The Yukon’s chambers of commerce are exploring ways to enhance the values offered to their business members.

With new challenges, changing technology and a shifting business climate in the North, the chambers are mindful of the need to be forward-thinking and responsive to the needs of the business community, they said in a statement last Friday.

Currently there are a number of distinct chambers: the Yukon, Whitehorse, Dawson City, Watson Lake, Silver Trail and the St. Elias Chamber of Commerce.

“With their many successes, the chambers continuously seek ways that we can do better,” they said in the statement.

“We want to make sure we are responding to our members’ needs and that the chamber movement in the Yukon is a leader in innovation and efficiency.

“While all of the chambers have worked very well together, we believe that there is an opportunity to make the relationship between the chambers even stronger.

“We feel that this could result in a stronger, more unified voice on business issues going forward, to benefit both our members and the organizations that look to us for guidance.”

Stanley Noel is the past chair of the Yukon chamber and the chambers’ appointee to the board of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

He highlighted that the Canadian chamber board has spent time discussing the successes that other chambers had when they took on the tasks of “self-evaluation and renewal” to adjust to changes in their members needs.

“A chamber is like every business, in that it has to adapt to customer needs and constantly be willing to change,” Noel said.

“Businesses that fail to change inevitably fail. By undertaking this joint effort, we are being proactive to ensure that we remain relevant to our stakeholders.”

Mike Pemberton, the Whitehorse chamber’s chair, said there are many opportunities “to share resources and to work together.

“We know our members expect us to work together and find new ways to deliver more advocacy for the endless challenges that businesses are facing today.”

Mark Mather, the president of the Dawson chamber, said, “This is a really exciting conversation, looking to grow our network and collaborate with all Yukon chambers of commerce.

“We are all unique and have different needs, but there may be ways we can better serve those needs together using common resources and learning from each other.”

A steering committee made up of executive committee members from all Yukon chambers has been formed to examine this opportunity.

Its mandate is to “explore how we can further strengthen the chambers’ collective ability to better support our members and enable businesses to realize opportunities to build the Yukon economy while also strengthening the Chamber network in the Yukon,” the chamber said.