Year In Review: Krista Ross On Fredericton Businesses Blossoming During Tough Times
To cap off 2022, Huddle sat down with some of the key figures in Atlantic Canada’s business community – folks representing everyone from tourism operators to energy producers to the startup world.
We asked each to reflect on the challenges, successes, and surprises that most impacted their industries and the lives of Atlantic Canadians this year.
In the latest of several conversations we will bring you before the new year, Mark Leger, the director of news content with Acadia Broadcasting and Huddle, chatted with Krista Ross, the CEO of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce.
Her answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What is the coolest thing that happened in the Fredericton business community or economy?
Under challenging circumstances and during a difficult time, we’ve seen our business community grow. We have seen many new businesses open, businesses expand, and our membership has grown. There’s Coastline, a new gourmet pizza place on the north side; The Squeeze, a great cafe downtown; Consciously Clean Refillery, which just opened a couple of weeks ago; The 10 Spot, a great new spa downtown, which I have personally visited and can vouch for; The Roticana Café — I’m sure you’re familiar with Roticana Coffee, you featured Mohamed Khirallah in Huddle many times. He’s opened a cafe downtown and St. James Gate, which is an amazing restaurant located at the West Hills golf course.
These are just a few examples of frontline businesses that are very visible in the community. Field Trip Health is another very interesting business. They help and support people with PTSD and trauma with prescribed psychedelics. So there are all kinds of new businesses that have opened, and these are challenging times.
Q: What is the most significant challenge the local economy faced? What impact did it have and how did the community respond?
The biggest thing that we hear from our members, and the biggest challenge to business and to the economy, has really been workforce challenges. Businesses have struggled to find the right people and to fill vacant positions.
In addition to that, workforce challenges include housing and health care. These have been significant issues, not just in our community but across the province and from coast to coast. And they’re not issues that are going to be solved overnight. But the business community and the government are working towards solutions to these challenges because they’re huge.
Q: And these issues are all interconnected – finding the right people and having the right housing supports in place and coping with inflation.
Absolutely, all those things are connected. And they impact our small businesses as well. If they’re looking to hire people, inflation is up, they’re having supply chain issues; they find people but the person can’t find housing – it’s just all connected.
As we move into 2023, these are areas our members are concerned about and we’re working with them. We’re even doing things like providing job listings on the chamber website, which isn’t something that we had done in the past but is something that we’re working on now.
We’re also finding ourselves even better connections, and being better connected with the international students and helping them to make really robust connections into our business community because they are the potential workforce. We have signed memorandums of understanding with the various student unions and invite their members to attend our chamber events, and all of our networking events so that they can come and meet businesspeople and make connections.
So those are the types of things that we’re working towards, but these are big challenges.
Q: How do you think the local business community most impacted the lives of people in Fredericton in 2022?
Our vision is a stronger community through business prosperity. So, how we see businesses connecting to the community is that when businesses are successful, the community is successful. If people support local businesses, that creates jobs and it grows the economy; it supports the sports teams and the community activities that are happening in our community and it also pays the taxes that allows governments to provide the services that we need.
What we really need to remember, and I’ve said this so many times over the last couple of years, is there’s never been a better time or a more important time for our communities to support the local businesses. As we enter 2023, we need to be reminding people of this, the challenges that businesses and our community and our residents have faced over the last couple of years, that’s not done.
A lot of businesses are heading into 2023 carrying significant debt that they took on during the pandemic and we need to support them. Businesses experience inflation the same way that consumers do: their costs go up, their labour costs go up, their supply costs go up, their rent goes up — all the things that impact consumers also impact businesses.
We need to make conscious decisions to support the businesses in our communities if we want them to be there in the next year, and the following year, and in the future. That is how businesses impact the lives of the people in our communities. But it’s also how the people in the community can impact the growth and the future of the business community and the community at large.
Q: What excites you most about what’s to come in 2023?
Just continuing to see our community grow, to see new businesses start, to see businesses expanding, to see immigration continue to grow, and increased retention of immigrants.
I’m really excited to see the performing arts centre and the courthouse project and see what kind of impact that’s going to have and what it will drive in our community because I think it’s going to be a huge driver. And I’m excited to see what’s going to happen in terms of residential growth, and in the exhibition project, all kinds of things that I think are coming in the next year that I’m excited about.
It’s been a pretty tough couple of years, so seeing regrowth, and new businesses blossoming, it’s amazing.