Your Business
Canadian business owners believe shrinking their environmental footprint is the right thing to do, even if they have to pay the tab. That’s one of the key findings in a new national study by Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC). For A...
Quick, name a few male CEOs who founded the company they lead. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tobi Lütke—there’s no shortage of dudes. OK, now name some female founding CEOs. Not so easy, hey? Shahrzad Rafati is the right person to help change that...
In response to the disproportionate barriers to success experienced by Black entrepreneurs, national nonprofit Futurpreneur Canada just announced a new financing program tailored for young Black business owners. The Black Entrepreneur Startup Program offers $5,000 to $60,000 of loan financing to successful applicants. This new funding collaboration with Royal Bank of Canada and Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) aims to “foster greater equity and diversity among Canada’s entrepreneurs, with enhancements that will help address the systemic barriers to capital...
From Richmond to Terrace to Canoe, local small business have soldiered on in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 Small Business BC Awards just celebrated those efforts by announcing a total of 30 top five finalists in six categories. Despite COVID challenges, the competition received a record 937 nominations representing 558 small businesses in 88 communities. (Some entrants were nominated in several categories.) Nominees had until March 8 to gather as many votes as they could from the...
The disparities of COVID-19’s impact are stark and shocking. Here in B.C. and around the world, the pandemic has disproportionately impacted women and worsened the inequalities they already faced. Women’s participation in the Canadian job market has fallen to its lowest level in three decades. Between February and October of last year, more than 20,000 women fell out of the workforce, while 68,000 men joined it. Almost one year into the pandemic, women continue to bear the brunt of unpaid...
Maybe you can relate to Riaz Meghji’s story of his lonely childhood as a socially anxious introvert who seemed destined not to fit in. “I was a shy kid,” the veteran broadcaster and television host recalls of growing up in North Delta. “And when I looked around, I felt like I didn’t have my place, I didn’t have this sense of belonging.” In Grade 10, that all changed for Meghji when he watched his brother perform in an improvisational theatre...
After graduating from UBC Okanagan with a bachelor’s degree in business management and a minor in psychology, Candice Loring spent some time working in finance in West Kelowna before she went back to school. Well, kinda. Loring switched career paths to...
You’re the owner of a private company. While perusing social media posts, you chance upon a photo of an employee clearly taken several years earlier. He’s smiling, beer in hand—and parading around in blackface. What do you do? Disclosure: I have...
It may not fix Western alienation, but it’s a welcome move. To better support B.C. businesses, the federal government recently proposed opening a regional economic development agency focused on the province. The country’s seventh, the new agency would operate separately from Western Economic Diversification Canada, which currently serves B.C. and the Prairies...
The lacrosse stick propped against the wall of John Horgan’s Victoria office spoke loudly: the premier casts himself as a man of the people, but he also knows how to play hardball. In his keynote speech at this year’s Premier and Cabinet Connect, hosted virtually by the BC Chamber of Commerce, Horgan justified the BC NDP’s recent early election gamble, which saw his party win a commanding majority. The premier also pitched an optimistic vision of economic recovery with Indigenous...