Chronicle - Fall 2009

FALL 2009

THE ALLIED PROPERTIES REIT TENANT MAGAZINE

QUEBEC CITY

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MONTREAL

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TORONTO

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TO EXTREME

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WINNIPEG

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KITCHENER

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Ad firm’s easy-going east coast attitude sets it apart from the Toronto crowd Montreal Outfitter Windigo introduces Europeans to Canada’s wildest places

8 Winnipeg’s Rescue Response School

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Inside the CFL’s Instant Replay Center

PLUS Montreal’s Macaroni Bar • Recruiting Sales Talent • Totum Fitness’ Magic Tape • Winnipeg’s Jackfish Media

TORONTO

TALENT HUNTER: Sonya Meloff in the firm’s Richmond St. West offices.

MEETING THE DEMAND FOR SALES TALENT Toronto-Vancouver recruiter building its brand in the niche sales placement category KING WEST CENTRAL, TORONTO / – An uncertain economy with a rising unemployment rate is not normally the fertile ground that will see a professional placement firm grow. But the Sales Talent Agency, on Richmond Street West (with another office in Vancouver), is not your garden variety recruitment agency.

Focused almost exclusively on recognizing and placing sales talent for top companies, this modest firm, which found its start two years ago as an outsourced recruitment resource for a major online media company, has added over 50 new clients to its roster in the last year while placing close to 300 sales people in positions across Canada.

“In a tenuous economy, large companies often look to gain market share so they want the best sales people available,” says partner Jamie Scarborough, explaining that unstaffed sales positions represent lost revenue potential.

Also, many top sales people are let go for reasons other than performance, particularly in an industry that’s suffering cut backs, so it’s a good time for companies to upgrade their sales team.

The combination of demand for talent along with a supply of qualified candidates means Scarborough, and Toronto partner Sonya Meloff, have been busy.

But finding a good sales person is not easy.

Both former Monster.ca executives, Scarborough and Meloff knew the recruiting market well before starting their firm in 2007. They also recognized a need for a firm specializing in finding sales talent.

“There’s no barrier to entry in sales. It’s not a professional designation, so you can be a sales person whether you’ve been doing it for one month or 20 years. And

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experience doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good at it,” says Meloff.

The Sales Talent Agency team is made of former sales people who are able to recognize sales proficiency, based in part on the firm’s candidate assessment process which looks at the person’s performance. A big personality is not necessarily indicative of future success, says Scarborough of the popular myth that good sellers are primarily people-persons.

“We look for someone who, at every stage in their career, has put into place very methodical practices to be successful,” he explains, adding that good sales people know that sales is not about what you are selling but rather about what the prospect is buying.

And right now, much of what the recruiting market wants is talented sales people. Poised to continue growing in the next year, Sales Talent Agency is leery of expanding too fast. Boutique firms often outgrow their niche markets just to become another player in a crowded marketplace, Scarborough explains.

“But our goal is to do what we’ve been doing on a micro scale. Then make it big.”

TOP INTERVIEW BLUNDERS When employers were asked about the most common interview blunders, more than half said dressing inappropriately was the biggest mistake a candidate could make.

Talking negatively about a current or previous employer came in second at 49% and third on the list, at 48%, was appearing disinterested. Other mistakes included appearing arrogant, not providing specific answers, and not asking good questions.

Source: Reuters.com

KING WEST CENTRAL, TORONTO / - When a restaurant produces authentic Italian fare, you can expect many of the ingredients to be proudly imported from the old country. But Buca, from Gus Giazitzidis and Peter Tsebelis who launched Brassaii and Jacobs & Co. Steakhouse, takes a slightly different approach.

Instead, it seeks to minimize the imports and concentrate on finding the freshest locally produced Ontario ingredients with which to make its very own pasta and even cure its own prosciutto, on site.

“We’re balancing authenticity with being environmentally friendly,” says executive chef Rob Gentile who has established his reputation with stints at both North 44 and Bymark.

“When you are a chef you pour so much time and passion into sourcing the right ingredients,” says Gentile who has tapped into the growing network of local growers and producers that have made the supply of fresh ingredients all the more plentiful for Torontonians.

“More customers are into locally grown products and care about that stuff. It means a lot that people are appreciating things more,” he says, explaining that it is often a matter of attending to details.

Take Buca’s water, for example. Rather then purchasing bottled water they will be doing all of their own purifying with special equipment on site, including making their own sparkling water.

Meanwhile, a walk-in curing room in the back slowly dries prepared cuts in the Salumerie tradition to be fashioned, after so many months, into a number of artisanal meats from pancetta to prosciutto. Gentile’s staff is also busy preserving and canning the summer’s fresh yields of peaches, cherries and tomatoes.

In terms of its menu, Buca promises to be very broad given that dishes are based on what product or ingredient is available at the time (menus will be printed daily).

For the more adventurous, some deeply traditional fare such as fried lamb’s brain and pig’s ear will recall truly

Buca’s on-site curing room.

exotic travel memories, while the less urbane might be cleanly satisfied with a Pizza a la Romana, a long pizza served in an oval on a wood palette, or a Pasta Carbonara that Gentile thinks just may become a signature dish.

Gentile’s passion for food is obvious as he describes these dishes. This is his first turn as head chef and he is drawing on recipes he learned growing up, like a traditional bread knot that his grandparents used to serve him and that Buca clientele can expect to see it their bread baskets.

With exposed brick and wood throughout, the room seats 50, has a spacious private function area in the back and takes advantage of the adjacent alley to form a gorgeous outdoor patio.

And just as the food tries to keep it simple, the room channels old world tavern (or osteria) but without denying its former industrial purpose (once a boiler room for this circa 1900 building).

