A packed house of mostly Airdrie business people was on hand yesterday (June 20) at the Woods Restaurant to hear Mayor Peter Brown's thoughts on the past year and his preview of what's ahead for businesses in the city at the annual State of the City Address luncheon, hosted by the Airdrie Chamber of Commerce.  

Chamber Interim Executive Director Marie Lauer says Mayor Brown went over the strategic priorities the city has and how they would affect business primarily.

"It was really exciting to hear the plans for the future and where the city is headed," Lauer says.

Brown also spent some time talking about the challenges ahead for Airdrie business, particularly when it comes to dealing with certain levels of government and the changes which have been imposed on business. 

"The Mayor has been involved in the Chamber in the past," says Lauer, "He was on the board so he has a very good grasp and understanding of the challenges businesses face generally and I think he's very well aware, given his presentation today, of the challenges businesses are facing as a result of some of the decisions being made at various levels of government."

One of those challenges is the increasing minimum wage in Alberta.  The Airdrie Chamber has joined with the Alberta Chamber of Commerce and other chambers around the province to advocate to keep the wage where it is now and not increase it to $15 per hour on October 1st.  Lauer says Brown brought that subject up as well during his address.

"I was pleased that the Mayor did take the time to address our advocacy work which was of course just recent with the minimum wage changes.  He did congratulate our president on doing that on behalf of local business.  He was very positive in his comments and, again, I think he has a really good understanding of the impact that those changes have on business people."

Lauer says the Chamber doesn't believe in preventing people from making a good standard of living or being paid for their work in the way they should be. 

"It's more about how quickly the changes have been made and in addition to the other changes that have been made that, altogether, have had a significant impact on our businesses bottom line.  I feel it's important just to qualify that because some people think we're against paying people fair value and we're absolutely not.  We as a Chamber are supporting our businesses and what that means is we have to allow them to earn a living so they, in turn, can hire people and pay them a decent wage,"

Lauer says the businesses represented at the luncheon, for the most part, left feeling energized and looking forward to the future. 

"Of course, if you listen to Mayor Brown, it's hard not to come away feeling positive because he is such a staunch supporter of our community and our business community more specifically."

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