The Ottawa Chamber of Commerce is set to encourage Ottawa businesses to get proactive in creating a healthier business environment through a number of new initiatives.
Erin Kelly is the new executive director of the chamber. She outlined her vision for the body at a recent members event.
“We’re going to be very proactive,” she says.
Kelly says businesses must present ideas to city council rather than reacting to measures already passed by councillors.
Teresa Whitmore, real estate agent and vice-chair of the business advisory committee at city hall, attended the event and says she liked the fresh ideas.
“I came out of there feeling positive,” she says. “Maybe it was time to have something new at the chamber.”
Spark Ottawa, one of the chamber's new initiatives, is a research study that will attempt to gather information from across the world on good business practices, and then apply them to Ottawa, Kelly says.
“I’m surprised, quite frankly, that city council didn’t think of it before the chamber,” says Whitmore.
The initiatives will also partner with other chambers of commerce throughout the world.
The first such partnership will be with the Canada Israel Chamber of Commerce and will focus on the clean technology sector.
The plan is to link Ottawa companies with Israeli customers, says Les Kom, vice-president of the Canada Israel Chamber of Commerce.
Kom says he sees the Ottawa chamber making many partnerships in the future.
“It could be Israel today and it could be India tomorrow.”
Kelly says the chamber will introduce its ideas to city hall.
“[The chamber wants] to go in with researched material they may not have access to,” says Kelly.
The chamber will also certify businesses that buy locally by having them report local purchases they make.
The chamber will then verify the purchases, and keep the relevant statistics for members.
Kelly says after introducing the initiatives to the chambers’ members, the next issue will be funding them.
She says the chamber will need help from all levels of government.
Kelly says she has already spoken to Ottawa Centre Liberal MPP Yasir Naqvi about potential provincial funding.
“The idea is to help the city,” she says.
Installed in her position earlier this year, Kelly already has some members of the business community interested.
“She’s got a lot of really exciting things going,” says Rob Sproule, chair of the city’s business advisory committee. “I’m excited for the city.”
Sproule says Kelly represents a welcome change at the chamber.
“I think in the last year or so they’ve been in a kind of caretaker mode,” he says, and “she’s come in with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of good ideas."