“Preserving the integrity and simplicity of the room helps to compliment the integrity and simplicity of the food,” explains Gentile.

buca.com 3 • FALL 2009

TORONTO

Buca: Authentic Italian flavours that come from the old country – but not at a carbon cost by Micayla Jacobs

Extreme Group’s Toronto office, the agency of record for companies like Grand & Toy and Quizno’s, was named one of Canada’s top ten agencies for 2007 by Marketing Magazine.

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TORONTO

ATLANTIC REACH Extreme Advertising’s easy-going east coast attitude sets it apart from the Toronto crowd LIBERTY VILLAGE, TORONTO / - January 2nd of 2007 started unlike any other day for Paul LeBlanc.

He sat at his desk in an open office environment in Toronto’s Liberty Village wondering what he’d gotten into as the unseasonably warm day’s sun lit the fourteen empty desks and unmanned computers before him.

“I hadn’t a single client, no staff and I’d just moved my pregnant wife and two kids here from Halifax,” says LeBlanc of Extreme Group Toronto’s inauspicious start.

Indeed there was no Eureka moment when business just started to roll in for the advertising firm, offers LeBlanc, reflecting cheerfully on two very tough years that saw him grow the reach of his successful Atlantic region agency deep into the heart of the Toronto market.

He and his fledgling team gradually won work with RIM, more with Proctor & Gamble, Sony, BDO Dunwoody and Cadillac Fairview’s Sherway Gardens.

“Pretty soon, 20 percent of the corporate revenue was coming from Toronto,” says LeBlanc, adding that by the end of 2008, they had outgrown their space.

Now tidily ensconced on the second floor at 47 Fraser, Extreme Group has grown to 18 staffers, is the agency of record for companies like Grand & Toy and Quizno’s, and was named one of Canada’s top ten agencies for 2007 by Marketing Magazine.

While he admits to having “a belly full of fear” in those early days, LeBlanc doesn’t appear to scare easily.

Back in Nova Scotia in 2000, he’d taken the growing graphic design firm he started in his father’s Dartmouth carpet cleaning facility and changed direction to form an ad agency, hiring experienced account managers before he had any real advertising clients.

Not certain how a graphic design firm would be different from an ad agency, LeBlanc took to the road in 2001 to learn about office cultures and best practices from leading Toronto firms.

Meeting Taxi’s Paul Lavoie prompted him to ditch the suit and tie (“When he walked in the room in jeans and a sweater up to his neck, I thought he was there to

bring us food or change the garbages,” he recalls) and form a work culture that was fun but also create an agency that had a relevance and a purpose.

Despite lacking a clear understanding of strategic marketing back then, LeBlanc became a player nonetheless, working contacts in Toronto to fill a jury of peers for the ICE Awards he founded in 2002 to celebrate the Atlantic region’s best advertising work, and to some degree, unhinge the old boys’ network that was keeping his team from growing in that market.

That same year saw him open Extreme Public Affairs and Extreme Interactive with partners and by 2005, Extreme had 70 people servicing clients like Bell, McCain’s, Atlantic Lottery Corporation, Moosehead Breweries, Workers Compensation Board and Anti-Smoking Nova Scotia.

Some thought was given to expanding to Boston at that point, but setting up shop in the U.S. proved more complicated than expected, so LeBlanc set his sights on Toronto, landing here in 2007.

Extreme Group’s reputation as a Halifax firm could have been a negative (“As in: What could an East Coast firm know about national marketing, right?” explains LeBlanc.), but he found it was often the start of a conversation, and that is where LeBlanc found his foothold.

Talking to potential clients and landing small one-off jobs allowed Extreme Group to expose companies to their “great work, no ego” business philosophy.

“We don’t accept door-slamming drama. We’re huge on making sure that people fit well in our environment.

And clients like that,” he says, adding that another reason their workload is growing is because of the lifecycle stage they are in.

“Right now, it’s intimate. We’ve invested in staff members that were rockstars in their previous agencies.

So when a client agrees to work with us, we’re putting our best, most experienced people on that account because we only have great, experienced people.”

extremegroup.com

5 • FALL 2009

Un avenir tout tracé Une bande-passante qui attire bien plus qu’une poignée d’entreprises.

RUE ATLANTIC, MONTRÉAL / – À l’ère du sans fil, Benjamin Desmarais voit lui l’avenir entouré de câbles! « Il y a la voix sur IP [VoIP] et puis le tout IP [EoIP] et tout ça nécessite des fibres optiques », affirme le président de la société Fibrenoire, fournisseur de service Internet installé au 400, rue Atlantic à Montréal, qui propose des services de connectivité Internet et de création de réseaux privés multisites exclusivement par le biais de la fibre optique.

Benjamin Desmarais et ses deux associés ont débuté en tant que fournisseur de service Internet en 2007 en aidant leur premier client, situé dans un endroit reculé de la région de Montréal, à se brancher sur un réseau à fibres optiques. Aujourd’hui, leur entreprise compte plus de 200 clients et elle offre la connexion la plus rapide du Québec et la deuxième au Canada selon l’agence de normalisation mondiale Speedtest.net.

DE GROS BESOINS D’INFRASTRUCTURE On sait acheminer la lumière via des câbles de verre depuis le 19e siècle et les entreprises de télécommunication installent des câbles optiques pour les télécommunications interurbaines depuis les années 50. On en a aussi installé beaucoup dans les villes pendant la période du boom technologique au début des années 2000.

Aujourd’hui, des millions de kilomètres de fibre inutilisée s’entrecroisent tout autour de la planète et des entreprises montantes comme Fibrenoire se créent une infrastructure soit en installant leurs propres câbles là où il n’y en a pas, soit en louant de la « fibre noire », des câbles existants mais inutilisés. « Il y a de la fibre partout », explique Benjamin Desmarais, « il suffit de savoir combien on est prêt à la payer et comment on peut la connecter à son infrastructure ». Fibrenoire a étendu son réseau de plus de 2 500 kilomètres de fibre au cours des deux dernières années, essentiellement dans la région métropolitaine de Montréal, mais également à Toronto et à Québec.

