A message for tough times
Beatty calls for collaboration in the face of growing challenge
TRURO, N.S. – Perrin Beatty warns there are tough times ahead and it’s extremely important that people work together.
“We go through cycles, some of which can be very painful,” said the president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
“The railway blockades cost hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars and COVID-19 will be even worse.
“We’re seeing serious impacts from COVID-19 and we want to help businesses develop their own plans in preparing for a pandemic. In our office, staff take laptops home at night. We could run things from homes if necessary.”
Beatty was in Truro as guest speaker at the Truro and Colchester Chamber of Commerce’s annual general meeting March 11.
He pointed out effects of the virus show how globally interconnected people are. When SARS struck, China accounted for six per cent of the world GDP, today it’s 16 per cent.
“The drop in oil prices will have massive impacts, with unemployment and social benefits going up,” he said.
Beatty, a member of the government that brought in the Canada-u.s. Free Trade Agreement in 1994, sees many changes in the relationship between the two countries.
“It was based on the premise that we share so much in common that never would there be an instance when one of the two parties would turn on the other and try to damage the other. Today we can’t take anything for granted and we continue to see protectionist, if not isolationist, tendencies from long-time trading partners like the United States.”
Beatty said everyone, including business, has a role to play in finding a solution to the climate crisis, and that “fighting climate change and a strong economy are not mutually exclusive goals.”
He pointed out Canada has dropped on the global competitiveness rankings, listed at 14 in 2019, and went down in the World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings from being number seven in 2008, to 23rd.
“It seems that Canada’s problems, in some ways, are compounding by the week,” he said. “The good news is, that in my 13 years in the Canadian chamber, I’ve never seen the business community more galvanized than it is today, more willing to work together.
“This is far from the first time that we’ve had to confront threats that seemed existential. In the last century
alone, we were forced to deal with a global depression, with pandemics, with two world wars and with a protracted struggle between nuclear arms superpowers with a capacity to destroy every living organism on earth. History provides no guarantees for our future success, but it does demonstrate that the gravest challenges often produce the most transformative leaders. Let’s never forget that for all of our challenges, we Canadians remain the most fortunate people anywhere on the planet.”
He added the challenge is to ensure the country has leaders with the vision, principle and strength of purpose to achieve its potential.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has a pandemic preparedness for business section on its website at http:// www.chamber.ca/resources/ pandemic-preparedness/
“The good news is, that in my 13 years in the Canadian chamber, I’ve never seen the business community more galvanized than it is today, more willing to work together.”
Perrin Beatty