Business in Vancouver - Issue 1300 by GLACIER MEDIA DIGITAL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP dba BUSINESS IN VANCOUVER

Fishermen shortchanged on salmon run fishing | Scientists say overly cautious escapement policies cost the local industry

$20 million this year in the wake of another huge Fraser River sockeye run | Page 3

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September 30–October 6, 2014 | Issue 1300 | $4.00

real estate | tallying the winners and losers in vancouver’s olympic village deal

it takes a village to raise a controversy The 2008 financial crisis turned an Olympic Games real estate mega deal into a mega B.C. bankruptcy; the city sold its remaining interests in the property for $91 million in April, but the Olympic Village development saga is far from over | Page 6–8

sports | PAge 4

Major pro sports leagues amp up fan interactivity

asia pacific | PAge 14

profile | PAge 19

energy appetite up

ita’s Gary herman

South Asia’s energy demand is fast outstripping the region’s supply

Industry Training Authority boss retooling trades training in B.C.

Local technology companies are gearing up for the new NHL season by developing apps that add more digital dimensions to watching games and following professional sports teams

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

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FOrestry

Under suspicion Self-policing in the forest sector isn’t working, agencies warn

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Surrey Building the future CIty’s fortunes yoked to housing market, says top economic forecaster

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EDITORIAL Editor-in-chief | Fiona Anderson managing Editor | Timothy Renshaw Deputy managing Editor | Mark Falkenberg Staff Writers | Nelson Bennett, Emma Crawford Hampel, Glen Korstrom, Tyler Orton, Jen St. Denis editorial data researchers | Carrie Schmidt, Anna Liczmanska

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Opinion Economic saviour Peter Ladner on optimism over the Internet of Things Asia pacific 14-15 Ask the Experts 18 Profile 19-20 27-30 for the record

Editorial/opinion 32-33 datebook 34 Life Lessons 35

How I Did It

Kicking the Caps

Executive Sheila Bouman on her journey from classroom to boardroom

Bob Mackin on the Whitecaps’ bumpy ride from local governments

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Sockeye season good, but it could have been better estimates overly cautious escapement policies cost B.C. fishermen $20 million

By Nelson Bennett nbennett@biv.com

hen 21 million sockeye salmon return just five years after stocks crashed below two million, it’s hard to complain. But commercial fishermen in B.C. will leave about $20 million on the table this year, according to one estimate, thanks to overly cautious escapements this year. As this year’s Fraser River sockeye season drew to a close last week, returns were estimated at 20.8 million. That’s about seven million fewer fish than in 2010, but still a banner year, compared with most returns over the last few decades. “It’s probably among the top five ru ns w ith i n the last 60 years,” said Rob Morley, vicepresident of product and corporate development for the Canadian Fishing Co. Even so, retired fisheries scientist Carl Walters estimates that Area E gillnetters could easily have been allocated an additional one million sockeye this year. “I’m particularly upset that they haven’t allowed the gillnet fishery to take more fish,” said Walters, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre. “I can see no reason whatsoever for them being as restrictive as they have on the inside fishery.”

Sea lice theory questioned in wake of 2014 salmon run More than a decade ago, when scientists were trying to figure out why some pink salmon runs were on the verge of collapse on the B.C. coast, a biologist studying orca whales in the Broughton Archipelago stumbled on what she thought might be the culprit. Alexandra Morton found juvenile pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago were infected with sea lice. Because the schools of wild pink salmon

“When they let us fish, it was good, but they wouldn’t let us fish to our allocation,” said Barry Marcotte, an Area E gillnet fisherman. “Area E and D gillnetters are both short their allocation.” Morley said the commercial harvest of Fraser River sockeye was over eight million fish. The escapement goal is 7.3 million, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). First Nations were allocated about 1.5 million, as of September 22. Twenty-two First Nations along the Fraser River were awarded commercial licences this year for a total catch of 400,000, said Ken Malloway, chairman of the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance. Malloway said his members don’t understand why First Nations in the Shuswap region got more than double that. “There’s no way they’re ever going to catch their allocation,” he said. Morley agreed: “It’s highly unlikely that they’ll catch any significant portion of those fish.” He said the “low-tech dip-net” fishing techniques that First Nations in the region are limited to means they can’t possibly catch their allocation. And even if they could, the fish are so close to death’s door that they have very low commercial value. That translates into a de facto escapement that is above what

fisheries managers set for their targets. Walters questions the DFO’s escapement policies. Of the 28 million sockeye that returned in 2010, 13 million were allowed to escape to thei r spaw n i ng grounds. (The sockeye that have just returned were the progeny of the 2010 sockeye, which have a four-year lifespan.) Dumping large amounts of fish on spawning grounds does not guarantee a large return four years later, because rivers and lakes have a limited capacity to provide food for them all. Don Noakes, former head of DFO’s Pacific Biological Station,

said there can be a “negative fe e d b a c k ” w h e n s p a w n i n g grounds are overloaded with too many fish. But weak stocks – like the Cultus Lake sockeye, which is classified as a species at risk – can mingle with stronger ones, and DFO allows for escapements that seem excessive to ensure an adequate return for the weakest stocks. But, said Walters, “if that were working – if those stocks were coming back – you could say it’s a good thing for the environment. [But] they aren’t coming back. So it’s a failed policy.” In an analysis of escapements

swim past open-net fish farms as they migrate out to sea, she theorized that sea lice – and possibly other diseases – from farmed salmon could be destroying wild pink salmon stocks. When only 1.4 million Fraser River sockeye returned in 2009, sea lice from salmon farms again became a prime suspect. In 2010, the Cohen Commission gave the theory serious consideration: 11 of its 75 recommendations related to fish farm management. But since the 2009 crash, both Fraser River sockeye and pink salmon stocks have come back gangbusters. This year’s Fraser River sockeye return

was estimated last week to be 20.8 million – a massive return, though seven million short of 2010, which was a record year. Carl Walters, professor emeritus for the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, believes the recent robust returns of sockeye and pink salmon should put the sea lice theory to rest. “All the dire predictions about fish farms and diseases and the correlation that people found between the buildup of fish farming and the decline of the salmon has broken down,” Walters said.

Don Noakes, former head of the Fisheries Department’s Pacific Biological Station, current dean of science and technology at Vancouver Island University and one of the experts called on by the Cohen Commission, said most “good scientists” never did give much weight to the sea lice theory. “I don’t know that it puts the sea lice issue to rest or not,” Noakes said, “but certainly there’s no evidence to support sea lice being any significant factor in the production of Fraser sockeye.” Morton said that far from disproving

Fraser River sockeye salmon returns since the 1950s 30 25 20 Millions

Fishing | Scientist

15 10 5

2 8 50 95 966 974 98 990 998 006 014 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2

An estimated 21 million sockeye returned to the Fraser River this year

SOURCE: fisheries and oceans canada

since 1995, Walters estimates that DFO has allowed 24 million more Fraser River sockeye to return than was necessary. He estimates the economic loss of that to be between $1 billion and $2 billion. “For this year, it looks like the economic loss will be at least an additional $20 million, just based on the stocks that have returned so far and not harvesting the ‘dead fish swimming’ that have already headed upstream to the Adams River and will die before they can spawn,” Walters said. DFO and Pacific Salmon Commission representatives could not be reached for comment by press time. • the sea lice theory, rebounding wild salmon stocks can be credited to the changes to aquaculture practices that her research helped promote. Whereas aquaculture companies used chemicals like Slice to treat farmed salmon only when they were infected, Morton said they now use it prophylactically to control the spread of lice in advance of out-migrations of juvenile pink salmon. The result, she said, is that the average infection rate in juvenile salmon in the Broughton Archipelago has dropped from nine lice per fish to one or fewer.

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

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National Hockey League broadcaster aiming to score big with ‘second screen’ experience sports | Rogers

Communications has hired a Vancouver company to develop an app fans can use as they watch games – a trend other local developers are jumping on

BY TYLER ORTON TORTON@BIV.COM

amie Garratt is paying his employees to watch Hockey Night in Canada this upcoming NHL season. Over the past six months, the president of Vancouver-based Idea Rebel has been working with Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI) to develop an interactive app for hockey fans. Garratt said it wasn’t tough finding staff at the digital marketing agency to manage the Pick ’n’ Play app, which responds to action on the ice as it happens, each Saturday once the NHL season kicks off October 8. “Hockey is such a huge part of Canadian culture, and to be part of a large digital experience that’s tied to the broadcast, that’s huge for us,” he said, adding the app launches October 6. “This will be the first [app] of its kind, obviously, in Canada.” Instead of just sitting back and watching the Vancouver Canucks play the Edmonton Oilers on Hockey Night in Canada, fans pick players from opposing teams to go head to head in the week leading up to the game. As those Saturday games air on TV screens at sports bars, viewers can check their phones to see how many points (and possible prizes) they earned depending on how their players do. After Rogers signed a $5.2 billion deal last fall to secure TV

and Internet rights for the NHL, Garratt said the media giant was eager to get fans engaged with the new network. “Most people are using devices as a second screen when watching TV anyway,” said Claudio Afonso, Idea Rebel’s creative director. “[Rogers] can get them locked in as fans by creating a really simple game.” Efforts to pull hockey fans into the second-screen experience aren’t unique to Idea Rebel. Vancouver-based app developer Atimi Software partnered with NHL teams such as the Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks to provide fans with custom features geared toward their respective markets. Its sports framework – the basis for its other team apps – has 3.3 million downloads and about 50,000 active monthly users. “[NHL teams] found fans in other places that they didn’t know and that allowed their market to go after that,” said Scott Michaels, Atimi’s executive vice-president. Partnerships with NHL teams ended earlier this year when the league pushed all 30 franchises to start using its own app. But Atimi is still in the local sports game and has created an app for the BC Lions. “It’s news on the team, it’s realtime scores, it’s photos published by the team and any information that the team wants [to] let out.

Idea Rebel creative director Claudio Afonso (left) and CEO Jamie Garratt are ready to launch a “second screen” interactive app for NHL fans when the season kicks off in October | tyler orton

And of course the social side, so that fans can comment in the app and about everything that’s happening with the Lions,” Michaels said. He said the apps also function when the season is over: “For example, draft information or what the team does in the off-season around their charities.” In terms of making it a business success, Michaels said the key has always been securing involvement of team sponsors to make sure fans don’t have to pay for that second-screen experience. And although NHL apps are no longer in the works at Atimi, Michaels said the company is now

eyeing U.S. markets that are big on college and high school teams. But these second-screen experiences also aren’t limited to sports or TV. Vancouver’s Work at Play specializes in creating services for gamers that stretch beyond when the playing systems are turned off. “We keep [gamers] engaged when they’re not on the console, in between play time,” said Anja Haman, Work at Play chief operating officer. “We do that by creating experiences and applications across multiple devices – consoles, desktops, mobile, tablets.”

Dashboard for the Rogers Pick ’n’ Play app

This could be anything from a mobile app that breaks down player statistics to a ga mewithin-a-game app that furthers a player’s status in the main console game. Haman said both social media and the changing video game market have pushed Vancouver tech compa n ies towa rd d e v e l o p i n g s e c o n d-s c r e e n experiences. “A lot of small startups have surfaced and you don’t know who’s doing what,” she said. “Instead of just being large console titles released on a twoyear cycle, it’s become much more online [driven].” •

BIV.com Beyond the print hot topics New $58m wood pellet plant planned for the Peace Region Vancouver’s urban forests worth $225m per year

NEWSLETTERS Fiona Anderson talks on Global BC about Vancouver’s Tekmira getting the go-ahead to treat Ebola patients

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Whistler has been named the top resort in North America by Ski Magazine and is now planning a $6 million upgrade to its gondolas

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

news

Anatomy of a deal: the sale of real estate | Multimillion-dollar

overview | It was the decade’s most spectacular B.C. bankruptcy: in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the developer responsible for building the glittering Olympic Village on the shores of Vancouver’s False Creek was in serious financial trouble. With the 2010 Winter Olympics looming, the project went into receivership and the City of Vancouver assumed nearly $700 million worth of debt to finish the development. Fast-forward to April 2014: the city announces it’s finally free of that debt and has divested itself of its remaining interest in the project, with a $91 million sale to the Aquilini Group that included the remaining 67 unsold condos. But who are the real winners and losers in this historic land deal? And what was the deal?

condo purchase about

In April, the City of Vancouver sold its remaining interest in the Olympic Village development to the Aquilini Group for $91 million | By Jen St. Denis and Frank O’Brien jstdenis@biv.com fobrien@biv.com

t was trumpeted as a great deal: the City of Vancouver was ridding itself of its interest in the controversial Olympic Village development and making $70 million to boot. But the city has been reticent about supplying details of the deal, under which the remaining assets of Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties Ltd. were sold to the Aquilini Group for $91 million. An access to information request

17th Year!

made in June remains outstanding, and the Aquilini Group declined to comment for this story. Part of the purchase price of the deal, which was announced in April, would be for the 67 condominiums that remained unsold. Their total value is likely more than $70 million [see sidebar on page 8]. But $20 million of that price may have been to acquire the tax losses that accompanied the troubled project, which ultimately has left more losers than winners in its wake. Olympic Village losers Years after they dug, built and

painted the Olympic Village, 125 contractors and suppliers are still sitting on the project’s unsecured creditor list. They are owed as little as $29 (Vancouver Police Department) and as much as $122,722 (Vancouver Sun). In total they are owed almost $1 million, according to documents prepared by receiver EY (formerly Ernst & Young LLP). Dan Brady of Burnaby-based Pacific Waterproofing Ltd. said his company has been told it will receive around $670 out of the $20,160 it is owed (3.3%). According to other creditors, settlements have been in the 4.5% range or

Dominic Schaefer

less. For a n e a rly bi l l of ne a rly $400,000, before the project was put into receivership, Brady said Pacific Waterproofing received $0.60 on the dollar from Olympic Village project proponent Millennium Development Corp. “There are companies that are so close to the edge, but we’re bigger, we’re a little bit more well heeled,” Brady said. “But a couple of big ones [payment losses] and even we could be in trouble.” Shana Hochfelder of the Umbrella Shop in Vancouver said her business has been paid back around $400 of the original

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Vancouver’s Olympic Village more than acquiring prime city property The biggest losers The following are the 10 unsecured creditors who lost the most after the Olympic Village sank into receivership. In all, 125 unsecured creditors presented claims worth $991,706.74.

