With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1508543
32 BCBUSINESS.CA OCTOBER 2023 exactly what Bridgitte is saying. If you don't have successful and thriving businesses, you don't have successful and thriving communities. And that's what we need to have as our goal. What we believe in from a Telus perspective is social capital- ism. We believe that businesses bear a responsibility to do good in communities where they actually want to see outcomes for themselves as well. It's hard to do that when regulatory policies are punitive to you and are stressing and squeezing you. It's difficult to be a social capitalist organization in an environment like that. RC: And we live in a global world where people are look- ing to businesses to do those things. We've lived through it in the last number of years. We've seen people and business tak- ing care of communities. It's all about stakeholder engagement. Businesses have come to the table and have done a lot and will continue to do so. JS: When we talk about the Board of Trade, we represent all businesses. Small, medium and large businesses are equally important. I think it's easier sometimes for larger businesses to be successful and weather the storm. Small and medium businesses don't have the flexibility or runway. BCB: Are there any industries you're concerned about more than others? BA: I'm particularly concerned about retail and hospitality. They've been more impacted by COVID and some of the issues around mental health, wellness and some of the disruption on the streets in Downtown Vancouver. I have a friend who's a member of the GVBOT who has spent thousands of dollars every month on their store. They've replaced win- dows on an almost daily basis sometimes. They're trying to employ 70 people but at some point, the costs pile up too high and changes have to be made. The people who suffer are the employees. I'm also concerned about some of our larger mem- bers around regulatory frame- works, whether in forestry or energy. It all comes back to being a competitive environ- ment, and this jurisdiction isn't as competitive as others. We need to attract and retain busi- nesses. To do that, we need to make changes to make it easier for businesses to operate. RC: For any kind of regula- tory barriers, governments and businesses need to come together to see how we can remove them and dismantle them to allow for the future we want. When we talk about alignment, action and words, "YOU CHOOSE TO BE RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY. EVERYTHING YOU'RE GOING TO BUILD IS ON TRUST. IT'S ABOUT SHOWING UP, BEING RELIABLE AND CONTINUOUSLY DOING IT IN EVERY AREA YOU SAY YOU WILL. AND MAKING SURE YOUR ACTIONS ALIGN WITH YOUR WORDS.'" –Radha Curpen L E A D E R S H I P