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President's Message

RANDY TREMEL
President’s Message (2011 – 2012)

Victory on the Rock! --- St. John’s NL.

Stephanie Palechek (General Manager); Darren Boras (President-Elect); and myself, successfully represented our Chamber of Commerce at the annual Canadian Chamber of Commerce policy resolution debate on September 18th and 19th, in St. John’s NL.

I am pleased to announce we where victorious in advocating issues important locally. We took our “Aboriginal Post-Secondary Retention and Transition” resolution to the Canadian Chamber AGM and policy debate. The recommendation presented was as follows: “That the federal government as part of its overall strategy for Aboriginal education, fund pilot-projects at Canada’s postsecondary institutions to improve Aboriginal student success, retention, and transition into the labour market”. This recommendation was a direct result of the success seen at the University of Lethbridge in their Support Program for Aboriginal Nursing Students (SPANS). This 3-year program at the U of L received 1 million dollars in funding to pilot this very successful project. We are now asking the Federal Government to make funding for these types of programs available to all post-secondary institutions throughout Canada as a regular part of the Governments mandate. With the approval we received at the policy debate on Sept. 18th the Canadian Chamber of Commerce now makes our resolution part of their overall mandate in lobbying the Federal Government. Resolutions such as this can go a long way in helping us address the next upcoming labour shortages.

We also received renewal of two resolutions previously approved, but reaching their 3-year terms, after which these policies drop off the books unless reintroduced and approved. Both the “Definition of the Precautionary Principle” and the “Revision of the new Competition Bureau guidelines for use of the “Product of Canada” and “Made In Canada” claims for manufactured and food products, where both renewed. Lethbridge was a co-sponsor on these resolutions with Ottawa, and Taber respectfully.

We owe a great deal of gratitude to everyone that has worked on these policies throughout this past year. There was a great deal of collaboration and hard work that went into researching, drafting, and preparing to debate these resolutions. The progress of these policies can now be monitored at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce website.

Next years Canadian AGM and Policy Session will be in Hamilton, ON. (September 21-25th, 2012).  In Alberta the next AGM and Policy session will be in the Spring, hosted by Sherwood Park, AB.

Quote of the month

The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers.  ~John Egan

Randy J. Tremel

2011 – 2012 President

Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce

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