RAPIDE ET FIABLE Le monde des télécommunications est assez restreint et Fibrenoire, seule firme au Canada spécialisée dans la connexion de fibre optique, doit

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souvent créer des partenariats stratégiques avec les grandes entreprises de télécommunications comme Bell ou Vidéotron pour pouvoir louer des câbles.

La fibre optique présente surtout deux avantages : elle est fiable et elle procure une bande passante symétrique haute capacité. La fiabilité est bien entendu un gros atout commercial. Fibrenoire garantit une disponibilité de son réseau dorsal à 99,99 %. Elle le surveille de très près, appelant ses clients à l’avance pour les prévenir d’une possible interruption.

Quant à la capacité de la bande, il s’avère que les entreprises en veulent toujours plus!

DES UTILISATEURS INSOUPÇONNÉS Lorsque Benjamin Desmarais et ses associés Rémi Fournier et Jean-François Lévesque ont créé Fibrenoire, ils pensaient se tourner vers les secteurs du jeu et du divertissement, qui leur semblaient être les utilisateurs les plus probables de bande passante de haute capacité. « On s’était trompé! Nous avons des clients dans pratiquement tous les secteurs : des organismes publics, des cabinets d’avocat, des entreprises de construction, des usines manufacturières, des sociétés financières », explique Benjamin Desmarais en ajoutant que nombre de sociétés deviennent des grosses consommatrices de capacité car elles doivent télécharger toujours plus d’informations sur Internet pour leurs employés qui travaillent à distance ou qui effectuent des déplacements. Les lignes numériques DSL et la technologie par câble, qui ont une vitesse de téléchargement limitée, ne leur suffisent plus.

SI ÇA MARCHE, ON N’Y TOUCHE PAS! Les services de connexion de Fibrenoire sont de bien meilleure qualité que ceux de Bell ou de Vidéotron car leur réseau est exclusivement basé sur la fibre optique, explique Benjamin Desmarais. « Nous sommes en fait un fournisseur de service Internet offrant une technologie peu exploitée sur un marché qui nous semblait être une niche commerciale », ajoute-t-il en soulignant que l’équipe de Fibrenoire veille à ne vendre ses services qu’à des clients qui ont un besoin réel de fibre optique ou pour qui le service Internet haute vitesse est insuffisant. « Si ça marche, on n’y touche pas! C’est notre approche et elle nous a toujours bien servis. Ainsi, quand nos clients sont prêts à passer à la fibre optique, ils nous rappellent toujours », conclut Benjamin Desmarais.

Fibrenoire.ca

RUE ATLANTIC, MONTRÉAL / – In a world gone increasingly wireless, Benjamin Desmarais sees a hard-wired future.

“There’s VoIP [Voice over IP] and EoIP [Everything over IP] and it is all being done using fibre optics,” says the president of Fibrenoire, a Montreal Internet provider based out of 400 Atlantic that offers Internet connectivity and multi-site private network exclusively over fibre optics.

Desmarais and two partners started the ISP in 2007 helping their first client connect a remote location outside of Montreal to a fibre optic network. Since then, the firm has grown a roster of over 200 clients and offers the second fastest connection in Canada and the fastest in Québec, according to global standard setter Speedtest.net.

BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE Transmitting light through glass cables goes back to the 19th century and telcos have been laying fibre optic cables since the 1950s for intercity telecommunications. In the early 2000s, even more of it was put into place within cities during the tech boom.

Now, there are millions of kilometers of unused fibre criss-crossing the globe and up-and-coming firms like Fibrenoire, formed by partners Desmarais, Remi Fournier and Jean-François Lévesque, are amassing an infrastructure by running their own cables where there are none and leasing cable from existing unused, or “dark fibre”, in other instances.

Fibre optics’ two main advantages remain its reliability and symmetrical high-capacity bandwidth. Reliability is an easy sell.

Fibrenoire guarantees 99.99% uptime on Internet backbone and proactively monitors its network to ensure functionality, calling clients ahead of time if the team suspects an interruption.

As for bandwidth, well, it turns out almost everybody wants more bandwidth.

“

“There’s VoIP [voice over IP] and EoIP [everything over IP] and it is all being done using fibre optics.”

NEED DETERMINES MOST LIKELY USERS When Desmarais and his partners launched their firm, they expected to target the gaming and entertainment industries, i.e., the most likely high bandwidth users.

“Turns out we were wrong. Our clients come from almost every industry. We have public organizations, lawyer firms, construction firms, manufacturing, finance,” says Desmarais explaining that many companies are becoming ‘content pushers’, that is, they have to move more information to the web for their mobile employees. So they are looking for ways to get around the legacy DSL and cable technologies that have limited upload speeds.

7 • FALL 2009

MONTRÉAL

Montreal fibre optic providers Fibrenoire formed to serve a niche market. But now everybody wants big bandwidth.

Clockwise from top: Firefighting class in session; ambulance with ERRS-designed graphics, and; Kevin Tordiffe in front of the chopped up Chrysler used to practice extrications.

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WINNIPEG

RESCUE RESPONSE With a growing demand for first responders, paramedics and firefighters, ERRS turned itself into one of Manitoba’s premier fire and paramedic training providers.

EXCHANGE DISTRICT, WINNIPEG / – If Kevin Tordiffe ever had the misfortune of calling 911 in Winnipeg, there’s a good chance he would know the firefighters who showed up. While not currently a first responder, he and his business partner Larry Tetreault train them. More specifically, the team at Emergency Rescue Response Services (ERRS) at 250 McDermott does, and has been doing so for ten years.

