What is the Chamber's Purpose Anyway?

It's been on my mind for a long time now...

As some of you know already, I've been a member of the Chamber of Commerce since 2003, as the prinicpal owner of the IT consulting and personnel firm, RGX Systems.  I've always had some concerns about the Chamber as a whole.  And a lot of it starting to be well founded.

My biggest concern about the Chamber of Commerce is simply the thought that the organization is turning into a one-trick pony, constantly complaining about corporate taxes and any form of tax.  The Chamber has continuously avoided opportunity after opportunity to take the lead in advising their members to invest their profits into continuous improvement. 

What's their cure for the need to update production equipment and improve productivity?  They don't encourage investment in R&D.  They don't encourage companies to use their profits to buy new equipment.  They don't encourage them to retrain their employees to improve productivity.  They don't do any of this.  They simply lobby the feds for more tax cuts.  This is hardly a sustainable solution and only plays into the neo-con hands in their anarchistic vision of every man for himself, an antithesis to their phony espousing of Christian values.

The Globe and Mail declares that this apparently is our time to lead, but how does one lead without taking action or even taking risks.  You can't lead from behind and we certainly can't wait for others to act if we are to take the lead in anything.  And you certainly can't lead without taking some risks.  It's all about doing something different, unheard of.  It's about finding a greater challenge and overcoming it despite the odds.  By nature, Canadians have an aversion to risk, making it difficult to show the way, because nobody wants to assume the risks associated with taking a new direction.

Which brings to the question that has been on my mind for a long long time:  When will the Chamber start looking beyond taxation and start inspiring so-called business leaders to actually lead for a change?  Taxes are only part of it.  We need to have an adult discussion on the need to take some risks, to invest in us for a change and we need to start talking about how we can stop just doing it and start learning to do it better.
I would hate to think that the Chamber is a one-trick pony.  But in the end, when they do speak to the public, this is all we hear.