Motion at AGM to sign up all chambers

At our May 15 Annual General Meeting, Todd Banks, the executive director of the Sherwood Park & District Chamber of Commerce, asked to have a new item of business added to the agenda. The item dealt with membership in the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) and the benefits of seeing every member of our 124-chamber federation join the national organization.

Todd introduced a motion to see other ACC chamber members contribute enough funds to cover the cost of the 88 Alberta chambers not currently members of CCC. They would join the 36 existing members to give Alberta the second-largest membership among Canada’s provinces and territories (only two members behind Ontario).

The money for the 2010 memberships has been raised, with the following chambers contributing funds: Camrose, St. Albert, Leduc, Lethbridge, Sherwood Park, Fort McMurray, Medicine Hat, Lloydminster, Red Deer, Fort Saskatchewan, Grande Prairie, Spruce Grove, Edmonton and Calgary.

All chambers in Alberta are now members of the Canadian Chamber for the remainder of 2010. This membership gives every chamber a vote at the Canadian Chamber’s upcoming AGM, whether in person or by proxy.

CCC gives the responsibility for assigning proxies to provincial chambers. As such, ACC is collecting proxies for chambers that don’t expect to send a representative to the national policy session.

With many Alberta chambers sending delegates to CCC’s AGM, as well as proxy assignments from chambers unable to have their own delegates at the conference, Alberta can forge a particularly strong voting presence on the floor of this year’s policy session.

In past years, Alberta has had the third-largest provincial voting delegation by ensuring all 32 to 36 Alberta chambers were represented. This year the potential is for a much greater voting presence, depending on the number of proxy votes chambers allow us to assign to attending Alberta delegates.