Editor's Note -- the weekly Quesnel City Council is written by Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson. He can be reached via email here
One of the most troublesome aspects of this pandemic for our local businesses is that it’s not an isolated incident; sadly, it’s the fourth successive year they’ve had to deal with a major socio-economic disruption.
In 2017, uncontrolled wildfires resulted in the closure of Highway 97 for a large portion of the summer, and all our major tourism events were cancelled. In 2018, we had another unprecedented wildfire season and a portion of the City was placed under an evacuation alert. In 2019, Tolko permanently shuttered their Quesnel sawmill and one shift was reduced at West Fraser’s sawmill, resulting in the permanent loss of about 200 jobs in our community.
So, before this pandemic all but shuttered our local businesses, two back to back unprecedented wildfire seasons followed by a year of major contraction and job losses in the forest sector had already compromised our commercial sector’s resiliency. Consequently, the financial and psychological stress Quesnel’s business community has experienced over the last three years has made it much less able to absorb the deepening economic impacts of this current crisis.
The fact that the previous three consecutive years of socio-economic disruption has deeply compromised our small and medium sized business sector’s ability to survive this current crisis has been clearly, and repeatedly, relayed to provincial government Ministers and directly to the Premier. We’ve asked that the provincial government take into account our special circumstances as they develop both their business and their community support programs.
In the meantime, while we continue to wait for the details of both the Federal and Provincial business and community support programs, we’ve created our own Business Support Team to ensure we take a coordinated approach to this current crisis. This Team consists of the three Business Improvement Areas (Downtown, South, and West Quesnel Business Associations), the Chamber of Commerce, Community Futures North Cariboo, and the City of Quesnel’s Economic Development staff.
Our local business team has established two key goals: first, to ensure that Quesnel gets access to every penny being made available to our business community and their employees from both the federal and provincial governments; and, second, to communicate to the public the critical importance of maximizing spending in our local economy, both during this pandemic and when we return to some semblance of normalcy.
In order to achieve the first goal, staff from all of the partner organizations have been busy compiling information about the various programs being developed and made available to support businesses, including non-government entities like BC Hydro. These staff resources will then be available through a local Business Support Hotline to assist our business owners and entrepreneurs to sort through the eligibility criteria and application processes for any loans, grants, tax deferrals, and employee supports that are being made available from any source.
This collective effort to get every federal and provincial dollar being made available to support businesses and their employees into our local economy needs to be supported by Quesnel and area residents maximizing their spending in our local economy too. If we want this sector to recover and remain vibrant and resilient after this pandemic is behind us, we will all need to be more deliberate about shopping locally than we’ve ever been.
During this COVID crisis, please support any and all local businesses that remain open as you continue to shop for your essential goods and services while adhering to social distancing rules. Once we get the all clear, please think hard about any purchases you need or want to make and find a way to get those goods and services from a local business. As part of our Business Support Team we will be launching a new shop local campaign shortly to help everyone understand why shopping locally is so critically important to our community’s recovery and resiliency.
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