Ottawa Business Journal September 2019

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September 2019 Vol. 22, NO. 07

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Tough boss or bully?

SEPTEMBER 2019

Telltale signs of workplace harassment – and steps to resolve it

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here is a fine line between a tough boss and a bully. A bit of workplace criticism from a superior, such as a spelling or grammar correction, likely doesn’t cross that line. Yet sometimes, a boss’s behaviour transcends fair feedback and becomes full-blown workplace harassment.

Perhaps your supervisor routinely singles you out in front of your coworkers. Maybe they criticize you personally, rather than criticizing your work. Perhaps all of the emails you receive from your boss are laden with bad language, CAPITAL LETTERS and BOLD TEXT, or they set unachievable goals for you, effectively setting you up to fail. Maybe they make inappropriate, sexualized jokes.

Whatever the case, if the way you’re being treated at work leaves you feeling uncomfortable, alienated, afraid or even physically unwell, there’s a good chance you’re being harassed. It’s really that simple.

FIRST STEPS Putting an end to harassment often starts with conversations with professionals, starting with your doctor, if a toxic workplace is affecting your health.

The next step is to speak with a lawyer.

Jill Lewis and Dana DuPerron, both employment lawyers at Ottawa-based

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EMPLOYER’S PERSPECTIVE Workplace harassment can take a terrible toll on an employee – and on overall workplace morale. As an employer and a leader, there are steps you can take to ensure your workplace stays harassment-free and your workforce remains happy, healthy and productive.

That starts with a strong workplace harassment policy, DuPerron says.

A good policy should include a definition of harassment. It should also contain a statement explaining that the employer will not tolerate workplace harassment, and another explaining how breaches will be handled. Lastly, it should point employees to report harassment to a designated person as well as an alternate in the event that person is the harasser.

But simply drafting the document is not enough.

“It’s not just about having a policy, it’s about applying it consistently and making sure employees are aware of it – how they can make a complaint, what is tolerated and what’s not,” DuPerron explains.

law firm Nelligan O’Brien Payne, say it’s important to listen to feedback from those closest to you.

“Our clients often tell us it was friends and family who encouraged them to seek help because they could see the change in behaviour at home, and connect it with the stories from the workplace,” says DuPerron.

“For many people, the physical and emotional impact of harassment sink in before they realize that harassment is the root cause,” she adds. “For example, constantly fretting about work or not sleeping. Many describe sitting outside

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Dana DuPerron

is an employment lawyer at Nelligan O’Brien Payne

“While our goal is to resolve matters quickly and amicably, outside of court if possible, our team has tremendous experience with litigation and will push to get the best outcome for our clients.”

FINDING A SOLUTION No matter the circumstances, Lewis, DuPerron and Nelligan O’Brien Payne’s experienced team of employment specialists are well-equipped to

TRENDS TO WATCH MOBBING What’s worse than being bullied by a coworker? Being bullied by multiple co-workers, all operating in unison.

This unfortunate trend, known as workplace mobbing, is often orchestrated by one person, but ultimately leaves the victim feeling alienated from their entire workplace.

GASLIGHTING Gaslighting is the process of psychologically manipulating somebody to the point that they question their own sanity. Generally taking place over a prolonged period, one party will gradually wear another down for personal gain – be it a raise, a promotion or simply praise from a superior.

CRITICISM BECOMES PERSONAL

Your boss is allowed to make tactful criticisms of your work if they feel it’s not up to snuff.

They should not, however, be criticizing you personally. If you find your boss’s criticism is less about your work and more about you as a person, this may qualify as workplace harassment.

YOU’RE TREATED UNEQUALLY

If you’re being singled out and treated differently by your boss or supervisor – particularly in front of your co-workers instead of in private – it’s possible that you’re a victim of workplace harassment.

THERE’S A PATTERN

One small incident does not generally qualify as harassment – although it is possible. More often, harassment takes the form of a pattern of negative and unprofessional behaviour, which can wear a person down and make work life unbearable.

GUT-CHECK

Trust your gut. If you feel afraid, alienated, abused or uncomfortable, there is probably a reason. Instead of ignoring or second-guessing these feelings, take a step back and ask yourself what’s causing them. It could be a harassment

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PASSIVE HARASSMENT Workplace harassment is not always easy to detect. Sometimes, it’s carried out passively.

That might mean one employee willfully ignores another employee’s emails or requests. It might mean an employee withholds important information from another. Whatever the case, the end result is always the same: somebody is left feeling sabotaged and isolated.

FOUR SIGNS YOU’RE BEING HARASSED

SEPTEMBER 2019

the office in their car gathering the strength to make it in.”

Lewis and DuPerron understand the turmoil that people being harassed in the workplace often face.

“We see a lot of tears, a lot of shaking, a lot of people feeling overwhelmed,” Lewis says, explaining the state people are sometimes in when they contact the firm. “They’re usually stressed, not sleeping. They get sick to their stomach thinking about speaking to their employer.”

The good news is that individuals in these situations often experience immediate relief and clarity after simply speaking to a lawyer. It helps them understand that they have viable options beyond simply toughing it out or quitting their job.

“It’s a good idea (to engage a lawyer) because you might not know your options and what your rights are,” says DuPerron.

Those options will vary from case to case and will often depend on whether or not the individual wants to return to their job. Sometimes, the solution can be a Nelligan O’Brien Payne lawyer alerting an employer to the harassment, prompting an investigation. In rarer cases, the process can end in litigation.

“A lot of times our first communication will be a letter to the employer to see if we can negotiate a resolution based on the specifics of the case,” explains Lewis.

Jill Lewis

is an employment lawyer at Nelligan O’Brien Payne

thoroughly review each case and find creative and favourable solutions for their clients.

In some cases, that might mean a healthy return to the workplace. In others, it might mean a settlement that includes a letter of reference so that new employment can more easily be found.

