Members with the Grande Prairie & District Chamber of Commerce say the high point of 2019 was the work they put in during the provincial and federal elections.
“We were very involved with the different elections that happened with the candidate interviews that we did ahead of time and we did some meetings with all the candidates before the provincial election before we hosted the forum so we could share the chamber’s position on various issues,” says chamber CEO Tanya Oliver.
“We have two new MLAs now so we’ve [also] been spending time getting to know them and making sure that the concerns of our members are heard,” she adds.
In 2019, the chamber hosted a number of events centred around the April and October elections including both the provincial and federal all-candidates forums and an Alberta Budget discussion. Oliver says in 2020, the chamber plans to continue working with the government to make sure the needs of Grande Prairie business owners are met.
“This new government’s been really engaged with us and they seem really genuine with wanting feedback from the business community so we’re going to continue to provide that conduit between our members and the government to try to keep improving things for business.”
The Chamber of Commerce has around 1,300 members in Grande Prairie.