Total claim

Unsecured creditor

$122,722

The Vancouver Sun

$85,408

Pioneer Consultants Ltd.

$76,967

BC Hydro

$68,822

Pinnacle International (West First) Plaza Inc.

$41,552

Western Substrate Ltd.

$32,600

Knight Signs

$28,529

Roynat Inc.

$28,070

Letterbox

$27,225

Imperial Parking Canada Corp.

$23,701

Morgan Stewart Surveyors Source: Ernst &Young

Construction crews work on the Olympic Village during the lead-up to the 2010 Games |

$8,120 owed. Asked whether that was a big hit for her small business to take, Hochfelder said, “You bet.” Most of the creditors Business in Vancouver contacted refused to comment. While Vision Vancouver’s political opponents lined up to take aim at the way the city handled the project after trouble struck, some of the most steadfast critics are sounding more conciliatory now that the city’s obligations have been wrapped up. In April, developer Michael Geller told BIV that while he remains critical of the way the city handled the project, he’s glad that proceeds from property sales in the development were higher than expected. When announcing the Aquilini Group deal in April, Mayor Gregor Robertson said the city had been left with a $70 million surplus. According to Robertson, the sale retired the $690 million debt the city had taken on after Millennium Development experienced

serious financing problems following the 2008 financial crisis. The city recouped $770 million, including Olympic Village presales, commercial and residential sales, sales of other Millennium Development buildings located throughout the city and the Aquilini purchase, city manager Penny Ballem explained in April. Subtracting the fees the city was obliged to pay to the receiver and other parties leaves it with a $70 million surplus, according to Ballem. But Rob Macdonald, president of Vancouver-based Macdonald Development Corp., noted that the city will never recoup $170 million out of the $200 million Millennium originally agreed to pay for the 17 acres of land in 2006. “City taxpayers lost about $100 million,” Macdonald said. Winning with tax losses Tax losses are usually a factor in transactions like the one between the city and the Aquilini Group, David Bowra of financial advisory

John Bollwitt

company the Bowra Group told BIV. “These guys are sophisticated buyers, and I would expect that tax losses may have been one of the factors influencing this transaction,” said Bowra, who did not know the specifics of the deal. Tax losses, he said, generally sell for $0.04 or $0.05 on the dollar, “and it’s likely there may have been large tax pools available that they could have utilized.” Those “tax pools” would be available to the Aquilini Group to offset future business income. In a written statement released following the April announcement, the Aquilini Group stated, “We have a long-term investment horizon. Some condominium units will be sold, while others will be retained for rent until sold. We see long-term appreciation in these units.” The City of Vancouver declined an interview request, but communications manager Tobin Postma emailed a statement to BIV: “The assets and liabilities

related to the transaction are considerations of any proponent considering an offer in any real estate deal. These considerations are personal to such proponents and affect the value they are prepared to offer.” A solvent company that buys a business that is in debt can apply the losses of the distressed company to future tax years, said Kin Lo, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business. Lo added, however, that in order to be able to use the tax loss, the businesses must be “the same or similar.” The principle behind the practice is to provide a balance between taxable profits and the losses that all businesses risk incurring. How much of the $91 million purchase was for the properties and how much might have been a tax loss purchase remains uncertain, but the tax losses are estimated at $400 million, an amount Millennium principal Peter Malek did not dispute. At $.05 on the dollar, $20 million of

the purchase price would have been for the losses. Olympic Village winners In 2006, Millennium Development raised eyebrows with its $190 million offer for the parcel of land set to house the athletes for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The second-highest bid was $150 million. At $225 per square foot, it was then the highest price paid for land in Vancouver. Millenium later added a small parcel for $10 million, bringing the total purchase price to $200 million. Starting in November 2010, SEFC Properties Ltd., Millennium’s subsidiary that had been known as Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties Ltd., was forced into receivership after months of negotiations with the city over plans to revise the development’s marketing and to repay the $740 million in loans Millennium owed the city at the time. continued on page 8

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Anatomy of a deal Continued from page 7

Millennium, headed by brothers Peter and Shahram Malek, has apparently shrugged off its Olympic Village losses and has since reeled off a string of successful multi-family residential projects in the city of Vancouver and across the Lower Mainland. The company developed the $100 million, 21-storey Alexandra residential tower in Vancouver’s West End, where all 88 units presold at between $298,000 and $999,000. The project is scheduled to be completed this year. Millennium also developed the $45 million Boheme, a 102unit condominium development on East Hastings in Vancouver, which has sold out and is now under construction. In addition, Millennium is developing the $250 million One Madison Avenue mixed-use complex in Burnaby and is planning a multi-tower development in North Surrey. According to Millennium’s website, the company has developed and sold out 21 condominium projects across Metro Vancouver. Amir Malek, the father of Peter and Shahram, is a noted international real estate developer with large projects in Europe and Iran, the family’s homeland. As to lessons he and his company learned from the Olympic

news How much are they worth?

Much has been made of the fact that the Olympic Village condominiums have fallen in value, based on BC Assessment numbers from 2011 to July 1, 2013. Paul Sullivan, a partner in appraisers Burgess Cawley Sullivan & Associates, said the most likely reason for the drop in assessed values of new and unsold condominiums over the past three years was “an assessor being overly aggressive in pricing luxury condominiums” in 2011 and the prices no longer reflecting those values in the current market. He emphasized that this is a hypothetical concept related to new condominiums in general and doesn’t refer to any specific project.

F 31.8% F 21.6% F 27.8% F 12.4% Village project, Peter Malek said, “We are very proud of the fact that we designed and built the entire Olympic Village, comprised

F 11.8% F 26.2% F 6.2%

181 West 1st Avenue Unit 306 Square footage: 1,118 2011: $1,014,000 2014: $692,000 Down 31.8%

170 Athletes Way Unit 501 Square footage: 1,923 2011: $2,164,000 2014: $1,697,000 Down 21.6%

1616 Columbia Street Unit 1005 Square footage: 2,623 2011: $3,463,000 2014: $2,502,000 Down 27.8%

1661 Ontario Street Unit 308 Square footage: 806 2011: $604,000 2014: $533,000 Down 11.8%

1633 Ontario Street Unit 1101 Square footage: 2,799 2011: $4,562,000 2014: $3,369,000 Down 26.2%

77 Walter Hardwick Avenue, Unit 608 Square footage: 685 2011: $502,000 2014: $471,000 Down 6.2%

Valuations of seven of the 63 unsold condos as of July 1, 2013 (the 2014 assessment) and July 1, 2010 (2011). The 63 units were last appraised at $70.3 million, a 20% drop from their 2011 assessed value of $87.8. See biv.com for full list and interactive property valuation information graphic.

118 Athletes Way Unit 501 Square footage: 1,800 2011: $1,732,000 2014: $1,517,000 Down 12.4%

Source: BC Assessment compiled by Peter Mitham

of eight city blocks, in about 30 months, and ahead of schedule for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Since then the community has

turned out exactly as we planned and envisaged and continues to win numerous awards and accolades that all Vancouverites can

be proud of.” • – With files from Peter Mitham and Glen Korstrom

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

oversight

Agencies blow whistle on B.C. forestry sector’s self-policing Problems in British Columbia’s forest regulatory system are raising flags among a growing number of agencies and organizations, prompting some to say the province is at risk of losing public confidence in resource development. The alarm and the calls for change are coming from the watchdog Forest Practices Board, the Association of BC Forest Professionals, which governs foresters, and the Professional Employees Association that represents public-sector professionals. Further, the B.C. auditor general, the B.C. ombudsperson and the Forest Practices Board have all written reports within the last two years on the failures associated

with the practice of relying on professionals employed by resource companies to manage the province’s forests. They may disagree on the causes or severity of the problems they see in the forests, but all agree that the province needs to act. Issues identified include: •An absence of clarity in legislation and regulations. •Not enough transparency over how land use decisions are made and whether the recommendations of forest professionals are being put into practice by forest licensees. •Not enough emphasis on compliance and enforcement by the province.

•Regulations that compel a forest company to preserve an old-growth stand yet allow a gas exploration company, operating under different rules, to move in and log it. •Not enough forest professionals on the ground – whether in government or private practice. •Incidents of forest professionals being

either unwilling or unable to stop operations where safety is at stake. Scott McCannell, executive director of the Professional Employees Association, said the issue boils down to the government having abandoned its role as a knowledgeable owner and steward of the land when it introduced regulatory changes in 2004. “Ultimately, when there is significant lack of compliance it takes away from social licence,” McCannell said. “And that may result in the public really opposing the significant economic development that is before British Columbia, not only in the forest industry, but in mining and LNG opportunities.”

economy

Real estate

Petronas casts doubt on $10 billion B.C. LNG project

Coastal Health calls for bids on 22-acre Cambie parcel

Uncertainty over the future of LNG in British Columbia could lead to Petronas pulling out of its $10 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project in this province, the CEO of the Malaysian oil and gas giant told Britain’s Financial Times. Shamsul Abbas cited new taxes and competition from U.S. gas projects as potential roadblocks. “The way things are developing the project remains uncertain and I doubt we will be able to make a positive [final investment decision] by year-end,” he said.

Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) is expecting bids from developers to top $16 million per acre for approximately 22 acres of land it owns on Vancouver’s west side. But both VCH and a real estate consultant say City of Vancouver community amenity contributions – which could potentially total tens of millions of dollars once the medical site is rezoned for higherdensity development – could play a key role in the bid process. VCH issued a request for proposal

This is not the first time Abbas has addressed the uncertainty over the industry in the province. He has previously warned against unrealistic expectations, saying the province needed to be careful not to squander LNG opprtunities because of government regulations, likely referring to B.C.’s LNG tax. Petronas and the provincial government signed a letter of intent in May that addressed collaborative work in producing LNG in B.C. and exporting it to Asian markets.

K biv.com Go online to read these stories in full, along with much more business news updated daily at biv.com.

September 9 for the sale and redevelopment of two pa rcels w ith i n the 25.4-acre Pearson Dogwood site on Cambie Street between 57th and 59th avenues. One parcel, measuring just under six acres, is currently home to the 116unit Dogwood Lodge residential care home. The second, approximately 16 acres, houses the George Pearson Centre, a 114-unit extended care-facility. VCH will retain 3.2 acres for proposed health-care and community uses.

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Surrey Exports | Global trade of softwood lumber on the rise 7%

Percentage by which global shipments of softwood lumber rose in the first half of 2014

compared to the same period in 2013

36%

Percentage by which global trade in softwood lumber has risen compared to five years ago

15%

Percentage by which exports of softwood lumber climbed in Russia in the first half of 2014

compared to the first half of 2013

77%

Combined share of the Chinese softwood lumber import market accounted for by

Canada and Russia Source: Wood Resources International LLC

Housing market is Surrey’s bellwether, says top Canadian economic forecaster real estate | Sector

is major economic driver for the city, but could stall growth as interest rates climb, says TD Securities’ chief Canada macro strategist

By Patrick Blennerhassett news@biv.com

hen it comes to Surrey’s economy, you ca n’t talk about the city’s exponential growth without real estate entering the conversation, says one of Canada’s leading economic forecasters. “The housing market is key,” said David Tulk, chief Canada macro strategist with TD Securities. “That’s one area, looking at how well it’s performed. And it does feel stretched, and [there is] pressure on a region like Surrey where there are a lot of people coming in, so the prices are pushed up even higher.” Tulk, who spoke September 24 at a Surrey Board of Trade event, said he has “mild concerns” when it comes to Surrey’s real estate sector, which is trying to keep pace with the city’s population boom. “As those mortgages for firsttime mortgage owners, they start to flip over, five years, the interest rates will be higher. I mean they won’t be as high as we’ve seen in previous economic cycles but that does create a little bit of concern. Especially if those are borrowers that feel somewhat stretched trying to get into their first home in the first place. So I think that’s an area of concern.” But the chances of a U.S.-style

The housing market is key. That’s one area, looking at how well it’s performed. And it does feel stretched, and [there is] pressure on a region like Surrey where there are a lot of people coming in, so the prices are pushed up even higher

[] David Tulk Chief Canada macro strategist, TD Securities

David Tulk (right), chief Canada macro strategist with TD Securities, and Dave Keyworth of event sponsor Deloitte LLP, flank Surrey Board of Trade chairman Gerard Bremault at a Surrey Board of Trade event

housing correction are low for Canada’s real estate market, he said. And Surrey Board of Trade chairman Gerard Bremault sees silver-lined promise in Tulk’s forecast, especia l ly when it comes to Canada-U.S. trade relations and, more specifically, Surrey’s place within that conversation. “Given our proximity to the border and the amount of border

trade, that strikes me as hopeful. I have some concerns in terms of the analysis of how the Canadian dollar may go, and the sensitivities there to our trade relationships with the U.S.” Tulk said U.S. economic headwinds will help support Canada’s economic recovery heading through the second half of 2014, and that when it comes to major international markets, the U.S.

is the “cleanest dirty shirt” in comparison to others, including Europe, Japan and China. “To be honest, it can’t come soon enough to see the United States begin to get its act together,” he added. “There’s obviously been quite significant structural headwinds that have really hurt the U.S. in recent years. So now that that’s starting to turn, it does definitely benefit Canada.” •

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

realestate Surrey housing starts catching up to Vancouver’s; regulation looms on the horizon for homebuilders Vancouver rental starts rising 2500

2000

Peter Mitham Real estate roundup

1500

1000

500

4 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11 20 12 20 13 20 14

0 19 9

Pace of growth Surrey lays claim to being “one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada, and the fastest-growing city in Metro Vancouver,” with “approximately 800 new residents each month.” But the online boast – from its website – masks the fact that when it comes to housing starts, Vancouver remains very much the region’s primary downtown. BC Stats indicates that Surrey’s population grew 2.3% last year, well above the 1.7% growth posted in Vancouver (but behind Coquitlam and Langley Township, at 3.2% and 2.8%, respectively). Vancouver continues to be where development happens, however. Of the 18,600 starts that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) predicts for the Vancouver metropolitan area this year, 2,698 have occurred to date in Vancouver while just 2,088 have occurred in Surrey. This, of course, is thanks largely to the predominance of multi-family starts in Vancouver. Densification and infill projects have pushed housing into the sky – physically, as well as price-wise – in the region’s urban core, while single-detached, so-called “ground-oriented” construction predominates in Surrey. But to give Surrey its due, its