In some circumstances, the firm’s dedicated lawyers can build a case that a toxic workplace constitutes constructive dismissal and obtain a severance package for their client.

Whatever the case, the former victim often undergoes a total metamorphosis and gets their career back on track.

“I’ve seen people come in the door and come back a couple of months later after receiving a compensation package looking like different people,” says Lewis. “When they’ve left a toxic work environment, you can see it. There really is a physical change.”

“It’s like the colour is back in their faces,” adds DuPerron. “There’s a spring in their step. Their head is a little bit higher; they don’t look defeated anymore.

When they’re out of that environment for long enough, their outlook is much brighter.”

PROSPECTUS

A farm in the city

SEPTEMBER 2019

On a recent August evening, I dined under the stars in an apple orchard where tree branches already drooped under the weight of their ripening fruit.

It was a magical evening planned by the Heart of Orleans BIA at Orléans Fruit Farm.

“Where is that?” you ask.

On the east end of town, as you pass through the greenbelt, is an old farm that dates back more than 100 years. In 1917, the farm was purchased by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. (Local trivia note: This is the same religious order that founded the University of Ottawa.) The Oblates cultivated crops and raised livestock to feed, among others, their growing number of university students.

It was locally sourced food when that was the only place to source food.

In 1968, the farm was purchased by the National Capital Commission and leased to the Henri family, who just marked 50 years of working the land.

On the August evening in question, I spoke with Paul Henri, a secondgeneration farmer, who shared many fascinating tidbits.

Squeezed between Beacon Hill and Orleans, the farm encompasses 120 acres. More than a dozen crops from

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asparagus to pumpkins are grown each season. And here is the cool part.

Almost all the produce from 120 acres is retailed directly to customers from the farm’s expansive tent at 1319 St. Joseph Blvd.

“It’s a farm in the city,” said Paul, summing up the uniqueness of this place.

This issue of OBJ turns its attention to the often forgotten business of agriculture in Ottawa. As a local banker once told me over lunch, high-tech is great, but most startups don’t compare to the cash generated by a good local farm. Frankly, I was dumbstruck.

Yes, a farm in the city. Many of them, in fact.

IN THIS ISSUE OBOT Connect! is a joint publication from the Ottawa Board of Trade and the Ottawa Business Journal that explores business news and issues in various communities around the city. This edition, which starts on page 27, examines the impact that several new hotels are expected to have on Barrhaven’s business community.

ORDERING FOR OBJ DELIVERY

@objpublisher Michael Curran

Want this great publication conveniently handdelivered to your office each month? Well, now that’s a lot easier. Thanks to a partnership with local tech company Fusebill, you can now guarantee your regular monthly delivery of OBJ through an easy online system. Simply visit www. obj.ca/delivery to place your order. It’s a nominal fee of $8 per month to get 1-25 copies of OBJ hand-delivered. Pick the number of copies that you need. It’s a flat delivery fee. Use the promo code PROSPECTUS for 50 per cent off the delivery fee for three months.

Sept. 10

Sept. 5

As the kids return to school, business leaders return to the Mayor’s Breakfast.

The CEO of a locally headquartered company that’s celebrating its 50th anniversary will be in the spotlight. This company is poised to dramatically improve internet connectivity in Canada (and across the world) as it leads the charge to low Earth orbit satellites, often called LEO satellites. This new LEO initiative is expected to generate more than $1 billion in new revenue over the next decade. If you haven’t guessed yet, that company is Telesat and its longtime CEO Dan Goldberg will share an amazing story of innovation, as Telesat competes head-to-head with such innovators as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in LEO technology. Visit www.ottawabot.ca.

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Sept. 23-24

Sept. 14

Ottawa Art Gallery will play host to a new charity event that’s coming quickly out of the gate this fall. Cornerstone, which provides emergency shelter and housing for women, is organizing its first annual Purple Tie Gala. It promises to be a sophisticated night of signature cocktails by Top Shelf Distillers, beer by Flora Hall Brewing, wine by Château des Charmes and gourmet food stations by the exclusive Jackson / Jackson Café. There is also nine-piece band Sly High and a live auction for an African safari. Guests are encouraged to wear their most creative purple attire. Visit www.cornerstonewomen.ca for info.

Circle these two dates on your calendar if you’re concerned about HR-related talent issues.

The Talent Summit is a oneand-a-half-day conference which will do a deep dive into many of the issues involving talent. The event kicks off with a cocktail event on Sept.

23, which will also recognize the 2019-20 recipients of the Employees’ Choice Awards.

The next day is a full-day conference with keynotes and panels. There are two registration options. Register for just the networking and awards on Sept. 23. The better value is a two-day registration, which includes all aspects of the conference. Watch for more details on this important event at www.ottawabot.ca.

Sept. 19

If you’re looking for something a little more cerebral and politically partisan, get a jump on this fall’s federal election with a business-minded all-candidates debate in the east end of the city. Federal candidates in the constituency of Orléans will square off at Shenkman Arts Centre as the Ottawa Board of Trade and OBJ probe their business platforms.

Scrambled eggs, bacon and a political food fight. Visit www.ottawabot.ca for info.

Swag and

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Well, it was already one of the best events of the fall. Now it’s set to reach new heights. The arrival of September means that Lumière, the annual charity event at Brookstreet Hotel, is on deck. This longtime food and drink pairing event is a highlight of the social calendar. New this year is the combination of Lumière with the Ottawa Senators’ annual golf tournament. So the event now includes golfing with Sens players, gourmet food stations, wine and beer as well as fireworks. So stop reading this and buy your tickets before they sell out. Visit www.brookstreethotel.com/lumiere for online tickets.

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jennifer@silverstarswag.com

EXECUTIVE BRIEFS

We just picked up the phone. The phone works great. A lot of people don’t use it anymore, but it still works (great).