“About 85 percent of our grads go on to work for the city of Winnipeg fire department, and some of our paramedics end up working in the rural areas,” says Tordiffe, a veteran paramedic who worked in Ste. Anne, south of Winnipeg, as well as in northern Manitoba’s Cross Lake.

ERRS started gradually in 1994 with Tordiffe and Tetreault offering first aid and CPR training in their off time. Now it is one of the key training agencies for first responders in Manitoba. Its paramedic program receives full accreditation from the Canadian Medical Association and its firefighter program curriculum exceeds NFPA requirements (essentially a world standard).

Necessarily, ERRS’s exclusive status sees it graduating only a handful of firefighters and paramedics every year, but training is just one part of the business, which took on its current form in 1996 when the provincial government sought lifeguarding services for its Lake Winnipeg beaches.

Until then, Tordiffe and Tetreault were mainly teaching first aid and offering aquatic safety. When they started supplying lifeguarding to Winnipeg Beach, things branched out.

“We were notified at 11 at night and told we needed to be active on the beach 11 days later,” recalls Tordiffe who quickly rounded up nine qualified lifeguards and brought out-of-province experts to train them in open water techniques.

“Back then, there was no provincial standard for open water lifeguarding, so we had to make one,” he explains.

Now the company of six full-time employees manages a seasonal staff of 45 lifeguards covering both Winnipeg Beach and Grand Beach beaches, which together have seen close to one million visitors each year.

The two spaces ERRS occupies at 250 McDermot (one with a chopped up Chrysler used to practice extrications) may seem large for half a dozen employees, but every year close to 25 contract instructors lead six emergency medical responder classes, as well as two paramedic and two firefighting classes.

“We’re in a period of attrition with baby boomers and post boomers retiring from the [paramedic and fire] professions. And the demand for paramedics is huge in rural areas,” he says.

Beyond training, ERRS has also made its mark in the film industry, handily becoming the go-to people for shoots requiring water safety experts. Film credits include A Haunting in Connecticut, New in Town as well as television productions such as Falcon Beach and Guinea Pig. The ERRS partners are also prominent players in the first responder community. Tordiffe sits on the board for the Manitoba Lifesaving Society and consults as an expert witness and fact finder.

Despite continually running full classrooms, Tordiffe is cautious about the school’s growth, not wanting to compromise on the quality of the graduates it produces.

And to applicants, he warns it is not be construed as an alternative to university.

“There’s just as much emphasis on academic performance here as there would be in any university program.”

errs.org

9 • FALL 2009

GOING WILD Adventure Tour Operator Windigo introduces Europeans to Canada’s wildest places RUE ATLANTIC, MONTREAL / – Charles Frobisher has been taking European clients on wilderness treks across Canada since 1996, but when he meets a fellow tour operator who’s been at it even longer, he still likes to offer the benefit of his wisdom. “After all,” he says with a smile, “the Frobisher family has been doing adventure for over 400 years.”

While explorer Martin Frobisher spent part of his career charting Canada’s arctic, this entrepreneurial Frobisher has been steadily charting his own course with his company Windigo, one of Quebec’s leading inbound adventure travel operators.

Its catalogue of 65 trips throughout Canada, the U.S. and Mexico brings mostly European clients to this continent’s wilder places, including sea kayaking in Baffin Island, hiking the Rockies, snowmobiling in the Laurentians and climbing a volcano in the Mexican jungle.

Besides his growing reputation in France and England as a solid supplier of wilderness experiences, Frobisher sets his firm apart by acting as his own outfitter, holding a stock of some 30 canoes and kayaks as well as 600 tents and thousands of other bits of gear, all warehoused in Montreal.

An avid outdoor enthusiast from a young age, Frobisher guided his first group of 10 French tourists in the summer of 1996 on a canoe trip through the Lac St-Jean area.

But his real start in adventure tourism came a year earlier, when while backpacking in Botswana he met a safari operator in need of a French-speaking staffer. He was offered alliedpropertiesreit.com • 10

a job as a driver/cook and soon connected with a French tour operator seeking guided adventure trips in Canada.

That’s when Frobisher raced back to Canada, put a business plan together, bought some equipment and established himself as a reliable supplier of adventure trips in Quebec and Nunavut.

In 1998, he opened a seasonal office in Canmore, Alberta, to support hiking in the Rockies; in 2000, a San Francisco office began support U.S. tours; and, two years ago an office in Mexico opened to manage trips down there.

Indeed, the world adventure travel market has grown steadily over the last ten years and Frobisher is seeing a shift to organizing custom tours. (Windigo caters primarily to groups, but its partner firm, Toundra, with whom it shares offices, designs tours for individuals).

He expects the European appetite for North American adventures to continue to grow, but nonetheless wants to connect with South American and Asian markets (“A lot of Mexicans come to Canada in the winter,” he says.)

To date, Frobisher’s biggest challenge has been a human resources one. While he has a dozen staffers running the day-to-day operations, finding the right trip guides can be tricky.

“You have to find a person with all the proper guiding accreditations and experience to do a trip – but they also have to be good with people,” says Frobisher.

To that end, he tends to train guides in-house, promoting from within to make Windigo an adventurous place to be – whether you’re an employee or a client.

windigo.travel

MONTRÉAL

D’aventure en aventure Windigo fait vivre l’aventure canadienne aux Européens RUE ATLANTIC, MONTRÉAL / – Depuis 1996, Charles Frobisher fait découvrir l’immensité du paysage canadien à ses clients européens.

Et quand il rencontre un voyagiste spécialisé dans son secteur depuis plus longtemps que lui, il ne manque pas de lui réserver quelques bons conseils quoi qu’il en soit. « Après tout, dit-il en souriant, chez les Frobisher on est dans l’aventure depuis plus de 400 ans ».

