The Whistler Chamber of Commerce is behind three white papers to be presented at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's annual general meeting, taking place in Kelowna from Sept. 28 to 30.
If passed, the policies will be presented by the Canadian Chamber to the federal government.
The new CEO of the chamber, Val Litwin, will be on hand to outline the three policy resolutions:
• Improving air access for the benefit of the economy calls for both provincial and federal governments to negotiate more open skies policies to create a fair opportunity for those willing to provide air access to Canadian cities, particularly in western provinces, and to liberalize existing bilateral agreements with an emphasis on removing restrictive and/or anti-competitive clauses, foreign ownership restrictions and additional fees, taxes and charges;
• Enhancing working holiday visas is part of the solution to the Canada's labour shortage called for the federal government to continue the present bilateral agreement with Australia that allows a Working Holiday Visa with duration of two years and to create a similar arrangement, modelled on the Canadian-Australian bilateral agreement, with other countries that include the U.K., Ireland and New Zealand;
• Streamlined visa process is required to boost visitation to Canada from emerging economies called for the federal government to streamline the visa application and approval process, while at all times ensuring necessary security checks are performed, for those travelling from emerging economies such as China and India, in order to boost tourism to Canada from those markets at a time when demand is increasing.
The policy resolutions were previously passed by the 250 members of the BC Chamber after being presented by former chamber CEO Fiona Famulak at their annual meeting in May.
The papers were put together as part of a partnership with Tourism Whistler.