CANNABIS

Barrhaven site selected in cannabis lottery Ottawa’s next pot shop may land in Barrhaven – with an application for Orléans waiting in the wings – after the results of Ontario’s second cannabis retail licence lottery were made public in late August.

The lottery, held by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, allocated an additional 50 licences to operate cannabis storefronts across the province, with seven up for grabs in Ottawa and eastern Ontario.

The sole draw in the National Capital Region was for a pot shop at 4335 Strandherd Dr. in Barrhaven under the name Ethan Stark. The storefront in question sits between a restaurant and mattress store, across a parking lot from a Costco and a Value Village outlet.

Should any of the applicants drawn in the initial lottery fail to complete the process and receive a retail licence, there’s also a waiting list of runners-up to take their place. This includes an application for 470 Charlemagne Blvd. in Orléans under the name Aquanta Group. That prospective shop would be attached to a Home Hardware.

In total, more than 5,000 expressions of interest were submitted to Ontario’s second cannabis lottery, 976 of which were submitted specifically for the east region.

This latest round came with higher standards to qualify for a cannabis retail licence, including a requirement for applicants to prove they have the necessary capital to run the business and have secured retail space. Some 230 applications were disqualified, withdrawn or incomplete.

The prospective pot shops in Barrhaven and Orléans would join the three cannabis storefronts already operating in Ottawa: Fire & Flower on York Street; Hobo Recreational Cannabis on Bank Street; and Superette on Wellington Street West.

– BANK AND VOGUE CO-FOUNDER STEVEN BETHELL, ON HOW HIS FIRM SECURED A LANDMARK DEAL WITH FOOTWEAR GIANT CONVERSE (SEE PAGES 10-11)

TECH

Canada’s CIO leaving feds to join rising AI enterprise The federal government’s chief information officer is leaving the public sector to join one of Ottawa’s fastest-rising tech stars.

Alex Benay, a 2016 Forty Under 40 Award recipient, announced in early August that he will become chief client officer at MindBridge Ai, a local artificial intelligence software developer.

The young father and tech exec leaves his post as Canada’s chief information officer, which

he took up in April 2017 with an aim to bridge the feds’ aging IT infrastructure into the digital era.

Benay expressed satisfaction with the work he had accomplished in the past two years. He pointed to cloud adoption initiatives across the public services, frameworks for ethical AI, open government initiatives and a slew of renewed policies and laws for the digital age as progress in the feds’ digital transformation.

SEPTEMBER 2019

REAL ESTATE

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Carling Executive Park sold to T.O.-based firm for $56.5M A Toronto-based real estate investment firm has purchased a trio of prime Class-A office buildings in Westboro in a push to expand its footprint beyond the southern Ontario market.

Crown Realty Partners announced in August it has acquired properties at 1525, 1545 and 1565 Carling Ave. from Vancouverbased QuadReal Property Group for $56.5 million.

Known as the Carling Executive Park, the 4.16-acre site just north of Hwy. 417 contains 289,000 square feet of office space constructed in the mid-1980s. Its current tenants include Investors Group, Sun Life Assurance, the Canadian Automobile Association and Altus Group.

Founded in 2001, Crown Realty manages more than $3 billion worth of property in the

Greater Toronto Area. The Carling Executive Park is its first acquisition in the National Capital Region.

The Carling Avenue complex currently has a vacancy rate of more than 25 per cent, but Crown Realty partner Emily Hanna said the firm is planning to make significant upgrades to the buildings’ amenities in an effort to lure tenants from sectors such as tech that are

Benay joins a local tech firm with no shortage of momentum. Recently named to the Impact Centre’s Narwhal List of high-potential Canadian firms, MindBridge Ai raised $29.6 million in a series-B round a few months ago. The company has garnered attention for its AI-powered fraud detection tool for auditors and bookkeepers.

Benay is not the only recent executive hire for MindBridge: The company added Miyo Yamashita as chief strategy officer last month in preparation for an initial public offering in 2021.

Before taking on his CIO role with the feds, Benay led the Ottawa-based Science and Technology Museums Corp. for three years. He also worked in various executive roles at OpenText for seven years and in numerous federal government departments for a decade before that.

finding it difficult to procure space downtown or in Kanata.

Hanna said the firm’s plans call for a fitness centre, additional meeting and conference space, upgraded common areas and parking facilities and expanded food services.

It also wants to turn some of the vacant offices into “model suites” –​ borrowing from the template popularized by co-working spaces by creating ready-made meeting rooms, kitchens and work areas aimed at smaller tenants who don’t have the resources to hire architects, designers and contractors.

TECHNOLOGY

Ross Video lands record $5M IRAP grant Ottawa-based video equipment firm aiming to build next generation of 4K, cloud-based products

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

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IROQUOIS EXPANSION PLANS Meanwhile, Ross was fired up about some other big news: he’d just had a peek at the architectural drawings of the firm’s upcoming expansion to its manufacturing plant in Iroquois. The company plans to double the size of its current facilities that now employ about 200 workers in the community on the St. Lawrence River and hopes to break ground on construction next year.

The IRAP funding and pending expansion are just two more signs that Ross Video’s momentum is showing no signs of abating.

The company – which is riding a streak of 27 consecutive years of revenue growth – is on a hiring tear after acquiring two more competitors in the past nine months. Its worldwide workforce is now closing in on 800 people, up nearly 100 since the start of the year, with 42 positions currently vacant.

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Although Ross, OBJ’s CEO of the Year in 2016, wouldn’t reveal exactly what sort of products the company plans to develop next, he did offer a few broad hints.

“Ross is actually a lot like Apple, where our customers often don’t know what’s coming,” he said. “We are relatively secretive. Every project we have is codenamed in the company and there’s a certain amount of need-to-know that happens.

“But we’re not going off in different

AN EXCLUSIVE REPORT ON THE OUTLOOK AND ATTITUDES OF OTTAWA’S BUSINESS LEADERS

SEPTEMBER 2019

avid Ross has climbed the Grand Canyon, gone hang-gliding and kayaked among glaciers in Nunavut already this summer, so it’s safe to say the bar for what really gets his adrenaline pumping is set pretty high right now.

