Letter sent to Premier Higgs

September 16, 2020

Hon. Blaine Higgs, Premier
Province of New Brunswick
Chancery Place, P. O. Box 6000
Fredericton, NB E3B 5H1
 
Via E-mail : blaine.higgs@gnb.ca
 
 
Dear Premier Higgs:
 
On behalf of our network of 38 Chambers and 5,600 businesses in New Brunswick, the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce (ACC) wishes to convey our congratulations to you on your re-election and continuation as Premier of New Brunswick. At the same time, we want to offer the power of our network as a resource that can provide insight into how government and businesses can collaborate on the mutual goal of addressing the issues facing New Brunswick.
 
The challenges the province faces are growing in their intensity, including population challenges, rising public debt, issues of labour access and mobility, the cost of the public sector, and stymied private-sector growth—all of which have been exacerbated by the potency of COVID-19 globally. Seemingly overnight the pandemic eviscerated economies and demonstrated the importance of a strong, vibrant private sector.
 
The ACC was pleased to see you say that you will "focus on economic issues in the north, promising to work with local chambers of commerce to create job growth." I believe we are aligned in our vision to support local business, fuel recovery, and build resilient communities for the future.  In fact, earlier this summer, our team worked with your Government to facilitate local Chamber participation in the Regional Resiliency Teams (RRT) in communities around the province. As you move forward with your platform and the critical work of recovery, the ACC is ready again to be a resource for your team to rapidly facilitate meetings or working groups with our Chambers in every region in the province as appropriate. With 38 Chambers in communities throughout the province, our network is a perfectly positioned to assist you and represents a strong resource for continued partnership.
 
As noted in our letter sent to all party leaders on September 3, 2020, our digital insight community Atlantic IMPRESSIONS provided the collective perspective of priorities for New Brunswick businesses. This exclusive digital insight community enables us to engage and consult with all types of business from a range of sectors, to yield critical intelligence in near real time from the growing community of CEOs, executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners, and professionals from urban and rural communities in all sectors across Atlantic Canada. As the voice of business, we are leveraging advanced technology to assist with the rapid collection of feedback (broad or targeted) to help inform decision-making—from policy to programs to support initiatives.
 
Thank you as well for sharing your platform with us earlier this month. We read it with interest and there is certainly a broad array of challenges facing the government in the months and years to come. What we are hearing from business is that they would like to see renewed focus on: generating economic growth through private sector investment, population growth through immigration, and creating efficiencies in government processes through accelerated use of advanced technology, as well as health and education reform.  
 
We know New Brunswick is ready to unleash its economic potential and the business community recognizes that a pathway to do that is through capital injections from private sector business and immigration. In fact, studies have shown that a dynamic immigration system allows for greater economic growth through diversified skillsets within the workforce and creates population growth.
 
Economic growth will be critical our recovery and future provincial prosperity, and this must be driven through creation of a robust private sector. The ACC and our New Brunswick Chambers are committed to working with you to ensure the province remains competitive and is able to retain and attract business. Beyond the challenges of COVID-19, New Brunswick must continue to remove barriers to doing business and allow free enterprise to thrive.
The Atlantic Chamber looks forward to working with you and would like to meet with you in the coming weeks to further our discussion about economic growth, immigration, efficiencies, issues facing northern and rural chambers, our digital insight community, and the road ahead for business in New Brunswick.
Sincerely,
 
Sheri Somerville
 
Chief Executive Officer,
Atlantic Chamber of Commerce