Tandis que l’explorateur Martin Frobisher a passé une partie de sa vie à découvrir l’arctique canadien, Charles Frobisher, lui, a mis à profit son esprit d’entreprise en créant Windigo, une des premières agences de tourisme d’aventure au Québec.

Son catalogue propose 65 voyages au Canada, aux États-Unis et au Mexique à des clients, européens pour la plupart, qui cherchent l’aventure sur notre continent. Il leur propose l’île de Baffin pour le kayak de mer, les Rocheuses pour la randonnée, les Laurentides pour la motoneige ou la jungle mexicaine pour l’escalade d’un volcan.

De plus en plus connu en France et en Angleterre pour la qualité de ses voyages, Charles Frobisher se différencie des autres parce qu’il utilise son propre équipement riche de quelque 30 canots et kayaks, de 600 tentes et de milliers d’autres petits accessoires, le tout entreposé à Montréal.

Passionné d’aventure depuis son plus jeune âge, Charles Frobisher a emmené son premier groupe de touristes français visiter la région du Lac St-Jean en canot pendant l’été 96.

Mais ses vrais débuts dans le tourisme d’aventure il les a faits un an auparavant, lorsque, parti à l’aventure au Botswana, il avait rencontré un organisateur de safaris qui cherchait un chauffeur/ cuisinier de langue française. Peu après il a fait la connaissance d’un voyagiste français à la recherche de voyages d’aventure accompagnés de guides au Canada.

C’est alors qu’il est reparti au Canada pour préparer un plan d’affaires, acheter du matériel et se lancer dans cette nouvelle aventure qui lui permet de proposer des voyages au Québec et au Nunavut.

En 1998, il a ouvert un bureau saisonnier à Canmore en Alberta, quartier général de ses randonnées dans les Rocheuses. En 2000, un deuxième bureau vit le jour à San Francisco chargé d’organiser les voyages aux États-Unis. Puis il y a deux ans, c’était au tour du Mexique où un troisième bureau se charge des voyages locaux.

Le marché du tourisme d’aventure a connu une croissance continue au cours des dix dernières années. Mais les choses évoluent et les clients recherchent de plus en plus des voyages personnalisés (Windigo s’occupe principalement de groupes, mais Toundra, avec laquelle elle est associée et qui partage ses bureaux, organise des voyages pour les particuliers).

Charles Frobisher est convaincu que l’appétit des Européens pour l’aventure en Amérique du Nord continue de se développer, mais il cherche tout de même à se positionner sur les marchés sud-américains et asiatiques (« Nombre de Mexicains viennent au Canada en hiver », affirme-t-il).

Jusqu’à présent, son seul problème a été le recrutement des guides. S’il emploie une douzaine de personnes pour gérer les affaires au quotidien, trouver le bon guide pour chaque voyage est plus difficile. « Il faut quelqu’un qui ait toutes les accréditations de guide et l’expérience nécessaire pour le voyage – mais aussi beaucoup d’entregent », conclut Charles Frobisher.

C’est pour cela qu’il propose à ses guides des formations maison et qu’il a recours aux promotions internes, faisant ainsi de Windigo un lieu d’aventure à la fois pour ses clients et pour ses employés.

TOTUM TIPS STICK-ON PAIN SOLUTION: Colourful elastic tape another tool in sports injury treatment Developed by a Japanese chiropractor some 25 years ago, Kinesio Tex Tape is a colourful elastic sport tape that gained real traction at the Beijing Olympics when U.S. volleyball stars stepped onto the court with pink, blue, black and beige strips of the stuff marking their bodies like tattoos.

Since then, the tape and its healing powers have quickly found a place in sports medicine cabinets around the globe.

For chronic injuries, some pros have learned to tape themselves,

but generally, you need someone trained in its application to get the best results.

Mary-Catherine Fraser Saxena, director of Totum’s sport clinic, became certified when a few clients with shoulder injuries weren’t progressing as well as she’d hoped.

“I was interested in learning how the tape could help them continue training,” she says, explaining that Kinesio Tex Tape is used as an adjunct to other treatment methods.

WHAT IS IT FOR? The Kinesio Tex Tape is used over muscles to reduce pain and inflammation, relax overused tired muscles, and to support muscles in movement.

HOW DOES IT WORK? Regular athletic taping restricts muscle movement by using pressure. But muscles also help with circulation. Kinesio Tex Tape adheres to the surface of the skin providing support to muscles without restricting circulation. In fact, it adheres with such traction that when applied in a specific manner, it improves drainage in the area, which in turn reduces swelling.

Taping for rotator cuff issues or shoulder blade disfunction.

WHAT’S SPECIAL ABOUT IT? It’s very adhesive and will stay on for three to five days – even if it gets wet showering or swimming. Also, the tape stretches only along its length and the adhesive is applied in ribbons on the cotton backing so that there’s space for the skin to breathe.

WHO SHOULD USE IT? Although its inventors claim it has been used to address everything from headaches to foot problems, Fraser Saxena has used it to manage shoulder pain, knee conditions, post surgical pain (around scar area following ankle surgery) and even to help correct bad posture.

Tape is stretched unidirectionally before being applied.

CAN I TAPE MYSELF? She cautions against taping yourself as it is important to have a professional assess what is the cause of your injury and if indeed this treatment is appropriate. And if it is, you’re likely to only get taped two or three times over the course of your treatment. “That’s enough to provide support and help heal the area,” says Fraser Saxena, “by which time you’ll be over the hump. Then you can continue with your training.”

Totum.ca In position, tape helps to keep shoulder blade forward.