But a multimillion-dollar grant from the federal government just might do the trick.

In mid-August, the chief executive of video equipment powerhouse Ross Video welcomed officials from the National Research Council to the firm’s Ottawa headquarters, where they formally announced that Ross Video will receive up to $5 million in funding from the NRC’s Industrial Research Assistance Program.

The money ​– which will be disbursed over the next three years and must be matched by the company itself –​ will help finance R&D for the next generation of Ross Video products. The firm has received IRAP grants in the past ranging from $50,000 to half a million, but never anywhere near this much.

In fact, no company has ever approached the $5-million mark. Last year, the federal government ramped up funding for the IRAP program to $700 million over five years while boosting the maximum threshold for individual grants from $1 million to $10 million. Thursday’s payout is by far the most cash the NRC has ever doled out in a single IRAP contribution.

“They had never given anything more than a million,” Ross told OBJ, estimating

the application process for the latest grant took 18 months from start to finish and required the company to provide detailed information about what it planned to do with the cash.

“They had to figure out what is the due diligence for doing a contribution agreement that is five or 10 times more than they’d ever done before. It was definitely not like previous IRAP processes, and as a result, we really didn’t know whether we were gonna get $10 million or nothing.”

Ross said the company’s solid track record of converting past R&D efforts into viable merchandise worked in its favour.

“We were able to point to every single time that they’d given us smaller amounts of funding, what we had been able to do with that, how it had created jobs, how we had actually grown, how we’d never wasted any money,” he explained. “You could argue that part of the success of Ross Video has been the little extra oomph that the IRAP funding has given us that we’ve been able to turn into sales.”

directions. We make equipment and software for live production and live events. There’s a lot going on in 4K, there’s a lot going on in cloud and there’s a lot going on in new technologies, and the IRAP grant is going to help us in all those areas.”

Ross has never been shy about letting the feds know they need to get better at helping Canadian tech firms compete on the global stage. He says federally funded programs such as IRAP, SR&ED credits and the Strategic Innovation Fund can all play a valuable role in growing startups into mature companies.

“They’re able to pick winners and do it in a methodical manner and give enough money to make a difference,” he said.

“Obviously because we’ve received some money, I think they’ve been making some fantastic choices,” he added with a chuckle.

BUILDING BUSINESS CONFIDENCE

UP CLOSE

FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT GARY ZED

1

He’s been inspired by his late father, Leesha, the son of Lebanese immigrants. He was a hard-working dentist who believed strongly in higher education. As a result, Zed grew up in a family of medical doctors, dentists and lawyers. He says he’s all for a career in the skilled trades, especially when done entrepreneurially.

2

At age 22, he was rolling in dough as one of the largest hot dog vendors in Atlantic Canada. He had 80 full-time summer employees.

3

At age 23, he experienced his biggest flop with the failure of his summer beachwear business.

“I thought I was untouchable,” he laments. “I probably go into more business ventures now with my eyes a little more wide open because of that hiccup.”

4 Well-known Ottawa business leader Gary Zed has launched his own advisory service for family enterprises. PHOTO BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

Zed bringing his ‘A’ game to new business venture Well-regarded Ottawa tax lawyer leaves Big Four accounting world behind to launch new family enterprise advisory service SEPTEMBER 2019

BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

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caroline@obj.ca

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an Gary Zed keep a secret? You bet he can, now that the Ottawa business leader and philanthropist has become the trusted adviser and confidante to some of the wealthiest families in town through his new firm, Treehouse Family Advisory.

Up until a couple years ago, Zed was managing partner of EY’s Ottawa office as well as the firm’s tax market leader

in Canada. Recognized globally for his expertise, the seasoned tax lawyer stepped away from almost 20 years in the Big Four accounting world in May 2017.

“I had an incredible run and it was fun, but I constantly had that constraint of a bureaucratic setting and not being able to do what I love to do, which is really to be more of an entrepreneur,” says Zed. “Change is never easy because you’re leaving behind amazing people and, obviously, amazing clients. The vast

majority of the clients that were part of my career remain my friends, and, in many cases, I continue to advise them.”

He left having accumulated considerable experience, knowledge and skills from years of working closely with startups, multinationals, business leaders and the families and entrepreneurs of Canada’s most successful private companies.

“I ended up serving many of the wealthiest people in the country,” says

He considers his three kids, raised with Lisa Zed, to be his greatest success. They are: Olivia, 24, who works in New York City for FleishmanHillard; Colin, 22, who works in the real estate acquisitions team for Capreit in Toronto; and Liam, 18, a firstyear commerce student at Dalhousie.

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His favourite piece of advice: “Don’t let perfect ruin good. People who preoccupy themselves with perfection never get anything done.”

Zed, 56. “I was being called in to help them, often around a tax issue in the early days, but that relationship migrated to me giving guidance and support around broader family and business issues, too.”

That’s why the career transition seemed a natural one for Zed as he launched his fully integrated family office boutique firm ​– the first of its kind in Ottawa.

Zed’s services go beyond the typical wealth advisory expertise. He delivers customized solutions to help very high-net-worth individuals deal with the stresses and strains caused by the intertwining of business and family issues.

He’s like a family CEO. Zed is also working closely with KPMG

Enterprises to help the firm expand its local and national Family Office practice.

Families look to Zed for guidance on areas such as succession, tax, estate planning, family communication and governance policies, family brand and values statements, family boards, wealth strategies, cybersecurity and family conflict management.

‘EXPERT GENERALIST’ When Zed first arrived in Ottawa 30 years ago, he didn’t plan to stay. The MBA graduate and young lawyer from Saint John, N.B., who came to the capital on a contract with the federal justice department, hoped to get some experience in tax law to take back with him to the Maritimes.

