Editor's Note -- Weekly Quesnel City Council column by Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson. He can be reached via email here
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Today, the Premier will be announcing BC’s strategy to
restart the provincial economy by enabling some relaxation of the current
social distancing regime that has closed a number of local businesses and
restricted retail activity. Council and City staff will be adjusting our
local restrictions on access to parks, playgrounds, and sports amenities to
align with the provincial strategy, and it’s our hope that as we start moving
toward some more normalized behaviours and activities, residents of our region
will make every effort to reinvigorate our local economy by maximizing their
spending in our community.
Very early in this pandemic, a partnership was formed to, as
much as possible, mitigate the negative impacts of social distancing on our
local businesses. This partnership included the Downtown Business
Association, West Quesnel Business Association, South Quesnel Business
Association, Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce, Community Futures
North Cariboo, the District of Wells, and the City of Quesnel’s economic
development team.
Two goals were established for this collaborative: first, to
ensure that every eligible business gets every dollar they are entitled to
under the federal and provincial COVID-relief programs that are being
announced; and, second, to collaborate in a shop local program, both during
the pandemic and afterward.
To achieve the first goal, a COVID-19 business hotline was
established and staffed by the partnership’s member organizations
(1-888-241-7714). As of last Friday, 62 businesses had called the hotline
seeking some form of assistance. More importantly, member organization staff
proactively and strategically called businesses directly, starting with those
mandated to close or modify their operations by public health orders. As of
last week, 359 calls have been made and a target has been set to reach out to
every impacted small business in the region by mid-May.
Almost 80% of the businesses contacted to date have indicated
they’ve seen their sales decrease by 30% or more since the social distancing
restrictions have been in place, making it critically important that we all
do our part to assist these businesses by shopping locally as much as
possible, both now and as our economy begins to ramp back up. Our #InQuesnel
campaign has been active for a number of weeks now and you can participate in
this shop local campaign through the Love Quesnel Facebook page (click here)
As a Council, we’ll continue to support the business
collaborative that was established at the outset of this pandemic and we’ll
continue to seek more direct funding supports for our local businesses and
for local and regional marketing of those businesses. We hope you will do
your part to make sure our local businesses will survive this pandemic and
will continue to play their critical role in making our community a great
place to visit, live, and invest in.
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