Vancouver has had 2,698 housing starts so far this year

housing starts briefly eclipsed Vancouver’s from 2006 through 2009 – the peak and immediate aftermath of the housing boom, when developers were keen to move projects through to completion. However, starts are also rising in step with population growth. Absorption of new units is up in Vancouver and down in Surrey this year, but starts suggest the phenomenon will reverse. “The total number of starts is down in Vancouver, whereas it was up in Surrey and up most significantly on the singledetached side,” said Robyn Adamache, senior market analyst for Metro Vancouver with CMHC. “They are increasing at a faster pace.” Down the lane Vancouver may have an acute need for new market rental buildings, but the Canadian Apartment Investment

Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Conference in Toronto earlier this month underscored the need for new rental construction right across Canada. “The majors … all have a very strong focus on trying to build rental apartment buildings new,” reported apartment broker David Goodman, a principal with HQ Real Estate Services, shortly after his return from the annual event. “There’s a time for renewal, and there’s a strong emphasis on that area.” Goodman went so far as to bill calls for new rental buildings “the flavour of the decade” – not a fad, but the defining need of the moment. Vancouver, of course, has undertaken various measures to encourage new rental construction, though the economics have been such that developers have found it difficult and rents have yet to moderate significantly – unlike condos, which have been constructed

in sufficient numbers in some neighbourhoods that prices have been held in check by supply. While market rental starts in Vancouver averaged less than 200 a year during the condo boom of 2005 to 2009, according to CMHC, starts since 2010 have returned to historical levels. Starts in 2013 totalled 1,944, thanks largely to market rental construction. Swelling those numbers, however, are a significant number of laneway homes. Of the 1,632 market rental starts last year, 406 units were single-detached, which CMHC said “are likely laneway homes.” Regulation coming Regardless of the type of housing being built, home builders will soon be subject to regulations aimed at providing consumers with assurances

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regarding the quality of the work being done. B.C.’s Homeowner Protection Office (HPO) has been discussing minimum qualifications for homebuilders for four years in consultation with the Professional Builders’ Institute of BC, but implementation of a licensing scheme planned for this fall now seems set for 2015. “We expect the new system to be phased in starting in 2015, following changes that are being made to the Homeowner Protection Act regulation, and the communication of these requirements to licensees,” the HPO said, responding to a request for information. “HPO will administer the enhanced licensing system and will continue to work with industry to ensure that it’s fair and accessible to all builders across the province.” •

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This document/email has been prepared by Colliers International for advertising and general information only. Colliers International makes no guarantees, representations or warranties of any kind, expressed or implied, regarding the information including, but not limited to, warranties of content, accuracy and reliability. Any interested party should undertake their own inquiries as to the accuracy of the information. Colliers International excludes unequivocally all inferred or implied terms, conditions and warranties arising out of this document and excludes all liability for loss and damages arising there from. This publication is the copyrighted property of Colliers International and /or its licensor(s). © 2014 All rights reserved. This communication is not intended to cause or induce breach of an existing listing agreement. Colliers Macaulay Nicolls Brokerage Inc. (Vancouver). *Personal Real Estate Corporation. PO #11709.

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

AsiaPacific South Asia’s energy demand fast outstripping supply

Asian outlook JOnathan Manthorpe

The South Asia region, which includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal as well as India, has significant but inadequate domestic energy resources to satisfy the growing demand. All, except Bhutan, are net energy importers

A chaotic web of wires hangs over Chawri Bazaar, the famous old market in Delhi, India. Energy consumption in South Asia is rising fast, but the region’s countries face big hurdles to meeting demand | Jorg Hackemann , Shutterstock.com

construction of a regional energy network through revival of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). His first foreign visits after his inauguration in May were to the Himalayan nations of Bhutan and Nepal, both of which have the potential to build hydropower projects to feed the Indian market. But even if regional political barriers – such as over 60 years of war-punctuated animosity between India and Pakistan – can be overcome and an integrated energy market created, SAARC is never going to be self-sufficient.

Project is Nepal’s first major stride toward fulfilling its hydroelectric potential Nepal has some of the best hydropower development prospects anywhere, but the first significant step to utilize those resources did not begin until last week. Investment Board Nepal signed a $1.4 billion deal with the Indian infrastructure group GMR for a 900-megawatt dam and tunnel hydro-power system on the upper Karnali River. The project, due to be completed by 2021, will produce significantly more electricity than the 700 megawatts currently generated by all of Nepal’s existing run-of-the-river systems. Even this, however, is a minor

step towards the estimated 80,000 megawatts – 80 gigawatts – Nepal could produce, though only about half of that is considered economically viable at the moment. Exploitation of Nepal’s 6,000 Himalayan rivers, purpose-built by geography to supply the energystarved Indian market, has been hampered by political upheaval and a Maoist insurgency that have only recently been overcome. The Karnali agreement is the first of four major projects now on the drawing board, which in all have the potential to nearly double Nepal’s current gross domestic product of just over $19 billion. The “build, own, operate and transfer” Karnali project will

provide Nepal with 12% of the dam’s electricity output for free. The remaining electricity will be exported to India. At the end of the company’s 25-year operating-life concession, it will transfer the project to Nepal. Demand for electricity in Nepal has been increasing by about 7% a year, but only about 40% of the population of 28 million has access to power through grid and off-grid systems. Because most electricity is produced by run-of-the-river systems, there is an excess of power in the monsoon season and a serious deficit in the dry season. Only one existing power project can store water to tide it through the dry season.

continued on page 15

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he seven countries of South Asia are among the world’s most avid customers for energy to feed their economic development ambitions, but also among the most challenging to satisfy. This is especially true of the region’s massive core country, India, whose growth in energy consumption by its 1.2 billion people is predicted by the International Energy Agency to be 3% a year until 2035 – the fastest in the world and double that of China. The South Asia region, which includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal as well as India, has significant but inadequate domestic energy resources to satisfy the growing demand. All, except Bhutan, are net energy importers. India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, is attempting to set the stage for the

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

In several South Asian countries there are also domestic political constraints stemming largely from a history of subsidies for consumers. In India, oil subsidies have been largely phased out since 2010. But electricity prices for users in most Indian states are still up to 30% below production costs. With fewer than 70% of Indian households linked to the grid, unravelling that political conundrum is a nightmare. •

demand for 800 gigawatts of electricity a year by 2030. Yet South Asia is surrounded by countries and regions with abundant energy resources, especially oil and natural gas, that are eager to supply the SAARC market. There’s Iran to the west, Russia and the Central Asian states to the north, and Burma – also known as Myanmar – to the east. Schemes are underway to construct pipelines into South Asia from all these regions. But all face either political, security or geographic problems, or a combination of two or more of those

constraints. A natural gas pipeline from Iran’s southern Fars field has reached the Pakistan border, but both Islamabad and New Delhi are under pressure from Washington not to plug in to Iranian supplies while Tehran remains under sanctions for its suspect nuclear program. A pipeline to India and Pakistan from Turkmenistan and across Afghanistan is promising in the long run. But while the security of Afghanistan – and, indeed, Pakistan’s eastern tribal areas – is uncertain, no timetable can be drawn up.

New Delhi and Beijing are exploring with Moscow the possibility of extending into India the planned $30 billion, 2,600-kilometre gas pipeline from Russia’s Altai region to China. This project faces challenges from not only the regional political rivalries between New Delhi and Beijing, but also the engineering problems of traversing the mountainous border regions. The Altai pipeline project is also strongly opposed by international environmental organizations. The most straightforward project is a gas pipeline from Burma to India through Bangladesh.

Jonathan Manthorpe (jonathan. manthorpe@gmail.com) has been an international affairs columnist for nearly 40 years.

CHINA

HONG KONG

SOUTHEAST ASIA

BURMA

PHILIPPINES

Government is hack-vulnerable

More than 20% mull leaving

Singapore tops index

Sweet deal for food maker

Marcos to get military burial

Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, in that order, have been ranked the most attractive markets in Asia for infrastructure investment in the Dutch-based Arcadis NV company’s annual global index. The comparison of 41 countries ranks their attractiveness to infrastructure investors on the basis of such matters as ease of doing business, tax rates, gross domestic product per capita, government policies and the quality of existing infrastructure. Singapore also topped the global index with Qatar second, the United Arab Emirates third and Canada fourth, down one spot from last year. Malaysia is seventh and Australia ninth.

The Swiss food giant Nestlé is joining the rush into Burma, also known as Myanmar, with a $25 million project to build a factory to manufacture its three-in-one instant coffee packages. The plant at Dagon Seikkan Industrial Zone on the outskirts of the commercial centre, Rangoon, is the first of planned major strides into the newly opened economy where military rule was lifted in 2011. Nestlé plans a second phase of investment, earmarking at least another $25 million over five years to produce dairy products, ice cream and chocolate. Until now Nestlé products have been imported into Burma from neighbouring Thailand.

Dictators can be as inconvenient when they are dead as they were troublesome when they were alive. That’s the case with the preserved remains of the Philippines’ last dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, who died in exile in 1989. His family brought the corpse back to his home of Batac in 1993, but want him buried at the nation’s heroes’ cemetery in Manila. Successive democratically elected presidents have refused repeated importuning by the family. Now, the administration of President Benigno Aquino, whose father was murdered by Marcos’ thugs, says he can be buried with military honours, but at Batac, not the heroes’ cemetery.

energy Demand Continued from page 14

A recent study by the United Kingdom-based global risk assessment and strategic advisory company Oxford Analytica points out that India has only 0.7% of proven global natural gas reserves and Pakistan only 0.3%. India has 6.8% of the world’s coal reserves and Pakistan 0.1%. Nepal has some of the most attractive water resources anywhere for the development of hydro-power projects, but at best these could meet only about 10% of India’s projected

The Chinese government has the A survey by Hong Kong’s Chinese reputation for overseeing one of University has found 21.2% of the the world’s largest and most active territory’s seven million people are armies of computer hackers. But so pessimistic about the territory’s it seems this is an almost entirely future that they are thinking of offensive operation, and Beijing is not leaving. The mood of gloom follows nearly as energetic in protecting its the decision by China’s National own sites against cyber-intruders. A People’s Congress to allow universal recent analysis by China’s National suffrage in Hong Kong for elections Computer Virus Emergency of the chief executive only after Response Centre found that 50.4% a committee appointed by the of 2,714 government websites Communist Party of China has British Columbia surveyed were riddled with over vetted candidates for their loyalty 21,000 security loopholes. The report to Beijing. Canadians are the largest said most of the sites were wide open minority in Hong Kong, with between to hackers who want to spread viruses 300,000 and 350,000 Canadian or spam emails, or who want to collect citizens resident there at any one saleable confidential information. time.

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

finance

BioteQ Enviro. (TSX:BQE) weekly price gain

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datapoints

Provincial home sales lifted by Metro Vancouver in August

egional home sales were mixed in August, but a stronger pickup in the Lower Mainland lifted B.C. sales to a multi-year high, following a July dip. According to the latest Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) data, provincial Multiple Listing Service (MLS) sales climbed 2.5% from July to a seasonally adjusted 7,215 units, which was the strongest pace of monthly sales since early 2011, but remained generally in line with levels observed since May. Outside the Lower Mainland, sales declined 2% as fewer sales on Vancouver Island (excluding Victoria), in the South Okanagan and in the north offset gains in the remaining markets. Despite the mixed monthly performance, August’s numbers point to solid housing demand that is well ahead of last year’s level in most provincial markets. While there are pockets of weakness, provincial sales were up 7% from the same month in 2013, led by the Lower Mainland and a more than 20% gain in the Okanagan and Chilliwack areas. Year-over-year growth

In August sales increased in the Lower Mainland but declined in most other B.C. regions 10,000

$600,000

9,000

500,000

7,000 6,000

450,000

Dollars

550,000

8,000 Units

is generally decelerating due to a rising sales trend in the back half of 2013, but year-to-date gains remained high at 16%. Housing market momentum has persisted despite a sluggish labour market as low mortgage rates and signs of recovery in recreational housing have fuelled activity. While mortgage rates have stayed low for longer than expected, we expect momentum to moderate as rates pull off their lows. Mortgage rates will continue to prop up sales but should not be the primary contributor to growth. The positive sales trend has lifted activity to modest levels. While shy of levels observed in the mid2000s, demand and supply conditions have tightened. Existing home inventory has fallen over the past two years and is at the lowest since 2010. The average provincial MLS price reached a seasonally adjusted $575,600 in August, marking a 1.9% increase from July and a 4.7% increase from the same month in 2013. Average prices are influenced by geographic sales composition, but most regions have experienced modest price appreciation over the past year. MLS sales are forecast to rise 10% to 80,000 units this year, while the average annual price gains 5% to $566,000. Sales are forecast to rise a further 5% next year, with the average price increasing by a mild 1%. •

5,000 400,000

4,000 3,000 2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Sales (L)

2013

2014

350,000

Average price (R) Sources: Canadian real estate association, Central 1 credit union

Housing SUPPLY Active listings

Demand and supply conditions have tightened recently 65,000 60,000 55,000 Active listings

Bryan Yu

MLS sales monthly

50,000 45,000 40,000 35,000 30,000 2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Sources: Canadian real estate association, Central 1 credit union

Sales-to-active-listings ratio

Existing home inventory is at its lowest level since 2010 30 Sales-to-active-listings ratio

Data Points

REAL ESTATE

25 20 15 10 5 2007

Bryan Yu is an economist at Central 1 Credit Union.

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Sources: Canadian real estate association, Central 1 credit union

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finance

D 9%

Entree Gold (TSX:ETG) weekly price gain

F 26%

Sunward Resources (TSX:SWD) weekly price drop

UrtheCast Corp. (TSX:UR) weekly price drop

A comprehensive snapshot of B.C.’s economy that includes forecasts and key indicators to provide business decision-makers with more tools to help them understand the economy’s strengths, weaknesses and direction. Compiled by Jen St. Denis

inflation Consumer price index

B.C. inflation was well below the Canadian average in August, reflecting slack in the labour market and economy 126

125.7

124 122

121.2 119.6

120 118

Food

The cost of food (up 1.7%) has increased more than clothing (-1.5%) or general shelter costs (1%) 140 135 130 125 120

116

115

114

110

2012

2013

Canada

J A J O J A J O J A J O J A J O J A J

2014

Vancouver

2010

2011

B.C.

