How the Chamber of Commerce is funded

The Town pays the Qualicum Beach Chamber of Commerce about $50,000 to $71,000 a year, mainly to run the visitor centre. Council approved the last two agreements in closed meetings. Other groups asking for yearly money went through the public process, and most got less than they asked for.

Each year the Town publishes every supplier it paid more than $25,000. These are the payments to the Chamber.

YearPaid to the Chamber
2017$60,094
2018$54,285
2019$50,453
2020$54,075
2021$64,575
2022$65,944
2023$55,119
2024$71,193
2025$61,950
  • Payments can include GST and smaller items beyond the agreement.
  • In 2025 the Town’s $59,000 was about a third of the Chamber’s revenue of $176,386, from the Chamber’s own accounts filed with Council in September 2026.

How the agreements were approved

  • 2024: a one-year agreement, decided in a closed meeting and made public on September 11, 2024. The amount wasn’t published.
  • 2025 to 2027: “$59,000 annual funding in 2025; $60,770 in 2026 and $62,593 in 2027”, plus a five-year lease of Town land at 2711 Island Highway West for the visitor centre, to June 30, 2030. Council decided both at a closed meeting on July 9, 2025. The public learned of them on September 17, 2025.
  • The only condition published is that the Chamber provide visitor services “from Friday of the Victoria Day Weekend to Labour Day seven (7) days per week”. The agreements, the lease and its rent haven’t been published, and we found no reporting requirements or staff review of the Chamber’s work.
  • Closed meetings don’t publish who attended or how each member voted. No member of Council has declared a conflict of interest on a Chamber item this term.

Other groups went through the public process

On June 18, 2025, Council told The Old School House to prepare a funding agreement “for presentation during the July 9, 2025, special Council in-camera meeting”. That is the closed meeting that approved the Chamber’s agreement. The Old School House’s went to public strategic planning instead.

GroupAsked forHow it was decidedGot
Chamber of Commerce Yearly funding and a lease Closed meeting $59,000 to $62,593 a year for three years
The Old School House arts centre $104,000 (2025–2026) Public: scoping sheets, committee, Council $50,000 (2026 only)
St. Stephen’s church parking lot $20,000 (2026) Public: scoping sheets, committee, Council $10,000, once
Biosphere Society: Leigh House rent About $24,000 (2026) Public: scoping sheets, committee, Council $24,000 budgeted for 2026 (2 years in all)

Two smaller Chamber requests did go through the public process in 2024: $3,100 for wayfinding signs, approved, and $18,900 to recruit health workers, which Council didn’t fund.

Visitors to the visitor centre

From the Chamber’s own reports to Council.

YearVisitors
201715,631
201814,558
201913,011
20204,942
20213,504
20225,494
20234,977
20243,883
20253,229

Visits fell by more than half in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and haven’t come back. The Chamber reported 4,005 visitors so far in 2026 when it spoke to Council in September.

Other support from the Town

  • The visitor centre site is exempt from property tax, worth about $2,337 in 2027.
  • In September 2022 the previous Council agreed to pay half the cost of a mobile visitor kiosk, up to $17,500.
  • In 2024 the Chamber ran the Town’s waterfront food-truck pads for a year, keeping about 15% of the rent as an administration fee.

What we couldn’t find

The agreements, the lease and its rent, what the Chamber reports back, and who attended the closed meetings. A freedom-of-information request to the Town would be the way to get them.

Related: Councillor Young and the Chamber · The Old School House request · When closed-meeting decisions are made public

Sources