Saint John Region Chamber Of Commerce Celebrates 200 Years
SAINT JOHN– While the Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce staff were digging through the New Brunswick Museum archives for material to help commemorate the organization’s 200th anniversary, they had a startling realization.
“Do you realize that those of us in this room today are the last generation that will even be able to read that history?” asked Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce CEO David Duplisea, to a packed room at the chamber’s celebratory luncheon on Friday.
“Cursive writing is no longer taught, and we decided that because of this, it’s time we created a digital archive for the future.”
In their comb-through of the museum’s archives, staff found photographs and written texts – many of which they collected into a digital timeline now hosted on the Saint John Region Chamber’s website, and also highlighted in a video presentation at Friday’s event.
“We are the keeper of the keys,” said Duplisea to the attendees. “It’s an enduring and evolving institution and it will continue to endure and evolve as we go through.”
The Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce was founded on April 5, 1819, when a group of local business leaders met at Mr. Cody’s Coffee house on the southeast corner of King and Prince William Streets in the city’s uptown. They wanted to form an association to correspond with similar groups in other provinces and the Public Department in England.
Though it has seen many changes, 200 years to the day, the Saint John Region Chamber of Commerce is still going strong and is a prominent advocate for business in the region.
Premier Blaine Higgs delivered the keynote address at the anniversary lunch. His speech focused on what his minority government was doing and planned to do to help the province’s economy. He talked about how the government plans to balance the budget and start paying down the province’s $14.1-billion debt, developing the province’s energy sector and addressing New Brunswick’s labour shortage.
He also spoke about how people should expect more from government departments when seeking responses to their questions and drew a comparison to his time working for Irving Oil.
“Our goal is to provide better service in government. This comes from a culture I grew up in. Irving Oil had a motto ‘service means everything’, ‘The customer means everything’, ‘The customer is always right,'” said Higgs, during his speech. “My goal is to satisfy the customers. Who are the customers? The taxpayers in the province.”
Higgs also talked about the importance of reducing ‘red tape’ for New Brunswick businesses.
“It’s been an overarching kind of things for years that government is going to reduce red tape,” said Higgs, in an interview with media after the event. “What is it in their particular business that makes it difficult for them to succeed and how do we take that particular item and deal with it? Let’s not keep using generalities. Let’s start taking one specific [item] at a time and dealing with it.’
He said it was important for him to speak at the Saint John Region Chamber’s 200th anniversary not only because it’s a huge milestone, but because of what the organization has represented.
“Going through history and what influence they had both in Saint John and New Brunswick and Canada,” said Higgs. “It states that New Brunswick always had potential. It’s always had influence.”