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Toronto brokers managing Allied Properties’ east side portfolio see downtown core widening YONGE STREET, TORONTO / - In terms of location, 193 Yonge Street isn’t considered a traditional office node in Toronto. But Jeff Thomas and Mike Scace had a steady stream of professionals vying for space in the six-storey former Corby’s Distillery headquarters.

“There were law firms and financial services firms looking for space,” recalls Thomas, of Ashlar Urban Real Estate, the firm chiefly responsible for Allied’s leasing activity east of Yonge Street.

Along with Scace, the duo eventually put a unit of St. Michael’s hospital into the building’s top five floors.

GROWTH OF THE I-CLASS Ashlar Urban, and in particular its president Craig Smith, has held a long relationship with Allied. Smith and his team have worked extensively throughout the downtown to become experts in finding office space in historic buildings.

The firm now handles hundreds of transactions a year, provides real estate consultation to various professional firms and is seen as a growing force Toronto’s downtown commercial real estate industry.

Ashlar Urban was also implicit in the growth of the I-class market, a term that describes the industrial quality of the exposed brick and beam space that makes up this category.

STRONG DEMAND FOR HISTORIC OFFICE In 1997, when Allied’s executive team sought to buy a number of these such buildings at King and Spadina, the work formed some of Ashlar Urban’s earliest deals.

“Whenever there’s a vacant space [in these buildings] there’s typically a tenant lined up to take it over,” says Thomas, who along with Scace has leased over one million square feet of office space to date.

“In this market, companies want character options in the East that are built-out and as close to move-in condition as possible.

Fortunately, we have been successful in retaining growing tenants and attracting new tenants by finding suitable options within the Allied portfolio,” says Scace.

CHARACTER SPACE Scace, Thomas and Smith (pictured above) have all worked extensively with product on the east side of Yonge and have seen how the shift to character space has changed the landscape there.

Value is one reason companies seek I-class, but Thomas says character is often a chief consideration.

“There are financial services firms that look for this type of space because it helps distinguish them from the competition. But they could easily afford a financial core address,” he says.

“Employee attraction and retention are also key issues when it comes to clients looking at downtown space,” adds Scace, explaining that one reason St. Michael’s hospital liked 193 Yonge Street was for its proximity to the subway line and existing facilities.

A GROWING DOWNTOWN As the market matures substantially and renovations and new builds help to infill the gaps between Toronto’s core addresses and those on the periphery, the I-class space comes to be a part of a larger downtown.

As such, addresses such as 193 Yonge Street come to mean more than just a nice office building in a once predominantly retail landscape. Rather, it is now considered just a few doors down from Google’s Canadian offices at Yonge and Dundas. In other words, office is growing.

“And [office users] want to stay in or close to the core, and that’s where Ashlar is doing most of its deals,” says Thomas. ashlarurban.com

193 Yonge Street

13 • FALL 2009

TORONTO

URBAN EXPERTS

alliedpropertiesreit.com • 14

TORONTO

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“By utilizing the latest technology in a central location, presided over by a dedicated replay official, we intend to make a good system that much better.”

– Tom Higgins Director of Officiating

CFL COMMAND CENTRE TO MAKE REPLAY QUICKER, MORE CONSISTENT Video Review of Challenged Calls Moves to “High Tech, High Def” Centre at League Headquarters ST. LAWRENCE MARKET AREA, TORONTO / – CFL officials have been seeing things differently this season since the league set up a high-tech, high-definition Command Centre at its headquarters on Wellington Street West.

The new system for video review of on-field officials’ calls challenged by coaches is designed to speed up the replay system, and increase the consistency of officials’ decision making.

The new process – with a replay official in the Toronto office making the final call based on video review instead of an on-field referee – has been in place since the league’s regular season began on July 1st.

“By utilizing the latest technology in a central location, presided over by a dedicated replay official, we intend to make a good system that much better,” says Tom Higgins, the league’s Director of Officiating.

It’s designed to be quicker because a dedicated replay official at the Command Centre can immediately start reviewing a play from various angles, instead of fans and teams having to wait for the on-field referee to reach a video booth on the sideline, Higgins explains.

And the calls should be more consistent because the replay official can rely on the very best high-definition monitors. In the past, the quality of the standard

definition pictures reviewed by on-field referees could vary from stadium to stadium, he adds.

Manning the Command Centre is Jake Ireland, who retired as an on-field official following last year’s Grey Cup after a distinguished career that spanned 30 years and 557 games, including 15 Grey Cups.

It’s important to note that Ireland sees the same TSN replays fans watch from home, but he also has access to computer technology that allows him to slow down and isolate images to ensure the right call is made.

Developed by DVSport, the technology is already being used effectively by other high-profile sports including NCAA football.

Under CFL rules, head coaches are allowed to challenge two calls made by on-field officials during each game. And starting this year, a third challenge can be granted if the first two are successful. Coaches can only challenge a prescribed list of calls, including catch/no catch, down-by-contact, and whether the ball crossed the plane of the goal line. In fact, 85 per cent of challenges last year fell into one of those three categories.

The 2008 CFL regular season and playoffs included 105 challenges. In 66 instances, the on-field official’s call was upheld, in 34 it was overturned, and in five the video evidence was deemed inconclusive.

cfl.ca

15 • FALL 2009

Un restaurant décontracté pour qui le plaisir c’est du sérieux ST-LAURENT, MONTRÉAL / – Les mini burgers et la poutine aux gnocchis ne sont que deux des entrées originales qui ont propulsé le Macaroni Bar sur la scène gastronomique montréalaise. Mais sa déco chic et son inégalable terrasse y sont aussi pour quelque chose.

Installé à l’angle de Saint-Laurent et Mont-Royal, ce restaurant du Plateau réinvente des plats italiens traditionnels qu’il se plaît à proposer tant aux professionnels affamés des alentours qu’aux Montréalais en quête d’une oasis de verdure pour casser la croûte après le travail.

