The Kamloops Chamber of Commerce is holding an local all candidates forum online tonight so Kamloopsians and business people can get a read on what the potential MLA’s will do for businesses in our city.

Chamber President Tyson Andrykew said, while appearing on the NL Morning News, that he’s concerned that small businesses are being left out in the cold. “We’re curious as to what these candidates and what these parties are going to do for small business moving forward.”

“I think there’s been a lot of talk from all parties but specifically we want to make sure that our local candidates here in Kamloops are going to be loud voices for us in the Legislature moving forward.”

“You know, we’re going into a really uncertain time these next few months and we need our candidates locally here to be held accountable to our members here and to make sure that they’re pushing for small business.”

Coincidentally, it is small business week and Andrykew was asked what he’d like to see specifically from the province to help small businesses through the pandemic. “We want to make sure that there’s some direct funding support going to businesses.”

“I know there was some talk in the leader’s debate last week about the small and medium size business grant but quite frankly, it’s not enough, I think it’s a ten thousand to thirty thousand dollar grant, it sounds like it’s a pretty arduous sign up process.”

“We’re really hoping that there’s going to be more support from the Provincial Government over the next six months or so, just to insure that we don’t have significant business loss over the winter.”

Tonight’s forum starts at 7:00 with the Kamloops North Thompson candidates followed by the Kamloops South Thompson candidates at 8:00.

Andrykew says if you want to participate, you can do so by registering online at the Chamber’s website.