Merry Christmas to All

Well this is my first attempt at blogging. Thank-you to our slightly younger staff for assisting me to get this set up. I hope that this can be an effective communication tool to keep our members more fully informed about the work that the Chamber is doing in our community & region.

The Political Action Committee (PAC), lead each year by our Vice President, (2010-Kevin Lundell) works very hard at determining what the policy direction will be for our Chamber. We have a very active and contributing PAC with lively discussions and debates. This committee is also responsible for ensuring that our government leaders are invited to participate in our discussions a couple of times a year.

The Community Leaders Group has been meeting under the coordination of the Chamber for the past two years. This group made up of Senior Management & Elected officials from Prairie North Health Region, Lloydminster Public School Division, Lloydminster Catholic School Division, Lakeland College, City of Lloydminster and Chamber of Commerce meets to discuss the challenges that we face in our community, offer supportive input, and brain storm solutions.

A very successful Leaders Dinner was held with our two MP's, Gerry Ritz & Leon Benoit & our two MLA's Tim McMillan & Lloyd Snelgrove in early December.  Having our provincial and federal leaders in the room with our local leaders served to provide an opportunity for our community leaders to have a frank and open discussion about some of the special challenges that Lloydminster faces, and to offer some suggestions about how our government officials might assist us to resolve some of the issues.

The Lloydminster Chamber of Commerce applauds the federal government after the recent announcement by Minister of Agriculture, the Honorable Gerry Ritz that the Government of Canada will invest up to $3 million for a series of pilot projects that will investigate and help better position provincial meat processors to move their safe, high quality product across the country while keeping with Canada's high federal food safety standards.

Since 2005, the Lloydminster Chamber has been encouraging the federal government through 5 different resolutions, to promote a common sense approach to cross border movement of food products and in particular meat, especially in Lloydminster.

In 2005 the first resolution entitled “Promoting Interprovincial Trade in Meat Products” was presented to the federal government as well as one entitled “Accommodating the sale of Alberta & Saskatchewan food products within Lloydminster.”  In 2007 the resolution entitled “Enhanced Domestic Markets for Agricultural Products” was first introduced and was re-introduced in 2010. 2008 saw a policy resolution on “Reducing Barriers to Interprovincial Trade” brought before the federal government and in 2009 a resolution on “Meat Inspection and Food Safety Standards” was presented. All of these resolutions, authored and approved locally, and then promoted up through the Canadian Chamber, all spoke to the need to be able to move products freely across the border.

“It affects so many areas of our commerce and community” said Pat Tenney, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director. “Alberta producers weren’t allowed to sell their Alberta slaughtered chickens at a Saskatchewan farmer’s market. Saskatchewan Elk or buffalo producers couldn’t sell their Saskatchewan processed jerky at an Alberta farmer’s market … so Lloydminster has two Farmer’s Markets, one on the Alberta side and one on the Saskatchewan side.  This is just one small example, but is typical of this resilient and innovative community and region that has had to find ways to continue to do business in spite of the restrictions.

Our local Chamber was also part of the hearings that met in Saskatoon to look at the possibility of Saskatchewan entering the trade agreement with Alberta & BC. Tenney stated. “After all, where else in Canada would you find a community that lives this issue everyday of our lives.” We thank our MP’s Gerry Ritz & Leon Benoit for the work that they have done to move this agenda forward and to MLA’s Lloyd Snelgrove and Tim MacMillan who talk our border talk when we can’t be there to present it ourselves.  The Chamber looks forward to the results of the pilot projects that should go a long way to standardizing new inspection procedures that will make our meat processing plants the best in the world. 

This is rather a long first blog. I am excited about the work that the Chamber does in and for our community. If you would like to get involved, just give me a call.