2012

2013

Restaurant CPI

Sources: Statistics canada, Central 1 credit union

2014

Grocery CPI

Sources: Statistics canada, Central 1 credit union

Gasoline

Energy

The cost of energy has climbed more than 7% compared with a year ago

Following a seasonal price spike, the cost of gasoline is now falling

200

175

190

170

180

165

170

160

155

150

140

J A J O J A J O J

2010

2011

A J O J

2012 Canada

A J O J

2013 British Columbia

A J

145

2014

A S

O N

2013

F M

A M

2014 Canada

British Columbia

Sources: Statistics canada, central 1 credit union

Source: Statistics canada

RETAIL B.C. retail sales, July

B.C. retail sales dipped in July following steady increases throughout the spring

Provincial comparison

B.C. retailers saw 6.2% more sales in July than they did one year ago, the second-highest growth in the country

Per cent change

5.7

Billions

5.6 5.5 5.4 5.3 5.2 5.1

2013

CaNickel Mining (TSX:CML) weekly price drop

F 21%

INSIDERTRADING

dashBoard

2011

F 22%

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

2014

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 C.

Source: Statistics canada

d un

h tc

ito

n Ca

t On

P. w

ick

s un

c aS

e Qu

Source: Statistics canada

CREW VA N C O U V E R

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The following is a list of stock trades made by corporate executives, directors and other company insiders of B.C.’s public companies filed the week ending September 24. The information comes from a compilation of required reports filed with the BC Securities Commission obtained from DisclosureNet.com.

Insider Charles Edgar Fipke, director Company: Cantex Mine Development (TSX:CD) Shares owned: 24,439,394 Trade date: August 15 Trade total: $750,000 Trade: Acquisition of 15,000,000 shares at a price of $0.05 per share Insider Martin Rowley, director Company: First Quantum Minerals (TSX:FM) Shares owned: 20,005 Trade date: September 16 Trade total: $560,510 Trade: Sale of 24,370 shares at a price of $23 per share Insider Daniel Ellis Kenney, officer Company: Rio Alto Mining Ltd. (TSX:RIO) Shares owned: 102,200 Trade date: September 16 Trade total: $382,350 Trade: Sale of 115,000 shares at prices ranging between $3.31 and $3.33 per share Insider John Cameron Rowntree, officer Company: North American Nickel Inc. (TSX:NAN) Shares owned: 1,150,000 Trade date: September 23 Trade total: $241,130 Trade: Sale of 447,500 shares at prices ranging between $0.43 and $0.61 per share Insider Susan Carole Rowntree, officer Company: North American Nickel Inc. (TSX:NAN) Shares owned: 1,150,000 Trade date: September 23 Trade total: $241,130 Trade: Sale of 447,500 shares at prices ranging between $0.43 and $0.61 per share

Insider Pierre Lassonde, 10% owner Company: Foran Mining Corp. (TSX:FOM) Shares owned: 9,171,069 Trade date: September 22 Trade total: $158,355 Trade: Acquisition of 931,500 shares at a price of $0.17 per share Insider Terry Libin, director Company: Absolute Software Corp. (TSX:ABT) Shares owned: 539,100 Trade date: September 3, 4, 18, 19 Trade total: $148,752 Trade: Sale of 21,100 shares at prices ranging between $7.03 and $7.06 per share Insider Glenn Pountney, 10% owner Company: VMS Ventures Inc. (TSX:VMS) Shares owned: 21,257,000 Trade date: September 18, 19, 22, 23 Trade total: $125,740 Trade: Acquisition of 454,000 shares at prices ranging between $0.27 and $0.28 per share Insider Mayank Mulraj Ashar, director Company: Teck Resources Ltd. (TSX:TCK) Shares owned: 33,000 Trade date: September 22 Trade total: $107,050 Trade: Acquisition of 5,000 shares at a price of $21.41 per share Insider Richard J. Patricio, director Company: Nexgen Energy Ltd. (TSX:NXE) Shares owned: 300,000 Trade date: September 17, 18 Trade total: $83,000 Trade: Acquisition of 200,000 shares at prices ranging between $0.41 and $0.43 per share Insider Peter Frederick Tegart, officer Company: Midas Gold Corp. (TSX:MAX) Shares owned: 550,000 Trade date: September 19 Trade total: $66,000 Trade: Sale of 100,000 shares at a price of $0.66 per share •

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

askthe experts

Casting a wider net will deepen available executive talent pool

QUESTION | I’m looking to hire some top executives for my company, but I’ve heard the city is

experiencing a talent crunch. What should I know before expanding my search beyond Vancouver?

BRENT CAMERON | Managing partner, Boyden Global Executive Search

irst, it is true that many Vancouver-based companies looking for top executive talent expand their search outside the city. As Vancouver is a relatively small city with fewer head offices than Toronto or even Calgary, expanding the geographic scope of the search can deepen and broaden the pool significantly. Before agreeing to expand your search beyond Vancouver, here are a few things you should know:

Cost Expanding the search will increase your costs. You will have expenses related to interviewing people not based here, plus relocation costs. Also, most compensation surveys consistently find Vancouver salaries lagging behind other cities. You may have to enhance your compensation package in order to attract the right candidate. Housing If you are going to recruit from outside Vancouver, housing needs to be one of the first conversations you have with potential candidates. And you need to realize that, for many people, Vancouver is just not going to be a viable option. Immigration If you are going to search internationally, you need to work with a recruitment firm that understands the changing Canadian immigration and work permit requirements, or you need to find a good immigration lawyer to provide you advice. Do not wait until the end of your search to do this. If you are going to search internationally, get advice at the start.

TONY KIRSCHNER | Partner, Davies Park Executive Search

onsider the following before expanding your executive recruitment outside of Vancouver. Confirm that the rumours of a “talent crunch” are true. Executive scarcity rarely blankets an entire region and often is focused on a hot job function or industry. Before expanding your search, be sure you have covered the fundamentals. Ask yourself: Am I being too rigid with skills-based hiring criteria? (Top executives can be effective across functions and industries.) Have I developed a proper talent pipeline or am I relying on social media and online postings? (True executives rarely respond to these approaches.) If you are confident that you’ve exhausted the local talent market, looking afield is the next step and the norm in executive recruitment. Expanding the search geographically adds cost and risk, so you generally need to increase the number of candidates to achieve a successful result. For Canadians, Vancouver is an attractive place to live but it is expensive compared to most regions, so often candidates withdraw when it’s “decision time” as the numbers don’t add up. Be sure you’ve properly vetted candidates and focus your efforts on higher-costof-living markets. When looking outside Canada, you have to “sell the city” to prospective candidates because, as appealing as Vancouver is to most Canadians, not everyone is as aware of the pros and cons of living here. Immigration issues lengthen the hiring process, so engage an experienced immigration lawyer to ensure your ducks are in a row. If you decide to search beyond the Lower Mainland, be prepared to get creative with total compensation approaches, give yourself plenty of time to fill the position, and use tried-and-true recruitment best practices to successfully attract top executives.

CHAD RUTHERFORD | Managing partner, Vancouver, Summit Search Group

ancouver is one of the top cities in the world to live in, and for that reason we have some of the brightest and best executives in the country, if not the world, who are choosing to live here. So what are the solutions for people who run into a “talent crunch” in their search? The main two that I would highly recommend are transferable skill sets and professional recruitment firms. Sometimes I see employers get so caught up in finding someone from their own industry that they miss out on some really outstanding individuals. Someone who has been a top performer in another industry most likely has the intelligence and drive to succeed in a new industry. And many times there are benefits in bringing someone new into an industry with a fresh perspective and excitement as opposed to recycling someone who has maybe lost that passion and has “seen it and done it.” I have also seen many clients trying to use Internet solutions lately only to come back to our professional search services. The top performers aren’t sitting at their computers searching job postings and they probably aren’t spending a lot of time replying to posts. A professional search firm takes the time to understand what it is you need to accomplish and what the corporate culture requirements of your company are. It would then go out and recruit appropriate individuals with a professional message explaining why the firm is contacting them, how the candidate matches the job needs and why they should take the time to consider the opportunity. Ultimately the firm would provide the client with a short list of fully qualified applicants.

Next week’s question – What should I know before introducing a loyalty program that rewards customers at my business? Comments curated by BIV news staff | Have a question for the Experts? Email: news@biv.com

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

profile | Gary Herman

Trades man When the provincial government needed someone to help shift the focus of B.C.’s education system in favour of industrial training, it knocked on Gary Herman’s door

Gary Herman at AIT Canada’s machining and assembly shop in Aldergrove. As CEO of the Industry Training Authority, Herman will play a key role in implementing the provincial government’s Skills for Jobs Blueprint | Richard Lam

Mission

Help transform B.C.’s education system with the aim of raising a new generation of skilled workers for the province’s predicted boom in the liquefied natural gas industry

Assets

Extensive experience in executive and hands-on industrial roles

Yield

Recognition as a first-rate manager with the rare ability to speak the language of both the boardroom and the shop floor

By David Jordan news@biv.com

ad media been present, it would have been the photo op of the decade: a smiling Premier Christy Clark standing side by side with BC Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair. But when the two met in the premier’s office last September, there were no photographers present. The occasion was an exploratory meeting with government, labour and industry leaders aimed at figuring out how to supply the province’s emerging liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry with enough skilled workers. A few days earlier, Clark had appointed former deputy premier Jessica McDonald to review the Industry Training Authority (ITA), the Crown agency responsible for trades training and apprenticeships in

the province. That review, together with decisions stemming from the September meeting at the premier’s office, would result seven months later in an ambitious plan to overhaul the province’s trades training program – and a shift in attitudes toward the role of trades and labour in the province’s economic future. The Skills for Jobs Blueprint, released in April this year, incorporated 19 recommendations from the LNG Working Group that grew out of that September meeting, as well as 25 recommendations from McDonald’s review of the ITA. Aimed at supplying a projected million new jobs by 2022, the blueprint calls for, among other things, a reallocation of education funding from academic programs to trades training, and the introduction of trades to the school curriculum as early as kindergarten.

At the centre of the plan to shift resources and attitudes in favour of trades training is Gary Herman, who was named CEO of the ITA in July. And if anyone can pull off the tectonic shift in attitudes towards the trades in B.C., he can; having followed a career path from the shop floor to the board room, he’s uniquely suited to the task and is as handy with a spanner wrench as he is with a spreadsheet. Born and raised in Ontario, Herman started out with seven years in trades apprenticeships, then worked his way up to management in various manufacturing industries, earning an executive MBA along the way. An executive position at railway manufacturer VAE Nortrak brought him to B.C. in 2007, and he joined the ITA as chief operating officer in January 2013. continued on page 20

profile

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Trades Man Continued from page 19

He ser ved a s i nter i m CEO during the review process last spring and was confirmed as the head of the Crown agency in July, three months after the Skills for Jobs Blueprint was released and one month after the entire board of the ITA had been replaced. A big part of the jobs blueprint involves convincing today’s youth that a career in trades is at least as appealing as academ ic options, a nd Herma n brings to that task a rare ability to bridge the gap between the trades workers of tomorrow and their future employers. “I can walk into a school and speak with a 16- or 17-year-old who’s trying to make a decision and wants some information about the trades just as easily as I can talk to the board of directors on strategic decisions,” he said. At least as important as the ability to drum up interest in the trades among today’s youth are the managerial skills required to juggle all the complex parts of the jobs blueprint, and Herman is confident the task will be made easier by a lesson he learned early in his career. “One of the key things skilled trades teach is how to think methodically,” he said. “When you learn through your teachings how to think methodically, you automatically apply it to all areas of your life.”

Ju s t a s t he me ch a n ic who comes to fix your furnace has to work through a troubleshooting checklist, he explained, a CEO confronting a business challenge has to first lay out a clear path to the solution, then tick off each step in sequence. Herman doesn’t regret trading in his coveralls for a suit, saying he still has the opportunity to get his hands dirty messing around with tools at home. But he added that kids brought up in urban environments today may be missing out on a quintessential part of growing up. “Guys from my generation, we got to tinker with dad on the car,” he said. “Picture growing up in a condo in Vancouver: you may never have held a hammer in your hand.” There was one jarring note in Herman’s otherwise smooth transition from the private sector to a government agency. In his 30-plus years working his way up from shop floor to management, he said, he had never considered that the suits and the grease monkeys might be playing for different teams. “When I joined the ITA it was the first time I heard, ‘This is industry and this is labour,’” he said. “I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ In Ontario we just call it industry; there’s union and there’s non-union folks, but everybody works together to make sure they’re getting the outcomes they need.”

