The NWT Chamber of Commerce is needed more than ever. That’s the message from Newton Grey, the chamber’s president.
It’s Small Business Week across Canada and the chamber is celebrating 50 years of advocating for businesses around the territory. But it has been another challenging year. Evacuations of several communities meant a severe loss of revenue for small businesses and there is plenty of worry about what the future will hold.
Grey said the chamber will do whatever it can to ensure entrepreneurs in the NWT have their concerns front and centre to whoever needs to hear them.
“Our board understands how critical the need is,” he said. “So many communities have been affected by evacuations and you can imagine the disruption this has caused. Our businesses were starting to really recover from Covid and then the evacuations happened.”
Around 60 per cent of the territory was evacuated in some form during 2023 and other communities, such as Inuvik, came close, he added.
But for those communities that weren’t evacuated, Grey said the effects were just as bad.
“Communities in the Sahtu depend a lot on Yellowknife and we heard about the impact that (evacuations) had on them,” he said. “We heard about communities in the Tlicho that were in need, also Lutsel K’e and the food situation. We can look at Yellowknife as the big one, but we must never forget the smaller communities and we will always lobby and do whatever we can to make sure they know they’re being supported.”
During the major evacuations in August, the GNWT announced assistance for businesses through the Support for Entrepreneurs and Economic Development (SEED) Policy. Eligible businesses were originally eligible to receive $5,000 to help with income loss, property damage or increased costs due to the wildfires and evacuations. That was recently increased to as much as $20,000, depending on the community.
“It was much appreciated to see the GNWT make some moves,” said Grey. “Something is always better than nothing and they recognized that disruption for businesses. The response from the government needs to be multifaceted because there is no one-trick pony that will solve the problems facing small businesses.”
When asked what governments can do besides offer short-term relief, Grey said solutions could be both economical and skill-based.
“Grant money is badly needed,” he said. “There could be ‘shop local’ campaigns in communities — I know some communities have already started those and that’s great to see. For the mom-and-pop locations, they may need some marketing help. Giving out money may not be the only answer because there’s more assistance needed than just that.”
Grey also suggested loan forgiveness as an option to ease the burden on small businesses.
“The evacuations put some businesses in a position where they’re struggling to meet financial obligations,” he said. “There could be an opportunity for institutions to help people out take the stress off, especially for those businesses that paid their employees during the evacuation. Those businesses had to dip into reserves or savings to do that, so we mustn’t forget them.”
One of the initiatives that the chamber is working on is getting a new executive director in place to fill the role formerly held by James O’Connor. His final day with the chamber was on Oct. 12 after 14 months in the position.
“I have very much enjoyed my time with the NWT Chamber, advocating for and working with its fantastic board of directors,” stated O’Connor in an e-mail to NNSL Media. “However, coming into the position just after the country reopened from Covid, and given the NWT’s subsequent economic struggles and a summer of wildfire evacuations, it’s been a challenge to fully execute my strategies for the organization.”
As a matter of full disclosure, O’Connor provided bi-weekly columns on behalf of the chamber to NNSL Media for publication during his employment.
Grey said the chamber’s board would hold a meeting to determine the next steps on finding a new executive director.
“Once we’ve done that, we will release that information,” he said.
The Chamber's 50th anniversary gala takes place at the Explorer Hotel, Oct. 27.