Chamber News
WCC’s Continued Advocacy Efforts
When various business organizations and levels of government began considering the concept of a vaccine passport, our members, community organizations and media reached out to the Whitby Chamber of Commerce (WCC) requesting our point of view. Instead of making assumptions, we agreed the best approach was to poll our members. With both the Ajax Chamber of Commerce and Greater Oshawa Chamber of Commerce doing the same, our plan was to ask the same questions and aggregate the data to get a solid number of responses to represent your collective point of view.
Sent to the individual listed as the main contact for each of our members, the WCC provided context (an overview of the federal vaccine passport concept and an alternative, but similar concept developed by the Toronto Board of Trade) and then asked 4 simple questions. Thank you to all those that took a moment to guide our advocacy efforts! We are finding polls versus lengthy surveys to be very helpful to get a quick pulse from our membership.
Since having sent the poll, many public announcements have been made regarding mandatory vaccinations or proof of a negative COVID test, from MLSE, LIVEnation, post-secondary schools and I would imagine these announcements will continue, including the Provincial government confirming on Aug. 17th that certain business categories are mandated to create policies for vaccination and testing. The issue will remain polarizing, but the chamber will do its best to represent the membership. We haven’t yet made any specific decisions for our events, but since March 2020 implemented precautions to ensure throughout this time in-person events, celebrations, grand openings, milestone celebrations and office operations keep our team and guests as safe as possible. Throughout this time, we’ve been open, active and will continue to do our best to ensure our programming & advocacy efforts support you.
We’ll continue to monitor and thank you again for reading the materials provided and responding so thoughtfully, and in the best interests of our community.
– Natalie Prychitko, CEO, Whitby Chamber of Commerce