But he didn’t return to New Brunswick.

His contract was extended and then made permanent. Before long, he was directing all international audit matters for the Canada Revenue Agency.

Then, the private sector lured him away. He went on to hold senior partner positions for two of Canada’s biggest professional services firms: Deloitte, followed by EY.

Through Treehouse Family Advisory, Zed personally manages between 10 and 15 families, most of whom are from Ottawa. Many of his meetings take place in coffee shops, restaurants and clients’ homes. Now, he also has a hangout spot with KPMG. He considers himself an “expert generalist,” overseeing all aspects of wealth management, from A to Zed. “I love it. Every day, you’re dealing with a different story. I’m part Dr. Phil, part Harvey Specter (a fictional lawyer on the TV series Suits) and part Warren Buffett.”

The career change couldn’t have come at a better time for Zed, who believes it’s added years to his life. It allowed him to spend more time with his youngest son before he left home for university, and he has been enjoying his relationship with Liza Mrak, co-owner of a number of luxury car dealerships in Ottawa. He’s an active investor and partner in several thriving businesses, including a forestry operation (hence his firm’s name, Treehouse).

“Most people will tell you that, over the last couple of years, I’ve changed; I’ve become a much more relaxed person –​ maybe even happier.”

Build a stronger association The Ottawa Association Exchange is a new forum created to help associations succeed through strategies for overcoming common challenges.

New research conducted by Abacus Data surveyed of more than 100 association executives, the inaugural edition of the OAX report examines how associations are finding new revenue sources, improving board efficiency and increasing membership engagement.

ARC COCKTAIL LOUNGE

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Live music/private parties/special events/meetings/ VIP soirees Monday - Friday 4:00pm - 11:00pm Happy Hour 4:00pm - 7:00pm guestservices@arcthehotel.com 613-238-2888

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GO GLOBAL

Iconic shoe fits local firm’s ‘upcycling’ apparel strategy Ottawa-based clothing reseller Bank and Vogue’s recycled denim key component of global footwear giant’s new line of Chuck Taylor All Stars

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

SEPTEMBER 2019

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o the casual observer, the latest iteration of the iconic Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker probably looks no different than the hundreds of millions of other pairs of Chucks made from a design that’s remained almost unchanged for nearly a century.

But to Steven Bethell, the latest edition of Converse’s classic basketball kicks represents a giant leap forward in the evolution of sustainable fashion.

The Ottawa entrepreneur launched clothing reseller Bank and Vogue with his wife Helene more than 25 years

ago. Today, the firm buys and sells about three million garments a week ​ – enough to fill more than five dozen 40-foot shipping containers ​– from an operation based here in the capital.

Bank and Vogue acquires used apparel from charities such as the Salvation Army and Goodwill and sells it in 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America and Eastern Europe. It also operates its own chain of used clothing stores, Beyond Retro, which has nine locations in the U.K. and Sweden and is poised to expand to Denmark.

The sustainable clothing movement has gained plenty of cachet in recent

years, and Beyond Retro is no stranger to brushes with celebrity.

The store has been cited as a retailer of choice by such high-profile customers as British recording artist Adele, while fellow pop star Lady Gaga wore a pair of pants from Beyond Retro (and virtually nothing else) on a recent album cover. The chain’s apparel has also appeared on a half-dozen covers of British Vogue – including the June 2016 issue, which featured Kate Middleton decked out in a shirt and coat from Burberry, along with a hat from Beyond Retro, to celebrate the magazine’s 100th anniversary.

“The hundredth-anniversary

(edition) of British Vogue – being on that is kind of like winning the Wimbledon of fashion,” says Bethell, explaining that the Duchess of Cambridge’s hairstylist is a big fan of the shop.

“We’ve been really lucky with the clients. The fashion gods have been good to us.”

From Bethell’s perspective, any extra publicity for the sustainable clothing movement is welcome. He says Bank and Vogue – which now employs a total of about 300 people at its Ottawa headquarters, retail stores in Europe and a sorting plant in India – is on a mission to solve what he calls the “crisis of stuff.”

In addition to reselling used clothing, the firm has also become a leader in “upcycling” garments – that is, remaking them into new merchandise, such as taking a dress and turning it into a handbag. The company says its Beyond Retro private label has diverted more than 600,000 items of clothing from the landfill by converting them into new products.

COLD CALL PAYS OFF But it was a phone call to an executive at Converse a little over two and a half years ago that wound up giving Bank and Vogue its biggest opportunity to make a difference in the “upcycling” movement.

Bethell cold-called the head of the footwear manufacturing giant’s innovation lab, Brandon Avery, with a proposal. Converse was brainstorming ways of making a new line of Chucks out of recycled and repurposed materials, and Bethell pitched Avery on a plan to use recycled denim supplied

by Beyond Retro in place of the shoe’s traditional canvas uppers.

“After our first call, he said, ‘Look, I get 50 emails and calls a month. You’re the one I answered this month,’” says Bethell.

“We just picked up the phone. The phone works great. A lot of people don’t use it anymore, but it still works (great).”

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The hundredth-anniversary (edition) of British Vogue – being on that is kind of like winning the Wimbledon of fashion.

– Bank and Vogue co-founder Steven Bethell, on Kate Middleton wearing one of the company’s hats in her 2016 Vogue cover appearance

Preventing drone disruptions at the Ottawa Airport

L

ess than a week before Christmas last year, drone sightings brought London’s Gatwick Airport to a standstill.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled, stranding an estimated 140,000 passengers – many of whom were forced to queue in long lines, sleep on the floor and scramble to make alternate travel arrangements.

The incursions brought into sharp focus the threat posed by unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to airport operations and the widespread disruption and chaos it can bring to passengers. In the aftermath of the Gatwick incident, as well as drone sightings in New Jersey a month later that brought operations at Newark Airport to a halt, 13 North American aviation and security officials – including Mark Laroche, the president and CEO of the Ottawa International Airport Authority – formed a blueribbon task force to study UAS detection, identification and mitigation in and around airports.