UPCOMING EVENTS

Guys from my generation, we got to tinker with dad on the car. Picture growing up in a condo in Vancouver: you may never have held a hammer in your hand

[] Gary Herman CEO, Industry Training Authority

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Nevertheless, those divisions remain firmly entrenched in B.C. politics and culture, and for all his dexterity at navigating between workers and bosses, Herman faces a challenge in bringing employers and union members together in order to see the jobs blueprint through to fruition. Looking back at that September meeting with Premier Clark, Jim Sinclair is encouraged by the mere fact that he was asked to participate. “It puts it on the table that labour has to be there, and that wasn’t always the case,” he said. Sinclair said the jobs blueprint that grew out of the September meeting and the McDonald review is a positive start. “We can’t imagine they’d be goi ng back wa rds at the I TA at this point, so we’re looking forward to being partners in an improved apprenticeship and training program,” Sinclair said. Even w ith everyone on the same page, Herman will have his work cut out for him, said Clyde Scollan, president of the Construction Labour Relations Association of BC, which represents unionized construction employers. He has met Herman and admires the combination of trades and business background he brings to the ITA, but cautions against playing down the magnitude of the task he faces. “A revamped ITA from stem to stern a nd a bluepri nt for

re-engineering the education and training system – those are big, big tasks,” Scollan said. “Hopefully he’s the right person for the job, but whoever’s t here h a s to h ave t he r i g ht environment.” And that environment has so many variables, Scollon said, that it’s too early to tell whether history will prove Herman to be an agent of historic change or whether the Skills for Jobs Blueprint will soon be forgotten as just another slogan. “Have they created a model that’s going to be driven by industry needs as opposed to politics? We sure hope so and we’re certainly happy to try and support them in the endeavour,” Scollan said. “The key thing is that at this point in the process there are more unknowns than knowns.” At 54, Herman views his promotion to head of the ITA as an opportunity to give something back to the trades that have given him such a rewarding career. And for him, “giving back” is no mere cliché but is embedded in the apprenticeship system itself. “I’ve never forgotten where I came from,” he said. “As an apprentice, you’re always asking for help because people are showing you what to do. The secret is to always be grateful for that help because it helps you move along and opens up other opportunities.”•

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Make time for recycling at home, work and on-the-go. By Scott Fraser President & CEO Encorp Pacific (Canada

very year in BC about one billion beverage containers are returned and recycled. What does one billion containers look like? Think instead about a mid-sized car. One billion beverage containers is the equivalent weight of 64,000 mid-sized cars. One billion containers recycled are like 64,000 cars not going to the dump. Every year. But it’s not the one billion containers that get recycled that we’re focused on, it’s the 250 million that still end up in the dump. We would love to track them down and recycle them, too. In order to accomplish that, we do a lot of research including segmenting people by their recycling behaviour. A key segment that we focus on has been identified as on-the-go discarders. They make up 18 percent of British Columbians but generate almost 40 percent of the discarded containers. On-the-go discarders are important because even people who recycle 92 percent of the time at home only recycle 41 percent of the time when they are away from home, whether shopping, out for a walk, at events, or at work. They do this even though they know it’s wrong. When people are away from home they tend throw things into the first receptacle they

People who recycle 92 percent of the time at home only recycle 41 percent of the time when they are away from home see, and it’s usually a garbage can. That’s not just true on the street. Think about a typical office: there is probably a blue box for paper, but what happens to beverage containers when there isn’t a recycling bin specifically for them? They probably end up in the garbage can. Obviously, then, we need to engage people in public spaces, and we do that with some success. In malls, arenas, restaurants, and

Find recycling bins and recycle everywhere. nightclubs, containers generally get recycled because the large volumes justify collecting them, whether it’s the owner taking them back, a commercial collector picking them up, or staff taking them to make some extra money. In the outdoors, we have a program to put beverage-container collection bins next to garbage cans in urban streetscapes developed in partnership with the City of Vancouver. This urban interception program is now rolling out to Port Alberni, Agassiz, Port Moody, Kelowna, and beyond. But offices remain a challenge. Our research suggests that a significant portion of beverage containers in the trash come from small

businesses and offices. A couple of containers each day in a small office doesn’t seem like much, but multiply that by over 150,000 small businesses and offices across BC and you’ll get a big number. We need to intercept people before they trash their containers, and businesses can play a role. If you own or work in a small business, put a beverage container recycling bin in your lunch room and let your staff, or the cleaning staff, take them. ADVERTORIAL

If you are a bigger company, call one of our mobile collectors. They will give you totes to collect containers and pick them up from you. Mobile collectors are listed on our web site, return-it.ca. If you are in a multi-unit building, ask your landlord to create a common recycling area for all businesses – then call one of our mobile collectors to get recycling totes placed there and arrange for regular pickup. There are still 250 million beverage containers getting trashed, which is the equivalent of 16,000 cars going to the dump, every year. We are on a mission to find them, and you can help. ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE RETURN-IT SYSTEM • $85 million annually in economic activity. • 173 independently-owned Return-It Depots employing almost 700 people across the province. • A network of owner-operator and commercial transporters and processors across the province who move 90,000 tons of aluminum, glass, plastic and other materials to recycling markets.

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

BIVLIST

Biggest Crown crown corporations in B.C. RANKED BY | Ranked Ranked BY | Rankedby by2013 2013revenue revenue Rank Company '14

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

BC Hydro 333 Dunsmuir St, Vancouver V6B 5R3 P: 604-224-9376 F: N/A www.bchydro.com Insurance Corp of BC 151 Esplanade W, North Vancouver V7M 3H9 P: 604-661-2800 F: 604-646-7400 www.icbc.com BC Lottery Corp 74 Seymour St W, Kamloops V2C 1E2 P: 250-828-5500 F: 250-828-5631 www.bclc.com BC Liquor Distribution Branch 2625 Rupert St, Vancouver V5M 3T5 P: 604-252-3000 F: 604-252-3044 www.bcldb.com Community Living BC 1200 73rd Ave W 7th floor, Vancouver V6P 6G5 P: 604-664-0101 F: 604-664-0765 www.communitylivingbc.ca BC Housing 4555 Kingsway Suite 1701, Burnaby V5H 4V8 P: 604-433-1711 F: 604-439-4722 www.bchousing.org BC Transit 520 Gorge Road E, Victoria V8W 2P3 P: 250-385-2551 F: 250-995-5639 www.bctransit.com BC Pavilion Corporation (PavCo) 999 Canada Place Suite 200, Vancouver V6C 3C1 P: 604-482-2200 F: 604-681-9017 www.bcpavco.com Industry Training Authority 8100 Granville Ave 8th floor, Richmond V6Y 3T6 P: 778-328-8700 F: 778-328-8701 www.itabc.ca Transportation Investment Corp (TI Corp) 1500 Woolridge St, Coquitlam V3K 0B9 P: 778-783-1200 F: N/A www.pmh1project.com BC Assessment 3450 Uptown Blvd Suite 400, Victoria V8Z 0B9 P: 250-595-6211 F: 250-595-6222 www.bcassessment.ca Legal Services Society 510 Burrard St Suite 400, Vancouver V6C 3A8 P: 604-601-6000 F: N/A www.lss.bc.ca BC Pension Corp 2995 Jutland, Victoria V8T5J9 P: 250-387-1014 F: 250-953-0429 pensionsbc.ca Destination BC 510 Burrard St 12th floor, Vancouver V6C 3A8 P: 604-660-2861 F: 604-660-3383 destinationbc.ca Oil and Gas Commission 6534 Airport Rd, Fort St John V1J 4M6 P: 250-794-5200 F: N/A www.bcogc.ca BC Securities Commission 701 Georgia St W Suite 900, Vancouver V7Y 1L2 P: 604-899-6500 F: 604-899-6506 www.bcsc.bc.ca Columbia Power Corp 445 13th Ave Suite 200, Castlegar V1N 1G1 P: 250-304-6060 F: 250-304-6083 www.columbiapower.org Columbia Basin Trust 445 13th Ave Suite 300, Castlegar V1N 1G1 P: 250-365-6633 F: 250-365-6670 www.cbt.org Pacific Carbon Trust7 976 Meares St, Victoria V8V 3J4 P: 250-952-6793 F: 250-952-6783 www.pacificcarbontrust.com Royal British Columbia Museum 675 Belleville St, Victoria V8W 9W2 P: 250-356-7226 F: N/A www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca

Top executive(s)

Type of business

Year founded

Revenue '13/'12

Jessica McDonald, president and CEO

Generates, purchases, distributes and sells electricity

1961

$5,392,0001 $4,898,0002

Mark Blucher, president and CEO

Auto insurance

1973

$3,984,3343 $3,865,1834

Jim Lightbody, interim CEO and president

Operates lottery, casino, bingo and online gambling services

1984

$2,808,3001 $2,731,9012

R. Blain Lawson, general manager and CEO

Alcoholic beverages

1921

$2,745,5251 $2,754,0862

Seonag Macrae, CEO

Delivers support and services to adults with developmental disabilities and their families in British 2005 Columbia

$788,7781 $744,9902

Shayne Ramsay, CEO

Fulfil the provincial government’s commitment to the development, management and 1967 administration of subsidized housing as set out in the Government’s Letter of Expectations and as reflected in an order-in-council under the Ministry of Lands, Parks and Housing Act Regional transit systems in B.C. outside Metro Vancouver 1972

$610,1561 $656,5802

Ken Cretney, president and CEO (interim)

Mandated to increase economic benefit to B.C. through the management of BC Place and the Vancouver Convention Centre

1984

$111,5061 $106,4632

Gary Herman, CEO

Leads and co-ordinates B.C.'s skilled trades system

2003

$110,6241 $109,7292

Janet Woodruff, acting CEO

Manages the Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project and TReO, the all-electronic toll system on the Port Mann Bridge being used to collect tolls to pay for the project

2008

$93,9701 $15,0432

Connie Fair, president and CEO

Property assessment in B.C.

1974

$87,9233 $84,4024

Mark Benton, CEO

Provides a range of services that help people resolve their legal problems; priority is given to people 1979 with low incomes, though many services are available to all B.C. residents

$80,0581 $83,5432

Laura Nashman, CEO

Provides pension administration services on behalf of B.C.’s college, municipal, public service, teachers’ and WorkSafeBC pension plans

2000

$52,8635 $43,4556

Marsha Walden, president and CEO

Works collaboratively with tourism stakeholders across the province to co-ordinate tourism marketing at the international, provincial, regional and local levels

2012

$52,6431 N/A

Paul Jeakins, commissioner and CEO

Oil and gas regulation

1998

$46,3181 $39,6262

Brenda Leong, chair and CEO

Protects and promotes the public interest by fostering (1) a securities market that is fair and warrants public confidence and (2) a dynamic and competitive securities industry that provides investment opportunities and access to capital Develops, owns and operates hydro power projects in the Columbia Basin

1996

$38,5221 $37,4192

1994

$37,5151 $36,6362

1995

$29,3531 $25,6502

Wes Shoemaker, director and chair

Supports efforts by the people of the basin to create social, economic and environmental wellbeing in the Canadian portion of the Columbia River Basin – the region most affected by the Columbia River Treaty Deliver quality made-in-B.C. greenhouse gas offsets to help clients reduce their carbon footprint

2008

$19,7501 $19,8062

Jack Lohman, CEO, Gary Mitchell, vicepresident, archives, collections and knowledge

Provincial museum and archives, collecting artifacts, documents and specimens of B.C.'s natural and human history

1886

$19,4011 $19,2072

Manuel Achadinha, president and CEO

Frank Wszelaki, president and CEO Neil Muth, president and CEO

Sources: Interviews with above corporations and BIV research. N/A Not available/applicable 1 - For year ending March 31, 2014 2 - For year ending March 31, 2013 3 - For year ending December 31, 2013 4 - For year ending December 31, 2012 5 - As at March 31, 2013; updated figures unavailable 6 - As at March 31, 2012; updated figures unavailable 7 - Dissolved on November 13, 2013

$293,5561 $266,2262

Business in Vancouver makes every attempt to publish accurate information in the List, but accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Researched by Carrie Schmidt, lists@biv.com.

Next week’s list – Biggest post-secondary schools in B.C.

Property Managers’ Source Book 2015 DesigneD specifically for

Vancouver’s property management industry

Space Close: october 23, 2014 call Katherine Butler: 604.608.5158 kbutler@biv.com

BIVLIST

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Most remaining Crown corporations defy privatization Public sector | After a steep decline, the ones that remain aren’t hurting private businesses: experts BY TYLER ORTON TORTON@BIV.COM

hat if there were an essential service – one that millions of people would surely be willing to pay money for – that no one in the private sector wanted to invest in? “When it comes to something like Canada Post – I don’t know who would take that on at this stage if Canada Post wasn’t continuing to do it,” said Cristie Ford, director of the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) National Centre for Business Law. “Postal services just aren’t economically viable anymore.” The burden of providing certain services, she said, falls on government-established Crown corporations. There are 36 provincial Crown corporations in B.C. ranging from the BC Lottery Corp. to the Liquor Distribution Branch. Among the most prominent – or at least the ones most familiar to British Columbians – are BC Hydro and the Insurance Corp. of BC “There aren’t that many left, and the ones that are left are not occupying spaces that privatesector actors are either well

Cristie Ford, director at UBC’s National Centre for Business Law

equipped or super-eager to take over,” Ford said. Originally, chartered companies such as the Hudson’s Bay Co., despite being privately owned, were mandated to help realize the British government’s efforts to colonize North America before Canada was a country. And one of the conditions for Confederation was the construction of a government-built railway connecting the first four colonies. continued on page 25

BC Hydro provides utilities services throughout the province – a task many in the private sector may not be eager to jump into

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BIVLIST

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Logistics | Pain in the health-care supply chain 78%

Percentage of health-care executives in the U.S., Canada, western Europe, Asia and Latin

America, polled in the 2014 UPS Pain in the (Supply) Chain survey, who cite regulatory

compliance and increasing regulations as a top trend driving business and supply chain changes

46%

Percentage of health-care executives surveyed who cited product security as a top challenge

40%

Percentage of health-care executives surveyed who cited product damage and spoilage

as a top concern

60%

Percentage who cited economic challenges as a top concern

44%

Percentage who cited cost management as a top supply chain concern Source: UPS

Most remaining Continued from page 23

“There was the sense there was an important job that had to be done and that a corporate structure was a good structure for doing that,” Ford said. “It makes more sense than having a job done out of a ministry where the bureaucratic structure doesn’t lend itself to that outcome.” British Columbia eventually went on to establish Crown corporations such as BC Rail, BC Transit and the Transportation Investment Corp., which operates the new Port Mann Bridge. But t he nu mber of federa l Crown corporations has waned since the 1980s and 1990s with the privatization of notable

players such as Air Canada (1988), De Havilland Aircraft Co. (1986), Petro-Canada (1991) and Canadian National Railway (1995). As of 2014, there are 45 federal Crown corporations. This followed the privatization of 35 Crown corporations, the bulk of which occurred during the 1980s. UBC political science professor Allan Tupper said while it’s difficult to point to a single reason for their decline, changing economic climates – and governments’ eagerness to cash in on assets – made some of them less viable. BC Ferries, for example, was deep in debt when it was reorganized as a privately mana ged compa ny i n 2003 (t he provincial government is its sole

BC Ferries was a Crown corporation until 2003, when it was reorganized as a privately held company, of which the B.C. government is the sole shareholder

shareholder). T upp er sa id re si s ta nc e to Crown corporations often stems

from the belief they have no place in a market-based economy. But he pointed out the

substantial capital investment they’ve made developing services and infrastructure has greatly benefited the private sector. “A desire to have pricing formulas that emerged from [Crown corporations] … kept prices low for consumers, but also for major industrial users, particularly in the resource sector,” he told Business in Vancouver. As for the future, Tupper said it’s still possible Canada Post could be privatized, similar to what happened to the Royal Mail in the U.K. But after that, the pickings appear to be slim. “You’ve seen most of the privatizations that are really feasible or desirable in the Canadian public mind right now,” he said. •

the problem solvers™

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

HOw

Agent of change

I did it Sheila Bouman | Former Business in Vancouver’s “How I Did It” feature asks business leaders to explain in their own words how they achieved a business goal in the face of significant entrepreneurial challenges. In this week’s issue, Shelia Bouman, a teacher turned entrepreneur, talks about change and how embracing it has been good not only for her own career, but also for the companies she has helped work through major transitions, including Peer 1 Hosting, which was acquired by Cogeco Cable last year.

