We are all so ready for this pandemic to end.  To see people again – other than over a computer screen. To travel and to get back to business.   Businesses are increasingly desperate. Many small businesses, in particular, have exhausted their cash reserves and reached their debt limits.   That’s why governments will need to work alongside the business community in an effort to rebound from the devastating economic scarring of COVID-19. This means developing a strategy and economic recovery plan that focuses on major economic growth. A growth-focussed plan will unlock economic capacity, fuel job creation and promote new business investment. Working together, we can produce a recovery that is inclusive, environmentally responsible and innovative.   In a recent recording of the Oakville Chamber’s “CONVERSATIONS” with Perrin Beatty, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC), Perrin emphasized the Chamber’s eagerness to reopen our economy as quickly as possible once we get to a threshold of vaccinated Canadians. On behalf of the Chamber Network, the CCC will encourage the government to develop a plan setting out clear and data-driven policy directives as well as a strategy to catch up, economically, and as a trading nation, to the competition.  COVID has taught us some very costly, but very important lessons. This period of intense transformation has offered us up the opportunity to vault Canada to where we need to be, not back to where we were when the pandemic began. For example, we have adopted nearly a decade’s worth of digital change in less than a year, dramatically changing the nature of work and how businesses reach and interact with customers. We will need to build on that transformation.   The only path to a sustainable long-term recovery from the devastating economic scarring of COVID-19 passes will be through Canada’s job creators and business investors. With our enormous national debt, we can’t afford to be meek or tentative about addressing Canada’s lagging competitiveness.  Long-term growth is closely tied to getting Canada’s finances back under control as we begin to shift away from subsidies to economic growth. That said, some of our hardest-hit sectors will require targeted support as it will take them longer to recuperate.  Budget initiatives on longer-term competitiveness issues like interprovincial trade barriers, productivity, and reducing the regulatory burden in Canada will need to be at the top of the list as well as a focus on competing in the global economy.   The Oakville Chamber looks forward to working with our federal partners as we move out of the pandemic shutdowns towards a plan to help shape the recovery.    – Faye Lyons, Vice President of Government Relations & Advocacy