“The rapid growth in unmanned aircraft systems is a development that airports, the UAS industry and government regulators are grappling with across North America,” Laroche said in mid-July as the task force released its interim report, containing more than 20 recommendations.

These include encouraging regulators to require that all drones be equipped with remote identification technology and associated with registered operators, and to make that data available in real time to airport operators and public safety officials.

The report also calls for more education for “careless and clueless” UAS operators about the risks and penalties associated with unauthorized drone usage around airports, as well as strict enforcement of laws prohibiting UAS operations in restricted areas.

Additionally, the report highlights the importance for aviation authorities to be prepared for various UAS incursion scenarios, such as a prolonged airport closure. Logistical and communications plans – as well as provisions to assist large numbers of stranded passengers – are required to effectively manage such a situation.

The interim report also highlighted the leadership of officials at the Ottawa International Airport, which is one of the first airports in this country to propose to Transport Canada a draft intervention plan, incident protocol and response approach for drone incursions. Ottawa airport officials also led the organization of a successful drone tabletop exercise to review several scenarios and viable approaches.

Looking ahead, the blue-ribbon task force is slated to release a comprehensive report later in 2019.

“Unmanned systems have a valuable role to play, but their misuse can cause tremendous disruption to our travellers and the economy that we must work to avoid and mitigate,” Laroche said.

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the way for future partnerships with other global manufacturers seeking to reduce their impact on the environment by repurposing fabrics and other materials.

“The third industrial revolution will be a society where we try to figure out how to reuse and remake and remanufacture things that we already have,” he says.

“How do we do it at scale, how do we do it globally, how does it fit into the supply chain? The Converse project, it’s not just about figuring out how to make a component for a shoe. To us, it’s figuring out a solution to this crisis of stuff and how do we repeat that at other levels and other places, and at scale and get consumer buy-in.”

While Bethell says the wholesale reselling side of the business still accounts for the “lion’s share” of Bank and Vogue’s revenues, he believes new opportunities abound in the push to bring new life to old clothing through collaborations like the one with Converse.

“I think it’s an important evolution of our business, and we’re doing it so that we can keep staying relevant. As the market changes and as the circular economy comes in, what does the used apparel industry look like? That’s why we’re chasing these new projects.”

SEPTEMBER 2019

The two firms soon reached an agreement that saw Beyond Retro sort and process denim from used jeans into material suitable for mass-produced sneakers. After considerable trial and error, they came up with a technique that can produce two pairs of Renew Denim Chucks out of a single pair of “postconsumer” jeans. The first run of about 20,000 shoes hit store shelves in Europe and North America in late August.

Bethell says the Converse deal is a significant breakthrough – not just for his business, but for the environment.

It takes about 1,500 litres of water to grow enough cotton for just one pair of jeans’ worth of denim, he notes, adding past efforts to reuse the fabric as everything from rags to insulation have failed to take hold.

“We’re taking something that really struggles to have a second life and really bring it up the value chain,” Bethell explains. “Doing the work with Converse has been fantastic because it’s a global brand and it pushed us to a global standard.”

Converse estimates the manufacturing process for its Renew range of Chucks will produce 20 per cent less carbon and use 30 per cent less water than traditional methods.

Bethell believes the project will pave

REAL ESTATE

Entrepreneur Maher Arar is launching a new co-working space, Coworkly, in Westboro in September. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

SEPTEMBER 2019

Co-working providers flexing their market muscle

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National Capital Region embracing desk-for-hire trend as new wave of firms looks to cash in on growing number of itinerant workers

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

B

asking in the fresh-office smell of Ottawa’s newest co-working space, Maher Arar is confident he’s created a place where honest-to-goodness

entrepreneurs will flock to work and nurture ideas that could one day turn into the capital’s next wave of great companies.

“This space is not for the people with suits,” the veteran businessman says of his Westboro-based facility, called Coworkly, which is set to open in early September.

“We’re trying to build a homogeneous community. I want the incubation and the business advice and the help to happen organically and naturally here. The space is part of the story. The community is the bigger story.”

Arar’s Westboro space is his second Coworkly location in Ottawa, following the facility he opened in Vanier in early 2018.

The bootstrapped venture is located on the second floor of a commercial building on Richmond Road, in the heart of one of the city’s trendiest neighbourhoods.

The 2,500-square-foot venue features space for about 15 workers in a common

area as well as a couple of private offices with half a dozen dedicated desks. Tenants can rent space by the day or the month, park their laptops at an empty desk and come and go as they please.

Monthly plans at the Vanier location start at $100 a month for part-time members, rising to $200 for full-time members with unlimited day visiting privileges. Private offices start at $1,000 a month for a four-member team.

Arar expects enough demand for the Westboro service that he’s already planning to take over 2,500 square feet of adjacent space next spring. Eventually, he hopes to occupy the entire second floor, which totals about 7,500 square feet.

“Our strategy is to go closer to where people live,” he says. “Here, we want to make sure that everyone knows everyone else’s first name at least, if not their life story. The big guys cannot compete with us on this.”

The “big guys” Arar is referring to include multinational co-working giants such as New York-based WeWork – a multibillion-dollar enterprise that recently announced plans to go public later this year – and Switzerland’s International Workplace Group.

Although WeWork has yet to put down roots in Ottawa, IWG has operated co-working space in Ottawa for a decade under its Regus brand. The company is set to expand its footprint in the capital this October when it opens 75,000 square feet of co-working facilities on the first six floors of 66 Slater St. under its Spaces banner.

Coworkly and Spaces are just part of a growing wave of new entrants into the capital’s rapidly expanding co-working market. Fuelled by the growing prevalence of startups in fields such as tech, the push toward a “gig” economy focused on shortterm contracts and freelance jobs and the rise in the number of self-employed workers, co-working spaces are booming across North America, and Ottawa is no exception.