En cherchant à attirer ces deux types de clientèle, le restaurant, ouvert depuis novembre 2008, s’est en quelque sorte forgé une double personnalité. Outre cette nouvelle version de la poutine, d’autres plats au menu comme les bombes de thon, les suçons au porc braisé et le tartare de saumon témoignent d’une réelle envie d’amuser le client.

Sans parler du soir, quand à la nuit tombée, le bar s’illumine et que le DJ fait tourner les mélodies d’hier et d’aujourd’hui.

Dehors, autour d’une jolie fontaine, une terrasse en rez-de-jardin de 4 000 pi2 avec des canapés en rotin garnis de coussins rouges accueille une clientèle branchée qui flâne sur la pelouse – à quelques mètres du tumulte de la ville.

alliedpropertiesreit.com • 16

À l’intérieur, on retrouve les panneaux en merisier de l’ancienne grilladerie (Restaurant 55°), aujourd’hui recouverts de peinture blanche, et les épaisses colonnes dont l’une expose une large photo – scène d’un dîner de famille tirée du film « Roma » de Fellini. Plus près du bar, les panneaux disparaissent pour laisser place à une structure de briques.

La salle a une allure propre et moderne grâce à un ensemble flambant neuf de banquettes et de chaises et à un grand lustre composé de quatre grosses cloches de verre blanc. « Nous avons tous travaillé dans des restaurants haut de gamme », déclare Santo Buffone, fondateur du Macaroni Bar avec Éric Petraglia, William Zorko, Angelo Cappuccilli et le cuisinier Sergio Mattoscio, une équipe qui a eu l’idée originale de créer un lieu branché des nuits montréalaises tout en en y proposant une cuisine traditionnelle.

Alors, le Macaroni Bar est-il un restaurant ou une boîte de nuit? « Les deux! », répond Santo Buffone. « Nos clients savent qu’on leur sert de la bonne cuisine, mais qu’ils peuvent aussi venir faire la fête en fin de semaine. »

Macaronibar.ca

MONTRÉAL

MACARO MACARONI BAR Plateau’s sleek and sexy resto lounge a casual eatery that takes fun seriously ST-LAURENT, MONTREAL / – Mini burgers called Sliders, and Gnocchi Poutine are just two of the innovative appetizers that have put Macaroni Bar on Montreal’s dining map. But its stylish décor and unmatched patio have helped to keep it there.

Set where St. Laurent meets Mont-Royale, this Plateau dining room offers solidly reinvented Italian classics to the destination diner, and is a welcome post-work oasis for the thirsty professional.

Opened since November 2008, Macaroni Bar’s aim to please both these audiences has given it a somewhat split personality.

Beyond its new take on traditional poutine, other small dishes like Tuna Bombs, Pork Belly Lollipops and Salmon Tartar show the kitchen means to entertain. And entertainment is the watchword after dark here when the place lights up and DJs start to spin old and new mixes.

Outside on the 4,000-square-foot garden terrace, red-cushioned wicker sofas surround a gently flowing water feature while evergreen shrubs work to conceal the stylish crowd milling about on the lawn – just steps from the city bustling all around it.

Inside, the cherry wood paneling of the former steakhouse (Restaurant 55°) is frozen in a coat of white paint. A few of the columns have panels framing parts of a large-format still – a family dining scene from Fellini’s 1972 film ‘Roma’. Closer to the room’s main bar, the paneling tapers off and more of the building’s brick structure is revealed. New banquettes and chairs keep the place looking clean and modern, as does the room’s main light fixture, a cluster of white glass bell-shaped pendants.

“My partners and I worked mostly at upscale restaurants,” says Santo Buffone, who along with Eric Petraglia, William Zorko, Angelo Cappuccilli and Chef Sergio Mattoscio, opened Macaroni Bar to combine their vision of how homestyle cooking can meet a hip urban nightspot.

Wednesday through to Saturday nights the DJ spins ’80s mixes for the dining crowd, but late Fridays and Saturdays things move to ‘soulful’ house music.

So is it a club or a restaurant?

“Both,” says Buffone. “People understand that we have a focus on good food, but on the weekends, they can also come here to party.”

17 • FALL 2009

TORONTO

Wealth Managers Newport Partners Creates Home for Entrepreneurs on King West

Brown

Willis

KING WEST CENTRAL, TORONTO / – Douglas Brown sees his team as a kind of financial services pit crew for high net worth individuals.

“We help them fix issues, get better organized financially and optimize their performance,” he explains, adding that many clients to whom his firm provides investment management services are in fact entrepreneurs.

To that end, Newport Partners, which started in 2001, has developed a specialty providing investment management for the liquid assets an entrepreneur accumulates outside the business. It also provides wealth management for all of the ancillary and complex issues that come with success, as well as corporate finance for the strategic and capital issues relating to the business.

“You need to understand that [an entrepreneur’s] business and personal interests are highly intertwined and you need to be able to offer best-in-class expertise on both,” says Brown, the firm’s co-founder and managing director.

And the entrepreneurial market is not to be underestimated.

Small and medium-sized companies (that is with fewer than 500 employees) make up 97 per cent of all Canadian businesses and employ 56 per cent of all workers, says a Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses 2007 statistic. alliedpropertiesreit.com • 18

And while Newport Partners offers services to these success stories, it can also count itself among them. In just eight years, the firm has grown from start-up to having close to $1 billion of assets under management and has helped entrepreneurs realize more than $300 million in value on the sale of their businesses and raise more than $600 million in capital. (Euromoney Magazine recently ranked Newport Partners among Canada’s top 20 private banks.)

