ALASKA HIGHWAY NEWS
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2020 | NEWS | A5
ALASKA HIGHWAY NEWS
A10 | NEWS | THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2020 No gaming revenue Shuttered casinos means no gaming revenue for the City of Fort St. John in the first quarter of 2020. The province ordered all casinos and gaming centres closed on March 16 because of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, the city will see no gaming money for the period between April 1 and June 30. The province saw $2.14 million in gaming revenues in Fort St. John during the same period in 2019, and $214,590 was paid out to the city. Gaming revenues have long supported the operations of the Pomeroy Sport Centre, with a portion also planned to support a new community foundation for disbursement to community groups. In the letter, Truong said the province hopes to release details soon of its share of federal funding for municipalities dealing with the economic fallout of the pandemic.
August land sales modest While B.C. and Alberta land sales remain suspended, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are continuing to hold auctions, albeit the returns are modest, the Daily Oil Bulletin reports. Saskatchewan auctioned 5,762 hectares for $2.39
Insight into the movements of Williston lake trout Chelsea Coady Alaska Highway News A four-year, FWCP-funded project on lake trout in the Williston Reservoir is now complete and the outcomes give us more insight into the behaviour and movements of lake trout in the reservoir, which until now were largely unknown. However, more work is still needed which is why we have developed new priority actions related to lake trout in our updated Rivers, Lakes and Reservoirs Action Plan. The action plan identifies priority actions eligible for FWCP funding and will guide our funding decisions for the next five years. The project, led by Diversified Environmental Services in collaboration with Carleton University, aimed to better understand reproductive behaviour and movement of lake trout, and potential interactions they may have with the provincially Blue-listed (vulnerable) bull trout. This million at its Aug. 11 sale, an average of $414.92 per hectare. That compares to $442,125.39 generated in June at an average of $102.53/ha. In Manitoba, nine lease parcels covering 480 hectares were sold for $18,470.24, or $38.48/ha. There were 52 rigs active
DIVERSIFIED ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES
This mature male lake trout, weighing 6.31 kilograms, was one of 60 fish tagged as part of the project.
information can then be used to inform conservation and management actions for the species. With the creation of the Williston Reservoir, the previous riverine habitat changed to a large, deep, cold body of water and lake trout thrive in this type of habitat. Populations of lake trout may be increasing as a result, and may be competing with, or impacting, other species. In natural systems, they typically spawn in the fall on cobble shoals and shorelines, however, in the reservoir, water levels may fluctuate up in Western Canada as of Aug. 17, with 454 down, according to Rig Locator. There are 35 rigs active in Alberta, 14 in B.C., and three in Saskatchewan. Last year during the same week, 161 rigs were active, and 388 down. editor@ahnfsj.ca
PUBLIC HEARING
Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 2524, 2020 DATE: AUGUST 24, 2020 TIME: 6:00 p.m. LOCATION: City Hall Council Chambers The City is proposing to amend Zoning Bylaw No. 2470, 2019 in the following manner: Section 3.0 Definition, be amended by adding the following: HARM REDUCTION SERVICES: means policies and programs which attempt primarily to reduce the adverse health, social and economic consequences of mood-altering substances to individual drug users, their families and communities, without requiring a decrease in drug use. Such services are managed by provincial Health Authorities in co-operation with community partners that provide designated space, either integrated in existing health or social care settings or in newly established locations. For the purposes of this Bylaw Harm Reduction Services does not include a Supervised Consumption Facility. SUPERVISED CONSUMPTION FACILITY: means a use that is a federally regulated and within a medically supervised building where drug users can inject or inhale pre-obtained illegal drugs. For the purposes of this Bylaw, this use includes overdose prevention services. Section 3.0 Definition, Health Services Facility be repealed and replaced with the following: HEALTH SERVICES FACILITY means a building used for the provision of physical or mental health services offered by qualified professionals on an out-patient basis. Services may be of a preventative, diagnostic, treatment, therapeutic, rehabilitative or counseling nature. Typical uses include but are not limited to medical and dental offices, chiropractors, massage therapists, optometrists, acupuncture clinics, naturopaths, physical therapy clinics, health clinics, art and music therapy and counseling services. Health services facility does not include a hospital, a veterinary clinic or supervised consumption facility. 4.0 General Regulations – 4.2 Prohibited Uses be amended by adding the following: 4.2.1 b. Supervised Consumption Facility A copy of the proposed bylaw and related documents may be inspected at City Hall – 10631 – 100 Street, Fort St. John, BC between the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. from August 11 to 24, 2020. Residents who wish to comment on this proposed bylaw amendment, can submit them in one of the following ways: • Mailing or hand delivering to City Hall located at 10631 – 100 Street, Fort St. John, BC V1J 3Z5 Attention: Janet Prestley, Director of Legislative and Administrative Services by Friday, August 21, 2020, • by email to legislativeservices@fortstjohn.ca by Friday, August 21, 2020, or • attend the Public Hearing on Monday, August 24, 2020 at 6:00 pm. Written comments received will be distributed to Council for their consideration at the hearing.
