March and April, so it was an opportunity to shift a lot of what we were doing from ‘how do we help businesses move through this pandemic as seamlessly as possible’ into ‘how do we now begin to attempt to adapt people’s purchasing habits that had become the mainstay through the pandemic, which predominantly was online ordering,” Corrigall explained.
In a Year in Review interview with My PG Now, Corrigall added that there are still some business-related challenges that we haven’t moved from, such as employment challenges, supply chain issues, and increasing costs.
However, he said there are some positives for local businesses.
“People are putting a greater focus on who their local retailers are, where they’re purchasing or where those goods are being created, and where the money from those purchases is going directly to. There is a greater focus from a wider audience on shopping local than there may have been historically, but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done with that” Corrigall explained.
“Organizations like Amazon have really tapped into people’s ability to get things dropped at their door. The shopping experience has changed dramatically, and maybe more quickly than the experience for people who want to patronize locally.”
Corrigall said there needs to be a greater focus on corporate taxes in municipal, provincial, and federal levels.
“There’s companies like Amazon who are paying little to no corporate taxes, and yet they are pushing tax-paying residents, small business owners out of their capacity for business,”
“How do we tax businesses that are that size, understanding the employment that they bring along with themselves, but understanding we have a role to play in ensuring the safety and viability of small and medium sized businesses that are deeply rooted in communities?”
He added that bad tax policy has pushed some tax revenue out of the province.
“If we look at our current provincial government now with a different premier, they brought in the employers health tax. What that resulted in, was businesses moving their head offices to Alberta, where that did not exist, and they’re paying their employees outside of that,” Corrigall said.
“New West Trade Partnerships agreement allows for that to happen, so we have now lost the tax revenue from a business, and from those paycheques, in favour of bad tax policy. There are things that we need to look at that create a stable environment for business to operate, but don’t encumber them with additional fees.”
Corrigall added that we need to create environments where loans are more accessible to businesses that are starting out or are looking to keep going.
“Right now, with where inflationary numbers are, it’s going to be almost impossible for some businesses to access the appropriate loans that a lot of them used for their operational capacity. ”
Corigall added there are some projects coming online that will help feed the economy in Prince George.
“What we do need to be looking at is what are the major projects that can start to be approved, so that we have things in our pipeline over the long term,” he explained.
“If you look at that piece of the pie right now, we don’t have major projects in BC that are slated for approval, and that becomes very problematic, because like it or not, BC is a resource province, and that is how we derive all of our wealth, and that’s why there’s money to be spent in the Lower Mainland.”
Corrigall announced earlier this month he would be stepping down as CEO of the Chamber of Commerce in the new year.
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