Chamber more important than ever
Published Saturday July 4th, 2009
Lee Winchester is the branch manager of the Bank of Montreal on King Street and the new president of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce.
He recently spoke to reporter Chris Fox about out-migration, addressing the doctor shortage in the city and the possibility of the Fredericton International Airport once again having a direct flight to Boston.
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Q: What was the last movie you saw and the last concert you went to?
A: Well, the concert was easy. I went to the Bon Jovi concert in Moncton last weekend. The last movie I saw was Yes Man.
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Q: What do you believe the chamber's role in Fredericton is?
A: Our role is primarily being the voice for business. We represent nearly 900 members and we really advocate on their part in terms of influencing government policy - specifically things that affect day-to-day business activities.
We also help to organize the co-operation of different business members in the community, so we have a member-to-member program where we encourage our members to buy from each other and we have networking events that allow business owners and their employees to co-operate with and work with other businesses in the community.
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Q: Does the chamber take on an increased importance now, considering the state of the economy?
A: I really think so. The worst thing you can do during these tough times is to close your door and not be involved.
My philosophy is that the best thing you can do is to be in constant contact with your custumers and employees to see how they are being affected and what you can do to help them. In the long run that will, in turn, help you.
Most relationships are established during hard times, not during great times, so this is a great opportunity for small businesses to really help clients and customers and, really, those are the relationships that tend to get cemented and last a lot longer than those that are established during the boom times.
I think the chamber plays a pretty integral part in that.
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Q: What would you say are some of the biggest issues that may be unique to the Fredericton business community?
A: Obviously, we still have out-migration.
Education is a big piece and the news of the community college is very good. Hopefully, that will attract students who want to study here but, really, how do we fill roles with limited people? That is an issue.
Immigration is one strategy, and we have to find ways to make people who do come here feel more welcome, so they establish businesses here that will also create jobs for Canadians.
Health care is another thing. There are over 3,400 people on a waiting list to get a family physician now, and that is fairly unique, so we have to advocate doctors to move here.
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Q: On the topic of the doctor shortage, I know the chamber launched a physician recruitment campaign about a year ago.
That doesn't have a direct impact on the business community, but it certainly has an indirect one. Will projects like that be a big part of your activities?
A: Yes, that will be a big focus. With the physician recruitment program, a healthy workforce is key because, otherwise, you have lost productivity and you have more people out on sick time; therefore you have to replace people.
So it impacts businesses' bottom lines and it impacts people going out and shopping and supporting the economy.
Even though these people don't come in and buy directly or supply this or that, they are almost like a support group for the workers, and when people are looking to relocate from other centres, standard of living is key and access to proper health care is, of course, a big part of that.
Right now we are working with governments and medical societies to make sure we can promote what we have, attract doctors, retain our people and make sure wait lists get shorter.
The establishment of a medical school at UNB (University of New Brunswick) Saint John is fantastic. The real question now is, how do we tap into that and get the people who are studying in that program to want to stay and practice here?
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Q: What will the convention centre mean to Fredericton's business community once it opens?
A: A lot. It is something we have been wanting for years.
It will help us attract more national and international conventions and there will be spinoff effects for restaurants, hotels, car rental companies, the airport - everything.
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Q: You mentioned your desire to attract more people to the city, so I suppose the convention centre would certainly have an impact on that, as well?
A: It will. Having that convention centre that can hold so many people will attract more business opportunities. Once they get here, they can see what we have to offer and, hopefully, they will say, 'This is a great place to live, great place to work and play and, at the end of the day, doesn't it make good business sense to come here?'
It does make good business sense, too. If you look just at the tax cuts that took effect the other day, that will have a huge effect for small businesses.
We are going to be, probably, the lowest tax regime in Canada for small business, which is very promising. That should help encourage businesses to relocate to New Brunswick, and, hopefully, they will choose Fredericton.
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Q: A big issue for the chamber last year was the loss of Fredericton's flight to Boston and its effect on business travel. Are you still pushing for the addition of another flight to the United States, and are you confident that will happen at some point?
A: Our group is working closely with the airport foundation and, of course, we are trying to attract other airlines to come in.
That is not really our mandate to go out and get airlines to come in. That is the airport authority's mandate, but whatever we can do to help them influence that, we are all for. We have had talks with WestJet, and these are pretty difficult times right now for an industry to come here. We respect that and they do recognize a need.
From what I understand with WestJet, for example, there have been talks about getting another flight to Boston and I know that is being talked about behind closed doors right now. Hopefully, we will hear some good news.
Reporter Chris Fox is a recent journalism graduate of St. Thomas University and a reporter for The Daily Gleaner. Q&A appears each Saturday.
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