Although precise figures are hard to pin down, estimates of the amount of local office space now dedicated to short-term tenants range from about 115,000 square feet ​– the latest number from commercial

I don’t really have any issue with them upcharging because we aren’t, as the landlord, providing that flexibility and those services. We kind of see it as a complement as opposed to a threat.

– Colonnade BridgePort CEO Hugh Gorman, on co-working firm Spaces’ upcoming move into his building at 66 Slater St.

property brokerage Cresa, which doesn’t factor in the Spaces deal or Toronto-based iQ Office Suites’ future 13,000-square-foot facility at 222 Queen St. –​ to CBRE’s tally of more than 300,000 square feet that includes several upcoming projects.

Whatever the exact number is, it still lags far behind co-working hotbeds such as Toronto and Vancouver, which both have more than 1.7 million square feet of real estate devoted to flexible, temporary work space.

‘FLEXIBLE WORK STRATEGY’

The Stittsville resident commutes each day to Head Office Ottawa, a co-working facility that opened last November in Kanata. Rhodes, one of the firm’s two employees in the National Capital Region, says he tried working at home when he started his job in January but found it too distracting.

He then bounced around a few other venues, including coffee shops and the library, before discovering Head Office Ottawa.

Almost instantly, he says, he was hooked on the space’s casual vibe. The 15,000-square-foot facility features palm trees, couches and a pool table to help tenants relax in their down time.

After starting with a basic monthly package that allowed him to use his desk

13 OBJ.CA

fit up traditional office space, adds Ross Moore, a senior vice-president at Cresa’s Vancouver office who has studied the Canadian co-working scene.

“Everything is there. I think that’s the attraction,” he says, adding the ability to rent space on a month-to-month basis rather than being locked into a long-term lease holds plenty of appeal to tenants both large and small.

“I may need double the amount of space a year from now, but you know what? I may need half the amount of space. It’s not just for startups. You have Fortune 500, top-tier corporate Canada moving into co-working space.”

Tenants say co-working environments offer a host of benefits for employees who don’t have a permanent office to call home.

“I could not have continued to work remotely if I hadn’t found this space,” says Joe Rhodes, an engineer with Bostonbased blockchain infrastructure developer PureStake.

SEPTEMBER 2019

Most experts agree, however, that while Ottawa was late to hop on the co-working bandwagon, it’s now on board for the long haul.

Part of the demand for co-working space is being driven by a new generation of workers who can set up shop anywhere as long as they have a laptop or mobile device and access to WiFi, says Wayne Berger, IWG’s chief executive in Canada and Latin America.

Nearly one-third of the Canadian workforce now consists of contractors, consultants, freelancers and other “ondemand” employees, he adds, a figure that’s expected to top 50 per cent within the next decade. Co-working spaces, with their focus on housing workers for just days or months at a time, go hand-inhand with that trend, he argues.

“Companies are really looking to say that if they want to attract the top talent and retain the top talent, they need to be able to offer a flexible working strategy,” says Berger, who grew up in Ottawa.

For startups, it’s far more economical to pay a slight premium for co-working space that comes ready-equipped with furniture, WiFi and other amenities than shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars to

only from 9-5, Rhodes quickly upgraded his membership to gain 24-7 access to the facility.

“The biggest thing really – it sounds weird and it’s hard to put your thumb on it – but it’s atmosphere,” he says. “The place is professional, but it’s got a great energy here. There’s a little bit of music playing, there’s people walking around, it’s got beautiful plants. You want to be here.

But it’s not just you want to be here – you actually feel motivated to do cool stuff when you’re here.”

Even the federal government – long considered one of the biggest impediments to the growth of co-working in the nation’s capital – is embracing the concept. In late August, the feds announced they plan to open several offices across Ottawa and Gatineau geared toward employees who wish to work remotely or require a desk while shuttling between meetings.

But not everyone is thrilled with the sudden proliferation of funky offices filled with nomadic tenants. Moore says coworking hubs sometimes spark “friction” with landlords who no longer have the final say over who’s occupying large swaths of their property.

“Landlords hate to lose control,” he says. “Landlords want to maintain a certain image and they want to protect the value of their building. Part of that is getting the right tenant mix. Buildings do get a reputation and it’s very difficult to change that reputation once you have it.”

Continues on page 30

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Celebrating 30 years of getting it right Looking back on three decades of shaping communities across Canada

C

SEPTEMBER 2019

elebrating 30 years of business this year, Colliers Project Leaders Inc. is looking at 2019 as not just a milestone but another step in the right direction. Originally MHPM Project Managers Inc., the Ottawa-based project management firm was founded on humble beginnings by CEO Franklin Holtforster.

Committed to inspiring imaginations and keeping communities safe, the firm’s mantra resonates through all its work: dedicate a team of project leaders to advocate for a client. Acquired by Colliers International, the firm reemerged under its new name, Colliers Project Leaders Inc. From coast-to-coast-to-coast, Colliers Project Leaders proudly leads building and infrastructure projects. Now in its 30th year, the firm looks back at how going beyond project management has shaped Canadian communities into vibrant, thriving places and spaces.

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SHAPING IDEAS INTO POSSIBILITIES As the world watched, the Richmond Olympic Oval put Vancouver on the map. The facility acted as an international stage for Canadian athletes, offering support and celebration during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. While the games were finite, the Oval was not. Its evolution served as a benchmarkan Olympic venue transformed into a multi-use, community legacy facility; bringing to locals the same source of Canadian pride exhibited by our athletes.

Tucked between the iconic foothills of the Rockies and never-ending plains of the Prairies, the new Calgary Central Library is a community hub for residents of all ages. The library inspires both old and young alike, the moment they step inside. Earning considerable international recognition, the library features modern interactive spaces and is home to more than 450,000 books.

