The Dean of Business and Economics at TRU says he brought up a concern for the future of young people in a meeting with a federal cabinet minister yesterday.
Mike Henry was one of several Kamloops Chamber of Commerce members who met with Joyce Murray yesterday, Canada’s Treasury Board president and Minister of Digital Government.
Henry says he wants an economy that keeps more TRU grads in Kamloops.
“One theme that kept coming up is not everything happens in Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver. Whether we’re talking about regional economic development; we had a good discussion about supporting women and female entrepreneurs,” he says.
“We need to keep reminding our governments in Victoria and Ottawa that the centre of the universe is not Toronto. And while Vancouver and the Lower Mainland are really important to our province, so is the Interior. And because we’re regional, we don’t have the scale that some of those have.”
Henry says the Interior needs a different approach to policy than larger metropolitan areas in order for the region to maximize its economic potential.
Meanwhile, Murray says the feedback heard from business people in the city will be brought to the federal Treasury Board. She says what her government needs to do is make sure options for skills training are accessible in regional centres like Kamloops.