“

started my career as a high school teacher. Even while teaching I had that entrepreneurial mindset. I am more of a risk-taker, probably, than most teachers are. The work I liked was around complex change. I was on a team, and we were the first school in Canada to introduce a program called computer immersion where all 200 of our

teacher successfully moved from the classroom to the boardroom

Grade 8 students had laptops in the classroom. “I left teaching 16 years ago. I was looking for more autonomy and more earning potential ... . When I left teaching, I joined a consulting firm in Vancouver and then became a senior partner of it. … Then a couple of years after that, I started a consulting firm [Navigo Consulting and Coaching] that specializes in organizational strategy and organizational change, and Peer 1 was one of my clients. “[Companies] would hire us if they were trying to make a big change – so if they were trying to implement a big piece of technology, or if they were trying to outsource a big part of their business or for a merger or acquisition. “As a consultant, I probably worked with 50 different organizations. You learn a lot about what makes a business work and

not work. About six years ago, Peer 1 was going through a big growth stage and brought me in to work with their executive team around strategy, culture and leadership. “I worked for them for three years. I would plan and facilitate executive team retreats, trying to build a really strong executive team, working with the executive team to think about their growth strategy. They had just opened up their U.K. office, so that was a question: ‘How do you go global?’ “When their VP of human resources left, the CFO and CEO asked if I would join the company as a replacement [as chief people and performance officer]. I had been with Navigo for almost 10 years. The idea of being part of something new and something growing was really appealing. As chief people and performance officer, that means

I worked really closely with the CEO and CFO on strategy. “When I joined we had maybe 425 employees and this year we’ll end this next fiscal at 600. Most of our growth has been in the U.K. Four years ago we built a new data centre there. We also did an acquisition while I was here of a U.K. company, so that just accelerated the growth also. “Almost a year and a half ago, Peer 1 was sold to Cogeco Cable. We’re an independent subsidiary. ... About a year later, the CEO decided he would leave the organization, and then [CFO] Gary Sherlock and I were pretty much running the company. Then last April, Gary left the organization and the parent company asked if I would stay and take on this more senior role [executive vice-president and managing director].” •

Q&A Q : What does Peer 1 do? A : Internet hosting. We have data centres and networks and it’s around the transport and storage of Internet traffic. Q : What’s the biggest problem companies encounter when dealing with change? A : The biggest mistake is moving to action or implementation too quickly without making sure that they’ve got a clear idea what success looks like.

Bouman co-founds consulting firm Navigo

Next week’s How I Did It – Chris Neary, chairman, TEDx Vancouver

Bouman joins Peer 1 as chief people and performance officer

How did you do it? Do you or does someone you know have a story to share? Contact Nelson Bennett at nbennett@biv.com

2014

Peer 1 Hosting hires Bouman and her team at Navigo to help the company through a significant growth stage

2012

2008

Bouman leaves teaching to join a consulting firm, Tekara, that specialized in creating people-centred workplaces

2003

1998

K learning curve Bouman appointed executive vice-president and managing director of Peer 1

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

send your free listing to fortherecord@biv.com

September 30–October 6, 2014

for the record People on the Move Email your For the Record information to: fortherecord@biv.com. Please include a high-resolution, colour headshot where possible. Development/ Construction Lisa Jones Lisa Jones has joined Brooks Corning in the role of architectural walls specialist and will work with the architecture and design community by integrating architectural walls into commercial projects. Jones was previously with Haworth and has worked as an interior designer with a specific focus on facilities, furniture and project management, within Canada and internationally.

Vince Fernandez Peter Odegaard Paul Sukova Vince Fernandez has been promoted to senior associate and Peter Odegaard and Paul Sukova have been appointed associates at

Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership Architects Designers Planners (MCM). Fernandez joined the firm in 2010 and has worked on a wide range of projects including large, mixed-use master plans, retail centres, office buildings and residential towers. Prior to joining MCM, Fernandez worked for firms in Kelowna, Portland, Denver, Jerusalem and Singapore. Odegaard also joined MCM in 2010 and has worked as project designer on mixed-use maste rplans, residential towers, office buildings and retail centres; previous firms include Williamson Williamson Inc. in Toronto and Soren Rasmussen Architects in Vancouver. Sukova has held positions at a variety of Vancouver-area architecture firms and began his career at David Goyer Architecture in Winnipeg.

businesses and individuals. Charity Gerbrandt, Douglas Manning and Robert McGowan have had their appointments extended and will serve additional two-year terms until July 2016.

Education Christopher Derickson, Susan Johal and Joe Maciel have been appointed to Okanagan College’s board of governors. Derickson is a consultant for First Nation governments and organizations and currently serves on the Westbank First Nation Council. Johal is office manager for Kimmitt Wrzesniewski, a Kelowna law firm, and is an active community volunteer. Maciel is a chartered accountant and financial planner with a public practice that focuses on providing corporate year-end services to privately held corporations and tax services to

Health/Medical

Simon Fraser University has received a 2014 Canadian Fairtrade Award, which celebrates the efforts and accomplishments of stakeholders that support farmers and workers in developing countries through fair trade policy. Finance Julia Chen has joined DMCL’s (Dale Matheson Carr-Hilton Labonte LLP) tax group as U.S. senior tax accountant. Prior to this appointment, Chen was senior U.S. tax associate at Stephen Katz Ltd.

David Pavan Allison Nourse David Pavan, pharmacy operations specialist at Shoppers Drug Mart, and Allison Nourse, pharmacy innovations specialist at Unipharm Wholesale Drugs Ltd., have been elected president and vicepresident, respectively, of the BC Pharmacy Association’s board of

Office Manager | Radiology Clinic | Vancouver, BC | $70-75,000 Organized, approachable, multi-tasking Office Manager sought for successful, fast paced Radiology Clinic. Responsibilities include: • Management of 100 clerical and medical staff • Continually promoting good teamwork across the clinic and ensuring communication is strong between all staff • Working closely with Radiologist Partners and supporting Department Managers • Responding to complaints and queries from patients and staff • Overseeing the hiring process and benefits program • Overseeing the effective operation of the PACS & RIS (IT) system • Managing relationships with external suppliers • Overseeing the Accounting Department working to maximize income and control costs • Working alongside the Head of Ultrasound to develop and maintain new policies and procedures

Qualifications: • Minimum of five years of Office Management experience • Proficient with computers, both Mac and PC • Familiar with ADP and Quickbooks for Accounting procedures • Knowledge in Human Resources standards and procedures • Outgoing personality and ability to build relationships • Problem solving and troubleshooting skills • Excellent communication and multi-tasking abilities

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package, work/life balance and the opportunity to become part of a fun and supportive team. Please send your resume to lcameron@greigimaging.com Thank you in advance for your interest.

directors. Joining the board are directors Mark Dickson, licensed B.C. pharmacist, and Glen Schoepp, pharmacy manager, St. Anthony’s Clinic Pharmacy. Returning directors include past president Don Cocar, director of retail operations, B.C., Remedy’s Rx; Alex Dar Santos, associate-owner, Shoppers Drug Mart; Nemanja Filipovic, associateowner, Shoppers Drug Mart; Julie Ford, pharmacist, Glover’s Medicine Centre Pharmacy; Randy Konrad, regional pharmacy manager, Canada Safeway; Ralph Lai, general manager of drugstore, Overwaitea Food Group; Greg Shepherd, director of operations, Pharmasave Drugs (Pacific) Ltd.; and John Tse, vicepresident, pharmacy and cosmetics, London Drugs.

Greasley, Comox Valley Economic Development and Tourism; Lillian Hunt, U’Mista Cultural Centre; Scott Littlejohn, Living Forest Oceanside Campground and RV Park; Corene Inouye, Jamie’s Whaling Station & Rainforest Inn; and Andrew Jones, Kingfisher Wilderness Adventures. Outgoing directors are Geoff Millar, Cowichan Valley Regional District; Stephen Peters, Pacific Sands Beach Resort; and Duane Bell, former general manager, Middle Beach Lodge.

Hospitality/Tourism/ Convention Tourism Vancouver Island has announced its incoming board of directors for the 2014-15 term: Carol Anna Terreberry (chair), operations manager, Quadra Island Golf Club; Chuck Fast (past chair); Ian MacPhee (vice-chair), Abbeymoore Manor Bed & Breakfast Inn; Raymond Chan (governance chair), Pacific Carbon Trust Transition; Jim Owens (marketing chair), JTO Hospitality Group; and Jenn Bogwald (secretarytreasurer), MNP LLP. Non-executive directors are Janet Clouston, Salt Spring Island Chamber of Commerce; Janet Docherty, Merridale Ciderworks Corp.; Lara

Enzo Carotenuto Andrea Kastanis Laura E. West Enzo Carotenuto, Andrea Kastanis and Laura E. West have joined Bull Housser. Carotenuto has been appointed chief information officer and will oversee the firm’s information systems; he previously spent 17 years as the national director of technology at a Canadian firm. Kastanis has joined the firm’s dispute resolution and litigation group as an associate; she has environmental, construction and public interest litigation experience. West has joined the firm’s wealth preservation group as a partner.

Legal

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

for the record

Celia Campos of YWCA Metro Vancouver; Trevor Linden, president, hockey operations, Vancouver Canucks; and Natasha Krotez of YWCA Metro Vancouver, with donation to the Early Learning and Child Care Centre at YWCA Crabtree Corner West is engaged in a general practice in wealth management, estates, trusts, charity and not-for-profit law. In addition to being recognized by Best Lawyers in Canada (201215), West was the co-recipient of a 2010 Lexpert Gold Zenith Award recognizing her pro bono work.

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Media Dave Stewart, longtime Olympic event producer, has joined ViaSport Productions as executive producer. Stewart has decades of international experience from the Olympic Winter and Summer Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan American Games and world championships. Stewart was recently with CBC Network Sports in Toronto and was previously director of global media relations and broadcasting for the Canadian Tourism Commission. Non-Profit Paul Hamilton Paul Hamilton, vicepresident of BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., has been elected board chair of the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation. Five new directors also joined the board: Liz Dickson, Lions Gate Hospital Auxiliary; Nazim Mahmoudi, Lions Gate Hospital, internal medicine; Stephen Murphy, senior vice-president, Pacific business banking, TD; Mike Nader, COO, VCH-Coastal; and Fred Yada, partner, Dale Matheson Carr-Hilton Labonte LLP. Joining Hamilton on the foundation’s executive are: Clark Quintin (past chair); Pierre Lebel (co-vice-chair), Imperial Metals; Michael O’Callaghan (co-vice-chair), Korn/Ferry International; Lorraine Rinfret (treasurer); and Mark Hannah (secretary), Avison Young Commercial Real Estate. Returning directors include Chris Carter, ScotiaMcLeod; Sandra Enticknap, Miller Thomson LLP; Coryn Hemsley; Barbara Inglis; Gabrielle Loren, Loren, Nancke & Co. CGAs; Maria Morellato, Mandell Pinder Barristers & Solicitors; Taleeb Noormohamed, founder and CEO, Impasto; and Fred Wright, Capital West Partners.

Jeff Norris Jeff Norris has been appointed president and CEO of Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation. Prior to this appointment, Norris was chief advancement officer at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), where he also served as CEO of the KPU Foundation and executive director of the KPU Alumni Association, a group he was involved in founding. Norris started his career with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in the early ’90s as a university student before he moved to the West Coast, working first for the Kidney Foundation and then joining St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation in 1999. Public The sixth annual BC Aboriginal Business Awards will be awarded at an October 15 gala at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Winners are Coun. Garry Faschuk, Sechelt First Nation (individual achievement award); Santana Walker, West Vancouver (young entrepreneur of the year); Pure Beauty Ltd., Surrey (business of the year, oneto two-person enterprise); Bizzie B’s Cleaning, Squamish (business of the year, three- to 10-person enterprise); Harwood Customs Composite, Sidney (business of the year, 10-or-more-person enterprise); 4Evergreen Resources LP, Moberly Lake, and Heartland Economics Ltd., Westbank (communityqwned business of the year); and Salish Sea Industrial Services Ltd., Victoria (joint venture business of the year). Detailed information is at www.bcachievement.com/ aboriginalbusiness. Resources Boyd Payne, president of Black Eagle Mining, has been awarded the Coal Association of Canada’s 2014 Award of Distinction, which recognizes leadership and excellence in the Canadian coal industry. Payne started his career in the coal business in 1974 in a technical capacity and eventually transitioned into operations, business development and marketing; he has held senior leadership positions at several coal companies.

Companies on the move New acquistion McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd. of Vancouver has acquired North Vancouver-based Infinity Engineering, specializing in bridge design and erection engineering. Infinity has played key roles in a portfolio of long-span and complex bridges in Canada, the U.S. and India. Infinity now operates under the McElhanney name from its head office in Vancouver and a branch office in Tampa, Florida.

Hats Off Business in Vancouver welcomes submissions from local small businesses and large corporations alike that demonstrate examples of corporate philanthropy and community involvement in the Vancouver area. Highresolution images are also welcome. WhiteWater West Industries Ltd. donated $2,486 to the ALS Association. The Canucks for Kids Fund donated $20,000 to the Early Learning and Child Care Centre at YWCA Crabtree Corner, which supports low-income families in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Scotiabank Bright Future donated $20,000 to University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Alumni Association, in support of UBC Dialogues, a program for UBC alumni to dialogue about complex social issues. Coast Capital Savings donated $204,373 to VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation. Funds were raised at the recent Coast Capital Savings Charity Golf Tournament and is part of Coast Capital Savings’ community promise to help build healthy minds by combating depression and other mental illnesses. •

for the record

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

trouble Lawsuit of the week Ebook software firm claims former employees swiped source code as part of a conspiracy to set up a competitor Wundr Software Inc. is suing a group of former employees, directors and investors for allegedly conspiring to bankrupt the firm and steal confidential information to start a competing online ebook publishing business. Wundr filed a notice of civil claim in BC Supreme Court on September 17. Defendants include Juliet Press Inc., Patriot Minefinders Inc., Bryan Slusarchuk, Bradley Nixon Scharfe, Carson Seabolt, Skanderbeg Capital Advisors Ltd., Skanderbeg Capital Partners Ltd., Aaron Laithwaite, Robert Brent Saunders, Kenneth Poon and Francisco Silva. Defendants Poon and Silva were senior software engineers and worked alongside Wundr president Ryan Vetter developing the company’s intellectual property. Both, according to the claim, were bound by non-disclosure agreements. They resigned in January 2014, Wundr claims, and “days later they showed up at the offices of the Skanderbeg Defendants Partners and spoke to the Defendant Scharfe, advising him they were ready to proceed with the ‘plan’ to start a competing business.” Meanwhile, defendants Laithwaite and Saunders, directors and seed investors who lent Wundr $100,000 in the form of a promissory note, allegedly planned to use the note to bankrupt Wundr and “seize” its intellectual property. After the plan failed, they approached the other defendants and allegedly conspired to start a competing firm while still serving as directors of Wundr. They allegedly copied the plaintiff’s business plans and marketing materials, contacted investors and advisers, solicited employees and appropriated corporate opportunities away from Wundr for their own use. Laithwaite and Saunders resigned as Wundr directors in May 2014 and became majority shareholders of defendant Juliet Press a month later, the claim says. “Within a few months of being incorporated the Defendant Juliet was holding itself out to the general public on its website and in both its press and investor releases as the owner of software which replicated in almost every detail the Intellectual Property of the Plaintiff,” the claim states. “The Intellectual Property which was created by the Plaintiff contains over 1 million lines of code and took staff over two years to develop and program. To replicate this source code in a period of a few months would have been impossible.” Wundr seeks damages for conspiracy to cause economic harm, injunctive relief and an order for defendants to hand over the allegedly stolen source code and confidential information. The allegations have not been proven in court and the defendants hadn’t filed responses by press time.

