Welcome Message

The 2009/2010 Community Economic Development (CED) Trade, Service and Career Fair season is upon us and the schedule for this year’s trips is as follows:

November 19  – Arctic Bay

December 10   – Pond Inlet

February 17 – Sanikiluaq

March 22         – Pangnirtung

March 31         – Kimmirut

These CED – Trade, Service and Career Fairs are made possible thanks to the funding and support from the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Economic Development and Transportation.

As you see on the schedule, most of these events only require one day trips into the community.  The BRCC would like to encourage businesses and organizations to extend their time in the communities and will work with you to coordinate travel on a one way basis if necessary.

Between September 2010 and March of 2011, The CED Week – Trade, Service and Career Fairs will be visiting the Resolute Bay, Grise Fiord, Pangnirtung, Cape Dorset, Igloolik, Hall Beach and Qiqiktarjuaq.

Please contact us with any questions or concerns and we hope to see you on our stops around Baffin this year.

The Canadian and US Chambers of Commerce, along with 47 other business organizations, issued a joint border report entitled Finding the Balance: Shared Border of the Future.

Following up the issue of 2008's border report, this paper offers specific recommendations to reduce border costs in the short-term while increasing security at the border and competitiveness of all industries.

The report may be found on the Canadian Chamber's Web site at: www.chamber.ca.

The David Suzuki Foundation and Pembina Institute recently announced the release of a new joint publication for Candians who are interested in using carbon offsets to reduce their climate impact.

Purchasing Carbon Offsets: A Guide for Canadian Consumers, Businesses and Organizations aims to help Canadians choose carbon offsets that will most benefit the climate. The user-friendly guide is the first publication of its kind in Canada, and ranks 20 carbon offset vendors on the quality of the offsets they sell, as well as on some of their business practices.

While many Canadians are finding ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at home and at work, they are also turning to carbon offsets to deal with their remaining carbon footprint. Carbon offsets are credits for greenhouse gas emission reductions achieved by a project in another location, such as energy conservation and solar-power projects. These offsets can be purchased to compensate for emissions such as flying to a summer destination, driving a car, or heating and lighting a home or business.

The popularity and supply of carbon offsets have grown dramatically over recent years, and consumers are presented with a wide variety of carbon offset options, and online vendors to buy them from. However, not all carbon offsets are worth buying.

To help take the guesswork out of the selection process, Purchasing Carbon Offsets provides tips to help Canadians choose the highest quality offsets. For example, the best approach is to look for carbon offsets that meet a relatively strong independent offset standard, and to purchase offsets from projects like renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects, as these are most likely to result in high quality offsets.

Purchasing Carbon Offsets: A guide for consumers, businesses and organizations is available as a free download at: www.davidsuzuki.org/Publications/offset_vendors.asp

Good day,

It has come to our attention that there is a new competitor out in the marketplace who is aggressively targetting businesses with programs and service. This new group is called the Canadian Merchants Association.

In gathering information about this group since being notified, it has become apparent that part of this group's sales pitch is to ask merchants to submit statements and other documentation as a form of validation for review. In any situation, this is never a wise practice – providing information to an unknown party.

Further investigation indicates that this is a "third party" processor working on behalf of a US-based provider operating out of a call centre in the Montreal area.

If you find that your members are calling you about this, we would advise you to warn any merchant about submission of any documents (merchant or bank statements) to an entity that is unknown to them.

Also, besides varying rate offers which appear on this group's payment processing information, a merchant should be cautious about service and support from a provider with limited hours of operation (Mon to Fri, 9-5 - rather poor hours for retailers who work significantly more hours than that) and are foreign (US) based (all Canadian merchants are governed by domestic regulations).

And finally, forewarn anyone against dealing with an entity that does not have a physical presence or cannot represent themselves in person.

Each year the Nunavut Business Achievement Awards are held to recognize those usinesses who shine above the rest. The awards are open to any business in Nunavut. Nominations are given to the BRCC who then have a review committee who then decide based on a point scale the winners.

Congratulations to all of our winners of the 2009 Business Achievement Awards that were held at the Discovery Lodge on Wednesday May 6, 2009 sponsored by the Tower Group of Companies. It was a wonderful event, and all were pleased with the evening.

Categories and recipients

Special Achievement - Ray Lovell

Business of the Year - Boothia Ventures

Lifetime Achievement - Qikiqtaaluk Corporation

Special Recognition - The late Mike Hine

Business Person of the Year - Wilfred Wilcox