Local. Business. Intelligence. September 6–12, 2011 • Issue 1141
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PST overhaul pushed in wake of HST defeat 7
$100m software plan failing school system
Incubating innovation 10 Mills brothers’ family business success secrets 15 Diana Stirling and the campaign to up the ante for women business owners in B.C. 17
Frustration reaching boiling point for teachers and school administration staff over province’s problematic B.C. Enterprise Student Information System 4-5
B.C.’s carbon plan in neutral
Business pays penalty for polarized politics 28 Price on Vancouver’s top city election issue: housing 29
>Environment minister reconsidering scheme that forces school boards to subsidize the green initiatives of large B.C. polluters as Victoria taken to task over carbon-neutral policy By Nelson Bennett
Women-managed businesses Women-owned businesses edition the BLUE
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Guerilla tactics Lawrie ferguson uses fun, memorable marketing strategies to promote Coast Capital credit union
Familiar faces of Ryan Kesler is one several sports celebs to lending star power firstar’s T3 sportswear
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Business in Vancouver Issue 1141
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Redesigning sales Interior decorator suze McCart gets creative with advertising
Y PHILANTHROP Y P R O f I TA b I L I T TY s u s TA I N A b I L I
The Blue Edition: Where and when to invest company money in marketing
Downtown draws bentall’s Tony Astles hopes to attract out-of-town office tenants to Vancouver
Environment Minister Terry Lake said he will review a policy that has forced school boards and health authorities to subsidize industry to shrink its carbon footprint. Last week, Lake admitted his government’s carbon-neutral initiative for the public sector might need some retooling. “We recognize that there’s a public perception problem in terms of money going from schools, hospitals to Pacific Carbon Trust and seeing those monies flow out to companies like Encana,” Lake said. As detailed in Business in Vancouver (“Smoke and Mirrors,” issue 1139; August 23-29), the “perception” problem arises from the fact that school districts last year were forced to pay $4.4 million to the PCT, which then handed the money to companies like Encana, Interfor, Canfor and Lafarge. Health districts were likewise fined $5.4 million last year for not meeting the province’s carbon-neutral targets. At an August 29 conference, Lake said he would be reviewing the policy. That’s the same day the BC School Trustees Association (BCSTA) sent Education Minister George Abbott a letter asking his government to return the offsets being paid by school districts to the education system to help boards make schools more energy-efficient. “The notion that public investment in education is being diverted into the private sector, it’s fair to say that districts around the province are appalled by this,” BCSTA president Michael McEvoy told Business in Vancouver. “Boards want to make these investments in public infrastructure, and yet they’re losing the opportunity to do that by these funds being taken out of the public system. It makes absolutely no sense.” Last year, the Surrey School District was fined $500,000 for missing its carbon-reduction targets and faces being forced to pay a similar amount in this school year. see PCT, 7
Domini Schaefer
BC
MEC boss David Labistour aiming to take outdoor supply company to new heights 31
T.B. Vets’ fight for survival Kandys Merola, chairwoman of the T.B. Vets Charitable Foundation, flashes a sheaf of the charity’s widely recognized key-chain tags. Rising costs and mounting debts have forced the organization to cut staff and refocus a business plan that had drifted far off its original course see T.B. Vets, 3