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Those members of the public in attendance at the hearing will be allowed to make presentations to Council or to present written submissions respecting matters contained in the proposed bylaw.
to 17 metres, preventing lake trout from doing so. The project discovered that lake trout don’t have a problem spawning well below the reservoir’s drawdown zone. Sixty adult lake trout, mostly in the Peace Reach of Williston Reservoir, were captured and implanted with acoustic transmitters as part of the project, and their movements were recorded by fixed acoustic hydrophone receivers, resulting in more than 917,000 detections. The results indicate that Peace Reach adults made seasonal movements to the west end of the reach during early
to mid-summer, and back again in the fall. A preliminary analysis also suggests that bull trout generally occupy shallower depths than lake trout. This may indicate that bull trout are being excluded from deeper water by the presence of lake trout, or that the two species are selecting different habitats. More work is planned—and forgive the pun—to dive deeper into this question and further data is expected to become available in 2021. If you have a project idea, see if it aligns with a priority action in any of our recently updated, ecosystem-based action plans at fwcp.ca/region/peace-region. We are now accepting grant applications. The deadline to submit your project idea for our mandatory notice of intent is September 11. Chelsea Coady is the Peace Region manager for the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program. Email her at chelsea. coady@bchydro.com.
How to create wealth
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ast year I launched my own investment fund as Portfolio Manager. Consequently I have been spending significant time mulling over various investment ideas. I have kicked the tires on a lot of potential investments. I have even taken second and third looks at ideas that I have previously dismissed for individual clients, thinking that perhaps they might have a specific role to play in a larger investment pool. Some of the things I have looked at are fairly exotic. But when it comes right down to it, despite the innumerable things you can do with your money, there are only are only a handful of reasons why you would own an investment. The most common ones are growth, income, liquidity, capital preservation, diversification, or even speculation. At least those are objective reasons. When it comes to investing the most important thing is to make decisions that are consistent with your financial objectives. Nothing else even comes close. As I have been analyzing various investment opportunities, my core beliefs have been reinforced. Fundamentally, in order to accumulate wealth you need to own assets that increase in value. As my friends at Value Partners Investments say, the most certain way to create wealth is through the ownership of profitable businesses Owning profitable businesses might seem like something that is good in theory but hard to accomplish, but it is actually very simple. You can purchase shares of publicly traded businesses through the stock market, and you can do this easily with mutual funds or exchange traded funds. So lets not worry about the “how” for now, and focus on the “why”. The most profitable businesses are difficult to live without, difficult to compete with, difficult to replicate. I will use some examples to illustrate. Let’s say that you have a choice between investing in a Canadian bank, or a marijuana company. The first criteria is whether the business is difficult to live without. Could you live without a bank in your life? It would be hard. Banking is how we receive money, and
BRAD BRAIN how we pay it out. It’s where we go to borrow money when we buy a house. It’s where our savings account, and chequing account, and line of credit, and car loan, and credit card, and foreign currency exchange, and mortgage all live. The second criteria is whether the business is difficult to compete with. How would a competitor compete with a Canadian bank? I am not sure. There are international banks, but they don’t have the same presence in Canada. There is technology, but Canadian banks are embracing technology too. Canadian banks are 800-pound gorillas. Pretty hard to compete with. The third criteria is whether the business is difficult to replicate. Canadian banks have billions of dollars in assets, coast-to-coast infrastructure, and are federally regulated. It would be extremely difficult for a new entrant to take away market share. Let’s contrast the Canadian bank with a marijuana company. Can you live without marijuana? For millions of Canadians the answer is yes. Is it difficult to compete with? Not at all. Most of the market share is still on the black market. Is it difficult to replicate? Nope, you can grow your own. So guess what the implications for profitability are? No surprise, the Canadian banks are making billions of dollars in profit, while the marijuana companies are losing money. This is what we look at to define what makes a good business. But our work is not done yet. What makes a good business a great investment is the price that you pay. Get these things right and you are on your way to creating wealth. Brad Brain, CFP, R.F.P., CIM, TEP is a Certified Financial Planner in Fort St John, BC. This material is prepared for general circulation and may not reflect your individual financial circumstances. Brad can be reached at www. bradbrainfinancial.com.