In case you missed it, a couple of news items featuring ICBA’s Chris Gardner:
- Chris was in the Peace recently, and spoke at the Fort St. John & District Chamber of Commerce AGM. His message: “This country is anti-investment, anti-business, anti-entrepreneur… it’s hurting our ability to generate wealth. [In BC,] we’re focussed on wealth redistribution, not wealth creation… Between 2014 and 2021, business investment declined by 20 per cent, versus an increase of 15 per cent in the United States. If you take the per capita GDP of BC, and rank it against the 50 US states, BC ranks 46th, and it’s getting worse,” Gardner said. “Outbound investment has exceeded inbound investment in Canada every year since 2014.” (North Peace/Broken Typewriter)
- Chris also spoke with ConstructConnect this week to talk about what’s driving group benefit costs: diabetes, dentists, and mental health: “As we came out of the pandemic, what we saw in terms of mental health was, if you look at drugs prescribed for depression, anxiety and attention deficit disorder (ADD), it is number one in terms of number of prescriptions on every single plan. About 40 per cent of all long-term disability claims are mental health related. All of that has a cost impact on benefit plans, and that was one of the reasons ICBA decided to develop a mental health and wellness program that’s designed specifically for construction professionals, in the ways that we talk about mental health and that it can reveal itself.” (Journal of Commerce)