One reason for the firm’s appeal with the entrepreneurial class is its investment approach. Rather than using an in-house team of money managers, Newport Partners prefers to outsource this function through arrangements with 12 top independent money managers with unique areas of specialization – from real estate to corporate bonds to commodities to equities.

“Hiring third party managers and participating in a diverse range of public and private investments is how many of the world’s billionaire families have expanded their wealth – we’ve just brought the concept to individuals with more modest wealth,” says Brown.

As for its offices, since 2006, Newport Partners has occupied the 469 King Street West space between Spadina Avenue and Portland Street having re-locating from King and Bay. “This location, this space is central to who we are,” explains Kelly Willis, Director of Marketing for Newport Partners.

“Not only does it make a statement about the entrepreneurial nature of our company, but the location appeals to our clients’ sense of pragmatism. When they come to visit, they love that they can park right on King Street and not have to pay $30 to park in the core,” she says, adding that, “Given we are in the business of helping people be smart with their money, it only makes sense that it starts where we live.”

newportpartners.ca

By Micayla Jacobs

TORONTO / – It’s generally hard to ignore a giant bike built for 30 rolling through a downtown street on a busy weekday morning while crowds line the sidewalks cheering on the riders.

It’s even harder to ignore when that bike goes right past your office, as it did this summer under the curious stares of Allied Properties REIT staffers in Toronto. After seeing the bike pass by, causing a commotion each time, the Allied staff decided to get on board and have fun as an office while helping the community.

“The Heart and Stroke Big Bike is a unique opportunity for our colleagues to work together and have FUN while raising funds for a great cause – heart and stroke research and education,” says team captain Caroline Park who with co-captain Jackie Demario helped put the initiative together that saw 29 of Allied’s Toronto staff get on and ride to raise funds.

The Big Bike event is one of Heart and Stroke Foundation's most popular fundraising initiatives. Throughout the warmer weather, it takes place in over 200 communities, across nine provinces raising funds, attention and laughs along the way. While a final tally has yet to be completed, last year the bike carried over 50,000 riders and helped raise more than $7 million for research.

INCOMING...

Allied Properties To Add Major Telecom ‘Hotel’ To Toronto Portfolio FRONT STREET WEST, TORONTO / - Allied Properties REIT recently entered into an agreement to purchase 151 Front Street West in Toronto, a Class I office property that is one of North America’s most connected buildings with nine unique fibre optic networks, 25 diverse entrances, and more than 7,000 strands of fibre.

Initially known as the Canadian National Express Building and York Teamway, 151 Front Street West is located on the south side of Front Street, at the intersection with Simcoe Street and one building west of University Avenue.

“The property fits within our investment and operating focus, much like our property at 905 King Street West in Toronto and portions of Cité Multimédia in Montreal, which also provide specialized facilities for telecommunications, networking and computer equipment,” says Allied Properties REIT’s President and CEO Michael Emory.

“We believe ownership of the property will strengthen the competitive position of our 56 other office properties in Downtown Toronto. Just as the acquisition of underground parking spaces enables us to provide better parking, the acquisition of the property will enable us to offer superior computer-location facilities and internet connectivity to our tenants, something that will become another differentiating factor for the Allied portfolio,” he says.

19 • FALL 2009

TORONTO

Allied Properties Bike Big Ride has Heart

WINNIPEG

FRESH FISH Jackfish Media’s blogs, tweets and creative all work to solve client communications challenges

EXCHANGE DISTRICT, WINNIPEG / – When the University of Winnipeg was looking to rebrand its on-campus food service this past summer, they asked Jackfish Media Group for some new logos. By September, the administration had three completely redesigned restaurants, each serving local, sustainable and fresh food with the largest featuring LCD menu boards.

While the redesign is still new, indications on its success are encouraging: So far sales are frequently exceeding the previous supplier’s same-day totals by thousands of dollars.

Jackfish Media also renamed the three spaces (one of the restaurants is The Malecon, named for the boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta), created signage, advertising, and, of course, new logos, which in turn helped to launch new T-shirts and gift cards.

“I don’t think any of our clients have ever referred to us as an ad agency,” says Shel Zolkewich, who along with business partner John Heim, started Jackfish Media in 2005 with the idea of becoming a magazine publishing house.

Named for the feisty Northern Pike, a.k.a. Jackfish, the firm’s current activities are best described as communication problem-solving. Their roots, however, lie in magazine work where Zolkewich was an editor and Heim a publisher.

After their former employer MTS closed its experiment in magazine publishing, the duo started their own publication in 2006 called Quarterly, which featured local business profiles. But within a year they realized their real strength was in creating and managing advertising.

“That’s when we took a couple of our clients who wanted agency services and did everything – built web sites, print ads, radio, television, events, fundraising, and we just added clients to that,” says Heim.

Liquor Marts was one of Jackfish’s first clients and helped to propel them into specializing in consumer food and beverage.

Dr. Manfred Zeismann Cosmetic Surgery Clinic is another longtime client. Other clients have included organic grocery store Organza, Travel Manitoba and Destination Winnipeg, the city tourism office for whom Zolkewich is the food blogger.

The executive chef at Organza’s Dandelion Eatery sought the duo’s creative expertise when he was hired by the University of Winnipeg to re-imagine their food service. He had worked with Zolkewich and Heim and was confident they could do the job.

“When you hire us, you always talk to us. That’s the difference between us and a traditional ad agency where you might get assigned an account rep,” explains Zolkewich.

While word-of-mouth is still the best business generator for Jackfish, their work can also be found in social media where Zolkewich blogs and tweets for various clients – not to mention writing her own regular shopping blog Shinypackages.wordpress.com.

jackfishmedia.com

FSC LOGO HERE

www.alliedpropertiesreit.com alliedpropertiesreit.com • FALL 2009

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