DISCIPLINE British Columbia Securities Commission On September 16, a British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) panel found that two real estate developers engaged in an illegal distribution of securities. One of them, a former mutual fund salesman, was also found to have committed fraud and to have breached a BCSC order prohibiting him from engaging in certain conduct in B.C.’s capital markets. The panel found that between October 2006 and August 2010, Michael Jerome Knight, Jeffrey Karl Wiegel, 0772835 B.C. Ltd., Local 1661 Building Inc. and Almaval Building Inc. sold securities without a prospectus and without being registered. The panel determined that the respondents iIllegally raised approximately $1.9 million by distributing securities of 0772835 B.C. Ltd. to 31 B.C. residents. Another finding was that the respondents illegally raised approximately $1.7 million by distributing securities of Local 1661 Building Inc. to 19 people, the majority of whom were B.C. residents. Finally, the panel found that Knight, a mutual funds registrant between

1992 and 1994, breached an April 5, 2004, order prohibiting him from engaging in acts in furtherance of trade and investor relation activities for a period of three years. Knight committed fraud by falsely claiming that a promissory note on behalf of Almaval would become secured by a mortgage on land located at 3701 West Broadway, Vancouver, the panel found. It dismissed fraud allegations against Wiegel, an officer and director of the four companies named as respondents. Discussing the finding of fraud, the panel wrote, “Knight knew that Almaval did not own the property at 3701 West Broadway. We find that Knight had subjective knowledge of the prohibited act, being the failure to tell the investors that Almaval did not own the property.” The panel directed the parties to make submissions on sanctions according to the schedule set out in the findings.

BUYER’S ALERT Companies listed below, which are not accredited by the Better Business Bureau, have failed to respond, as of September 19, to Better Business Bureau of Mainland BC’s efforts to mediate complaints from September 7 to September 13. In some instances, the company may have taken care

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BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

of the complaint and considered the matter closed, or may believe the complaint is unjustified; however, if the BBB has not received a response, records cannot reveal either position. Please note that BBB accredited businesses must respond to customer complaints that are brought to their attention. The companies listed are not members of this Better Business Bureau. Source: BBB. Alliance Ticketing Services, Abbotsford Amacon Construction Ltd., Vancouver Artistic Designs by Colleen, Kelowna Barry’s Mobile Marine Services, Kelowna Budget Brake & Muffler, Vancouver Cambie Plumbing & Heating Co., Vancouver Cambridge Life Solutions Inc., Vancouver Cash Advance, Vancouver Country Cash Loans Ltd., Vancouver Days Inn – Vancouver Airport, Richmond Discount Car & Truck Rentals, Vancouver Evershine Fireplaces Ltd., Surrey Fireside Solutions, Abbotsford Ghost Armor, Burnaby Greyhound Lines Of Canada, Quesnel Gucci, Vancouver Holeshot Racing Ltd., Langley Hollywood Boutique, Vancouver House of Flags & Banners, Coquitlam Hug Family Moving, Prince George Husky Appliance Ltd., Surrey Intact Insurance, Vancouver J. S. Crown’s Steam Cleaning Inc., Delta Jiffy Lube, Langley

for the record

Low Cost Contracting Ltd., Port Coquitlam Maude MacKay & Co Ltd., Vancouver McCleaners, Kamloops Navigata Communications 2009 Inc., Vancouver Oxygenergy Electronics, Richmond PacificJock, Surrey Pepper Wireless Fido, Vancouver Platinum Touch Auto Spa, Burnaby Plentyoffish Media Inc., Vancouver R’s Vinyl Windows, Vancouver Rejuvalash, Vancouver RV Rental 4U, Kelowna Sleep Centre Surrey, Surrey Sunrise Trailer Sales Ltd., Aldergrove Tastygo Online Inc., Vancouver Thrifty Car Rental, Richmond TMW Garage Inc., Vancouver Tom & Jerrys Restaurant, Vancouver TPL Cabinet, Richmond Tuff Top Fibreglass Pools Inc., Kelowna Webb House of Repairs, Terrace Wholesale Mobile Parts, Surrey Windle Plumbing and Heating, West Kelowna Woodlake Terrace Campground, Oyama Yaletown Drycleaning, Vancouver The following companies have responded to the BBB subsequent to being published: 604 Storage Inc., Richmond Cedar Creek Decks, Maple Ridge Starbrite Home Cleaning Services, Surrey

WHO’S GETTING SUED These corporate writs were filed with the BC Supreme Court registry in

Vancouver. Information is derived from notices of civil claim. Civil claims have yet to be proven in court. Defendants 1305402 Alberta Inc. and Siu Kong Soo aka Bonnie Sui Kon Soo and Debbie Wong Plaintiffs DYMI Investments Ltd. and Ly Ho Ip Claim $725,669 for breach of trust and misrepresentation related to a real estate project where defendants falsely claimed plaintiffs could double their money in two years knowing the property was not ready for development. Defendant Finavera Wind Energy Inc. Plaintiff Capital West Partners Claim $577,539 for financial advisory services. Defendants Ceili’s Irish Pub (Abbotsford) Ltd. and William Michael Joseph aka Michael Joseph Plaintiffs Shape Abbotsford West LP by its General Partner Shape Abbotsford GP Ltd. and Hoopp Realty Inc. Claim $439,835 for breach of lease. Defendants Kam Fai James Cheng and Yu Ling Andrew Li and Xiao Ju Guan and Yichu Guan coba CMCC and

Choice Mintage Corp. and Canarich Mutual Capital Corp. and Canadian Monetary Consultant Corp. and the said Choice Mintage Corp. and Canarich Mutual Capital Corp. and Canadian Monetary Consultant Corp. Plaintiff Ya Gu Technology Inc. Claim $114,212 for breach of contract arising from defendants’ failure to return funds meant for a foreign currency exchange transaction. Defendants Ted Halama & Associates Inc. and Thaddeus Halama aka Ted Halama Plaintiff Royal Bank of Canada Claim $80,168 for debt. Defendants Blake Becher dba Kitchenpro Foodservices Canada and 8251126 Canada Inc. dba Kitchenpro Foodservices Canada Plaintiff Ocean Master Foods International Ltd. Claim $70,645 for frozen salmon. Defendants Arliss Levy and Levy Holdings Inc. Plaintiff Happy Valley Resort Ltd. Claim $63,693 for excise tax owed on a property sale.

Defendants Pacific Art Stone Inc. and Charanjit Singh Dhadwal and Jasveer Singh Plaintiff Arif Uraizee Claim $55,731 for debt. Defendants Straightline Fencing & Postholes Ltd. and Donald Ernrest Nygaard Plaintiff The Toronto-Dominion Bank Claim $53,560 for debt. Defendants Infra-Tech Enterprises Ltd. and Christopher Constanzo Plaintiff Royal Bank of Canada Claim $48,178 for debt. Defendant M&L General Contracting Ltd. Plaintiff Navcor Transportation Services Inc. Claim

$45,922 for freight services. •

K biv.com

for more lawsuits, go to biv.com/whos-getting-sued

siGnaTure evenTs OCTOBer 3 - 13, 2014

The 34th annual

Fall OkanaGan

Wine FesTival October 1, 7:00pm – 9:00pm BriTish COlumBia Wine aWards and reCepTiOn The laurel packinghouse, kelowna. price: $50 (all incl). October 3 & 4, 7:00pm – 9:30pm The WesTJeT Wine TasTinGs rotary Centre for the arts, kelowna. price $70 (all incl) or $120 (all incl) for both nights. October 8, 7:00pm – 9:00pm The Blind Wine & Cheese sOiree By valley FirsT The laurel packinghouse, kelowna. price: $50 (all incl). October 9, 6:30pm – 9:00pm alexis de pOrTneuF presenTs “The yOunG CheFs” “The atrium” Centre for learning Okanagan College, kelowna. price: $60 (all incl). October 9, 7:00 – 9:00pm OrGaniC Cheese and Wine - a naTural pairinG manteo resort, kelowna. price: $47 (all incl). TiCkeTs FOr all aBOve evenTs: www.selectyourtickets.com or 250.717.5304 October 10 & 11, 6:00pm – 9:00pm valley FirsT Grand Finale COnsumer TasTinGs penticton Trade and Convention Centre. price: $65 (all incl) or $110 (all incl) for both nights. TiCkeTs: www.valleyfirsttix.com or 877.763.2849

CreaTe yOur OWn Wine sTOry All Signature Events are Get Home Safe Events. For more information visit our website, www.thewinefestivals.com

For more information or to Get Tickets visit www.thewinefestivals.com or call 250 861 6654

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Editorial

President/Publisher | Paul Harris, 604-608-5156 editor-in-chief | Fiona Anderson, 604-608-5183 Managing editor | Timothy Renshaw, 604-608-5131 Deputy Managing editor | Mark Falkenberg, 604-608-5174 Business in Vancouver is owned by Glacier Media Inc., 102 East Fourth Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V5T 1G2

Powering the future with the past

oal is taking it on the chin at home and abroad as the campaign against the free flow of natural resources through B.C. ports continues. The latest salvo in the anti-coal campaign comes courtesy of Ecojustice and its suit filed in federal court challenging Port Metro Vancouver’s recent decision to approve Fraser Surrey Docks’ (FSD) $20 million coal transportation facility.

The latest salvo in the anticoal campaign comes courtesy of Ecojustice Followers of the Surrey docks coal terminal saga will know that it will barge coal from the United States to a Texada Island coal port, from where it will be shipped to Asia. The opportunity for FSD to secure a piece of the growing trade in break bulk cargo from North America to Asia will help raise the port facility’s profile in the wider logistics

last laugh

and shipping world. It will also help ensure FSD continues to provide a portion of the 57,000 good paying jobs generated by Metro Vancouver’s port and gateway goods movement network. Unfortunately the Ecojustice court challenge, which argues in part that Canada’s attorney general “failed to consider the adverse environmental consequences of burning coal in other countries,” will again illustrate to potential foreign customers and investors the ingrained opposition that resides in the province to industrial and trade initiatives that involve natural resource extraction and transportation, even when those initiatives have met environmental and other requirements and no matter how much they add to the economic vitality of the region. There is much legitimate concern over coal’s environmental impact in the wider world, but it would be naive to think that countries like China, which still generates approximately 70% of its energy from coal, will be able to convert to other power sources overnight. Countries that are not blessed with hydroelectric and other cleaner sources of power still need sources like coal to keep their economies ticking over until technology that delivers cleaner sources of energy can be developed and adopted.

The Internet of Things poised to transform business, end waste

At Large Peter Ladner

can remember when author Jeremy Rifkin blew threw town in the mid-1990s promoting his book The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. He set a lot of people buzzing with his predictions of worldwide unemployment as technology and automation eliminate full-time jobs, with wealth gains going to corporate managers and knowledge workers, and the middle class shrinking. Looking back 20 years later, I’d say those predictions were pretty accurate. When Rifkin came to town recently as keynote speaker at Metro Vancouver’s Zero Waste

Conference, he had moved on to a vision that, compared with the many doom-inducing scenarios swirling around, is believably optimistic. Instead of decrying the end of work, he’s over the top about merging Internet technology and renewable energy to create thousands of businesses and millions of new jobs. It’s a vision that has captured the attention of high-level business and government leaders, including EU heads of state like Germany’s Angela Merkel, whose energy plan is very close to what Rifkin is proposing. Rifkin told the Vancouver audience that we’re in the last stages of the “great energy era,” moving into a third industrial revolution where “nothing goes to the landfill.” It’s driven by new communications technologies that connect everything, new energy technologies that produce zero-marginal-cost power and new transportation and logistics technologies like plug-in

what’s your opinion?

zero-emission cars. Rifkin is big on the “Internet of Things” – his new book is called The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. He says that within 15 years we will move from today’s 13 billion sensors monitoring data across the economy to trillions of sensors “connecting everything.” With these communication links in place, we can all be “prosumers” instead of just consumers – producing goods and services that can be shared online as well as consuming them. He cites the example of today’s six million students taking free online courses featuring the best professors from the best universities, with the marginal cost of a new student “near zero.” The same with energy. In Germany millions of people are now producing their own energy. Fixed costs are going down rapidly: the cost of

producing a solar watt has gone down from $70 in 1970 to $0.66 today. “The marginal cost is free,” Rifkin reminds us. “The sun does not send a bill. You just have to keep the panel clean.” He says Germany now produces 27% of its energy at zero marginal cost, “the vast majority produced by homeowners, businesses and co-ops.” They’re increasingly able to share it or sell it to each other through the energy Internet, just as we now create and share information online. In manufacturing, Rifkin marvels at young innovators using recycled products, built up in layers on 3D printers, that consume only 10% of today’s resources to create the same product. The first car has now been made on a 3D printer. Soon those cars will be driverless, vastly increasing their efficiency and use. And they will be shared. Each shared car takes 15 individually owned cars out of production.

