Since our founding in 2015, we've had the pleasure of sharing the MAPLE mission of promoting bilateral investment, trade, and entrepreneurship between Canada and the United States in British Columbia.
Together with Jason Tse, we've held many receptions, welcomed a business delegation from Southern California, an official delegation last year from the City of Long Beach, California, hosted Stephen Cheung, President of World Trade Center LA, and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Vancouver Winter Games with the Canadian Olympic Foundation at the BC Sports Hall of Fame. This summer we welcomed Senator Yuen Pau Woo to our first online member mixer where he shared insights on CUSMA/USMCA and his broader work on behalf of Canada.
Over the years, we have welcomed new members, forged partnerships and close working relationships with World Trade Center Vancouver, the U.S. Consulate General, Global Affairs Canada, and the B.C. Government among other economic development partners.
A testament to the strength of our local community was seen on March 12th this year when we held our last in-person networking event before the pandemic at Fasken's offices. Over 30 guests braved a fast-moving pandemic situation to join our event and hear a terrific presentation from Serge Corbeil, Air Canada's Director of Government Relations for Western Canada, who stepped in at the last moment when our speaker from Orange County was not able to travel. From that meeting, we actually met our newest Executive Member, Rhianon Chow of M Moser Associates, who joined MAPLE last week.
Under Jason's leadership and together with our members, partners and guests, we have created something very special in British Columbia. Thanks to everyone who has participated and contributed to our community in the region.
We are therefore excited to share with you that we have made MAPLE British Columbia a chapter of MAPLE Business Council with Jason Tse as Executive Director.
Our mission and scope of work will remain the same - promoting British Columbia's economic ties with the United States with a focus on Southern California and New York where our community is in-market and activating business connections across sectors.
Formalizing our work under a chapter status underlines our commitment to Vancouver and all of British Columbia with a larger role for Jason to connect executives, entrepreneurs, investors, service providers, academia and government leaders together for meaningful cross-border conversations.
As MAPLE continues from our base in Southern California and our new chapters in New York and now British Columbia, all of our members benefit from access to our entire network, programming and content as well as increased networking within each chapter market too.
We look forward to celebrating the growth of our MAPLE community in British Columbia at our upcoming B.C. Fall Online Reception on October 8th featuring Jason in conversation with U.S. Consul General D. Brent Hardt who recently moved to Vancouver to assume this key post.
As always, thank you for your continued participation and support.
Stephen Armstrong
Robert Kelle
Co-Founders