The sharing economy, with the Internet connecting producers (like people with empty driveways at certain hours) with consumers (people needing parking during those hours), dramatically reduces waste. “The zero-marginal-cost society is the only way to reduce natural resource consumption,” Rifkin insists. The money to build this is available, he argues, except we’re spending it on outdated second-industrial-revolution infrastructure. Think bridges, roads, dams, nuclear power... The European Parliament has issued a formal declaration calling for the implementation of the zero-marginal-cost vision. Why are we not doing the same? • Peter Ladner (pladner@biv.com) is a co-founder of Business in Vancouver. He is a former Vancouver city councillor and former fellow at the SFU Centre for Dialogue. He is the author of The Urban Food Revolution.

| BIV welcomes readers’ opinions. All letters, including those sent by email, must include the author’s name, address and daytime telephone number. Business in Vancouver, 102 East 4th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V5T 1G2. Email: news@biv.com. We reserve the right to edit for brevity, clarity and legality.

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

Opinion Vancouver Whitecaps getting a bumpy ride from local governments

Golden Goals Bob Mackin

re the Vancouver Whitecaps the Rodney Dangerfield of local sports franchises? Mysterious principal owner Greg Kerfoot’s 2005 announced proposal to build a stadium north of Gastown, above Canadian Pacific Railway tracks, was a hot potato that Vancouver city council tossed into the unwelcoming lap of Port Metro Vancouver. The idea became redundant when the BC Liberal government decided in 2008 to renovate BC Place stadium. The BC Liberals also granted $17.5 million toward a $31.5 million training centre in Delta as a last-ditch attempt to elect parachute candidate Wally Oppal in 2009. He lost on recount to independent Vicki

Huntington. Delta municipal council eventually turned thumbs down to the John Oliver Park plan. On September 15, New Westminster city council nixed the hasty proposal by the Whitecaps, consultant Gary Pooni and developer Ian Gillespie to bring a USL Pro farm team to Queen’s Park Arena. The Charleston Battery in far-flung South Carolina is the Whitecaps’ current USL farm team. The Whitecaps wanted their players to be in the home of the Hyack Festival’s anvil salute next year, but the planned fizzled. “When you deal with public entities there’s processes, and these sometimes take time,” said Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi. “It’s something that we’ve accepted as part of what we need to go through to ensure we get the facilities we’re looking for.” Transforming the aging ballpark with its grass diamond into a soccer stadium would have cost the city as much as $11.4 million. The Whitecaps brought no money to the table

for the upgrade. “From the outset they knew we were looking for a landlordtenant relationship,” Lenarduzzi said. “There was never any uncertainty about that.” USL Pro’s nearest team is in Sacramento, California, although the Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers are pondering membership in the third division for their reserve teams in 2015. Where to next? Possibly Surrey. But if talks get serious, locals will remember the nightmare that was the Surrey Glaciers of the Western Baseball League. The team evaporated after its one and only season in 1995. The taxpayerfunded renovation of Cloverdale’s Stetson Bowl rodeo arena for baseball should have cost $950,000 but ended up at $2.6 million. City hall found $113,000 meant for renovations was improperly diverted by the club into its operations. Farther east in Abbotsford, the American Hockey League’s Heat left the $64.7 million Abbotsford Centre last spring with a $5.5 million contract

buyout. Taxpayers spent $12 million subsidizing the Calgary Flames’ farm team since 2010. Now the rink is a white elephant.

an ancient debating trick when they appear to be offering the public one of three choices. That’s very democratic of them but it hides the fact that there is an unspoken fourth option: leave the park alone and find somewhere else to house Bard on the Beach. I’m a BOTB fan, but I’m a greater fan of parks and the range of wild animals for which they provide a home. This is not just self-interest – a move would be beneficial to the park, but it would also help BOTB.

Based on its published figures, it costs BOTB $650,000 to erect and dismantle the tents each year. It then wastes plenty more in a futile attempt to turn the churnedup clay into grass. Save the cash for a mortgage on a permanent home. Even if it paved the park, BOTB will still be fooling around with tents every spring and fall. BOTB brings millions of dollars into Vancouver each year so it must have plenty of pull at city hall to help it find

permanent quarters. I doubt if moving would be a major problem. Far more important than BOTB’s profit margins is the park itself. How many major cities have a breeding eagle pair this close to downtown? I don’t know the answer, but it isn’t much bigger than one – and we have the privilege to live there. A pair of eagles has raised young every year in the cottonwood tree next to the tent for the past decade. There are numerous migratory ducks

Field goal The Whitecaps and their training centre did find a home at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in September 2012, but that hasn’t been a smooth ride either. The first sign of trouble at UBC was last fall when women’s national team head coach John Herdman moved his squad to the Fortius centre in Burnaby, which boasts accommodation, offices and indoor training beside high-quality synthetic turf fields. UBC was supposed to be the base for Canada’s 2015 Women’s World Cup campaign. The Whitecaps do enjoy temporary locker rooms inside Thunderbird Arena, and Dhillon Field is their home away from BC Place, but the $10 million field house that was envisioned for a March 2015 opening won’t be ready

for occupancy until the end of 2016, according to a September 3 UBC Properties Trust tender for construction management services. Neither vice-president of students Louise Cowin nor athletic director Ashley Howard responded to an interview request. The pitch planned for Matthews Field, next to Thunderbird Arena, has been cancelled. UBC’s Kavi Toor, associate director of facilities and business development, said Matthews is earmarked for a potential future housing development. Lenarduzzi is downplaying the delays. “The principle of what we’re doing out there hasn’t changed. There has been some movement where fields will go, where clubhouses will go,” he said. “There’s nothing that will change what we are ultimately looking for, and that is the facilities that were a part of the original plan.” • bmackin@biv.com twitter.com/bobmackin

LETTERS To pave or not to pave: Bard needs another Vanier Park option Re: Business in Vancouver’s article on the plan to gravel or pave a fair chunk of Vanier Park (“Proposal to replace Vanier Park lawn with gravel draws fire” – September 18, biv.com). It will hopefully raise interest in the importance of this unique park. It is worth pointing out that Bard on the Beach (BOTB) organizers are using

and geese in the larger pond, and the wooded area contains coyotes, skunks and raccoons. This unique gem should serve to remind us of the resilience of wildlife. It should be used gently. Our response should be amazement and a deep urge to protect this wedge of wildlife. It is to BOTB’s advantage to move, and it is certainly to the park’s general advantage. Mike Seear, Hancock Wildlife Foundation

Join us for a fantastic opportunity to meet and mingle with some of BC’s fastest growing companies when Business in Vancouver presents the 2014 Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies Reception to honour companies across BC who have shown remarkable growth over the past five years. This event follows the publishing of the Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies list on September 16th and includes a networking reception followed by a panel discussion where we’ll hear from some of the leaders behind these companies and learn how they did it. GO2PRODUCTIONS make it great

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

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Deadline for Datebook listings is noon Tuesday for the following week’s paper. All submissions are subject to approval and cannot be guaranteed. We reserve the right to edit for brevity and clarity. Please go to www. biv.com/events/calendar to post your listing.

Dinner 2014 Fastest-Growing Companies in B.C. Reception

October 16 6 PM Join us for an opportunity to meet and mingle with some of B.C.’s fastest-growing companies when Business in Vancouver presents the 2014 Top 100 FastestGrowing Companies in B.C. reception to honour companies across B.C. that have shown remarkable growth over the past five years. This event follows the publishing of the top 100 fastest-growing companies list on September 16 and includes a networking reception followed by a panel discussion where we’ll hear from some of the leaders behind these companies and learn how they did it. TIcket prices are $69 for subscibers and $89 for non-subscribers. Telus World of Science. 1455 Quebec Street. Vancouver. Chris Wilson. 604-6085140. cwilson@biv.com.

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Saturday, OCtober 4 Muck MS

Dicklands Farms in Chilliwack hosts this five-kilometre obstacle mud run fundraiser in support of the MS Society

Business in Vancouver presents the opportunity to meet and mingle with executives from its recently published fastest-growing companies list at the Telus World of Science

Conferences CanaData Construction Industry Forecasts Conference West

October 23 7:30 AM There are many aspects of B.C.’s economy, with high-tech companies and tourism in the forefront, that are well grounded and have bright futures. More than for the rest of Canada, though, there is also much that is uncertain, leading to spillover implications for capital investment spending. Weak world trade has been holding back commodity price increases. Also, firms in the forestry, mining and oil and gas sectors must work harder to bolster their relationships with the peoples of First Nations, given the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the land title claims of the Tsilhqot’in community. Victoria’s dreams of world-scale liquefied natural gas terminals and shipping lanes in the northwest corner of the province are threatened with severe competition from similar startups in other countries. B.C.’s carbon tax is winning praise from experts, but its success isn’t easing the way for pipeline proponents to gain welcoming approvals. B.C.’s unique geographic position makes the province Canada’s gateway to China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, India and other Asian nations. The opportunities for mega engineering projects are enormous, but potential roadblocks are formidable. This conference will examine how to achieve a brand of prosperity that fosters both efficiency and important social goals. Vancouver Convention Centre East. 999 Canada Place. Vancouver. www.canadata.com/ conferencewest.

Courses, Workshops, Seminars UBC Part-Time MBA Admissions Advice Information Session

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Thursday, October 16 2014 Fastest-Growing Companies in B.C.

October 7 6 PM Join us for this admissions advice information session to learn how to put forward

your strongest application. Learn about our admission criteria, employer sponsorship opportunities and how to apply. Network with other professionals and Sauder staff and make your application stand out. Refreshments will be provided. UBC Robson Square. 800 Robson Street, Room C130. Vancouver. mba@sauder. ubc.ca.

Vancity’s Implementation of its Living Wage Policy

October 21 5 PM Please join us to learn how Vancity’s service providers are affected by its ethical procurement and social responsibility policy, in particular their commitment to the adoption of Vancity’s living wage policy, which helps individuals and families to meet their basic needs and contribute to their communities. Maya Maute, director, procurement and contract management for Vancity, is the featured guest speaker and will discuss practical issues that need to be considered before one embarks on implementing a similar policy. Maute will include a discussion on: (a) where to get started; (b) how to determine whether there is a business case; (c) what is the return on instigating a living wage policy; and (d) approaches with suppliers, etc. Registration must be confimed no later than 4 p.m. Thursday, October 16. Contact nicole@scmabc.ca or call the SCMABC office at 604-5404494. Specify with registration if you have any food sensitivities. River Rock Casino & Resort. 8811 River Road. Richmond.

Executive Storytelling Workshop

October 23 9 AM The workshop is designed to help managers and executives understand how to leverage the timeless power of storytelling to improve the effectiveness of their communications and, as a result, their ability to engage, influence and lead others. Understand how to use storytelling more strategically to improve one’s ability to engage, influence and persuade others; develop the company’s core story, one’s personal brand story and transformative stories that get people to think, feel and act differently; identify ways to promote stories

and connect them to others, e.g. their team, bosses, clients, partners, future employees, future employers, etc.; and improve proficiency as storytellers and comfort level as communicators. This workshop is ideal for senior executives and managers, and anyone looking to get better at telling their company or personal story and connecting others to it. Surrey City Hall. Council Chambers. 13450 104 Avenue. Surrey. Linda Oglov. 604-288-7031. linda@ oglov.com.

Fundraisers Muck MS

October 4 8 AM Muck MS is a fivekilometre, obstacle-filled mud run in support of the MS (multiple sclerosis) Society. It will take place on October 4 at Dicklands Farms in Chilliwack, located along the banks of the Vedder River and in close proximity to the Rotary Trail. The view from Dicklands Farms is all around spectacular – the perfect stage for your first Muck. Dicklands Farms. 41984 Sinclair Road. Chilliwack. Deanna McIntyre. 604-746-9331. deanna.mcintyre@ mssociety.ca.

Trade shows SOHO SME Business Expo

October 30 8 AM Join thousands of business owners, entrepreneurs and marketing executives who will inspire, motivate and drive your business success. There will be keynote speakers, panel sessions, interactive exhibits and displays, a free coach’s corner, business skills competitions, live demos, Startup Alley great networking, prizes and more. Don’t miss the featured keynote, Meredith Powell, co-founder of The Next Big Thing foundation, and other amazing game-changing entrepreneurs. Register now or become an exhibitor at www. vancouversme.soho.ca. Enter promo code “BIV” and get free all-day access, plus save $20 to attend the SOHO SME after-party. Sheraton Wall Centre. North Tower. Pavilion Ballroom. 1088 Burrard Street. Vancouver. •

BUSINESSVANCOUVER

September 30–October 6, 2014

LifeLessons Prepare for success ever since it first started, but Mehroke says that success was certainly not effortless. “A lot of people think we’ve had success from the beginning, but Amy and I worked on a business plan for a year before we even opened our doors,” Mehroke said. “I spent a lot of time really working on the concept and making sure it was going to be something that people actually wanted, and something aligned with what I wanted to do.” To prepare to open her business, Mehroke studied how similar businesses work – notably, Vancouver’s Blo Blow Dry Bar, which also offers a niche beauty service. She was mentored by Judy Brooks, a cofounder of that business. Mehroke also hired a market

By Jen St. Denis jstdenis@biv.com

Ravy Mehroke Owner, Bombay Brow Bar

fter getting laid off in the midst of the most recent recession, Ravy Mehroke decided to take the plunge and open her own business. “I had already been thinking about starting my own business, so I felt it was a huge opportunity and a huge calling to do that,” she said. Mehroke and her sister, Amy Minhas, started Bombay Brow Bar in 2010; the business now has three locations in downtown Vancouver. While other beauty salons offer a range of services, Bombay Brow Bar focuses on eyebrow grooming and recently branched out to offer other “above the neck” services. The business has done well

I spent a lot of time ... making sure it was going to be something that people actually wanted

[] Ravy Mehroke Owner, Bombay Brow Bar

research firm to get information about whether there was demand for the service, to confirm that downtown was the right location for the business and to test whether customers responded well to the salon’s name and interior design. Even with all that preparation under her belt, Mehroke recalls being an emotional wreck on

opening day. “I spent one year on it, I spent a ton of money on it. … I was really scared that no one would care,” she said. “Amy came up to me and said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be OK.’” On the next stage of the business | “Once you’ve passed the startup phase, then it’s more about managing people and making sure that people are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. That’s where I still am. There is an evolution of the business. … That’s something you want to prepare for. Scaling [the business] is a big part of what we did, doing things like operations manuals, [making sure] job descriptions are in place and [hiring] good people.” •

Next Life Lesson: Jim Wyse, founder, Burrowing Owl Estate Winery

Has a work or life challenge taught you a key career lesson? Contact Jen St. Denis at jstdenis@biv.com.

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