Just off the shore of the Atlantic Ocean sits the St. John’s International Airport, a transatlantic hub

Franklin Holtforster, President and CEO (photo by Jenn McMillan) connecting 1.5 million annual travellers with the rest of the world. Approximately 70 per cent of all visitors traveling to and from Newfoundland do so through the airport. Beyond its core function, the airport expansion facilitates economic growth and development for Atlantic Canada, welcoming opportunities near and far.

What happens when you combine discovery, applied research and entrepreneurship with a bestin-class educational facility? Look no further than our backyard to find Algonquin College’s DARE District. This space is a training and test facility for high-demand job sectors, expanded research and innovation initiatives. Home to the Institute for Indigenization, or Pìdàban, the word translates as “past, present, and future” and alludes to the natural phenomena of “daybreak,” – the moment night becomes a new day.

The District is a flexible learning environment, designed to highlight Indigenous knowledge throughout the College. The Indigenous Commons and outdoor Gathering Circle encourages collaboration and offers space for learning and ceremonial events. This new facility is also home to Ontario’s first Institute for Indigenous Entrepreneurship.

Going beyond project management is an essential piece of the Colliers Project Leaders brand: enhancing communities, providing opportunities for growth and exploration, creating spaces to learn, and building hubs for community connection. This is what makes the Colliers Project Leaders story different than the rest.

Colliers Project Leaders is proud to celebrate 30 years of project leadership in Canada.

To learn more, please visit colliersprojectleaders.com

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SEPTEMBER 2019

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AGRICULTURE

Jeremy Schell, who manages Rochon Gardens’ fruit and vegetable stall in the ByWard Market, says many vendors are finding it tough to compete with supermarkets. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

SEPTEMBER 2019

Value-added products a fruitful venture

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In a bid to find new revenue streams, agricultural vendors turn to items such as ciders, preserves and other premade products

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

O

n a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon in mid-August, Jim Davies looks every bit the died-in-the-wool agricultural producer as he cradles a glass of his finest

apple cider while kibitzing with customers and fellow operators at the Ottawa Farmers’ Market.

But Davies wasn’t born into the farming life like so many of his compatriots at Lansdowne Park on this day.

After earning degrees in mechanical

and electrical engineering from Queen’s University, Davies embarked on a successful career in tech that ultimately saw him spend nearly two decades at telecom powerhouse Mitel as the firm’s chief technical officer.

He loved his job, but he also loved

growing apples. Davies’ passion for horticulture led him to purchase a farm near Arnprior 20 years ago, and he soon had more fruit than he knew what to do with.

“There’s no good reason to have 150 apple trees, other than I liked them,” he says with a chuckle after closing up the stand where his company, Farmgate Craft Cider, sells its homemade products every weekend.

There’s lots of people that want organic apples, which are rare and lots of people want to pick ’em, but they’re worth way more in the bottle to us. There’s no money in food. We could not keep three households alive on picking apples.

– Farmgate Craft Cider founder Jim Davies

The operation is small by eastern Ontario standards –​ they grow only about 150 plants at an “urban garden” in Westboro, buy most of their supplies from other local farmers and sell a few hundred small jars of product in a good week – but they see a bright future for their venture.

While they currently borrow commercial kitchens at places such as Supply and Demand to cook up their creations, they soon hope to generate enough sales to open their own facility.

“It’s a lot of work, but we love it,” says Calder, who still works a regular shift at Ottawa eatery Fraser Cafe. “We’re not that big yet, but we’re working on it.”

LONG-TERM VIABILITY

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Both Davies and Calder say “value-added” products such as relish, cider and other items are becoming a more common path to long-term viability for smaller agricultural producers.

“It’s hard to get back into farming,” Davies says. “There’s only two ways to do it. Either you go high value-add, which is kind of the way we’re going here, or you go incredibly high volume.”

As an example, he says, a large growing operation might sell a bushel of apples at a wholesale rate of $8, while the same batch would go for around $25 at the Ottawa Farmers’ Market.

“A family will buy a bushel of apples and you’ll see them again next year,” explains Davies, who now runs his operation with two of his sons as well as his wife Brenda and employs eight other part-time workers.

“I’ll sell a four-pack of cider for $20 –​ essentially the same price ​– and we’ll see them next week. So our good customers, we’ll do a thousand bucks (a year). Those guys’ good customers, they’ll do 50 bucks.

“You want something that’s consumable, that you’ll sell all year. We did the math and it was really easy. There’s lots of people that want organic apples, which are rare and lots of people want to pick ’em, but they’re worth way more in the bottle to us. There’s no money in food. We could not keep three households alive on picking apples.”

Many farming operations already have kitchens where they’re making their own preserves and food such as sauerkraut

SEPTEMBER 2019

Eventually, he learned to press the fruit into juice. Inevitably, he soon began making cider.

“The first few batches were not very good, but then they got progressively better,” he notes.

One of his sons was a brewer, and they’d talked about launching a craft beer operation but felt the space “looked a little congested.” Then they realized they had all the ingredients they’d ever need to produce a different type of alcoholic beverage right in their own backyard.

“We said, ‘Well, we’re making cider here,’” Davies says with a smile. “‘Why don’t we go with that.’ Within six months, we’d all quit our day jobs.”

Farmgate was licensed in early 2017, and by the end of that year Davies had bid goodbye to his longtime colleagues at Mitel. He’s never regretted it.

“To succeed, you’ve got to be passionate about what you do and you’ve just got to work your ass off,” he says.

“That’s true … (of) any industry that I’ve ever been in.”

Davies is one of dozens of local farm vendors who make the rounds at the region’s various outdoor markets every week. And like many of them, he has come to realize that the real money in agriculture these days is often not in growing fruits and vegetables, but rather in using those staples to produce highervalue merchandise such as ciders, jams, syrups and other edibles that people will gladly pay a premium for because they’re not easy to make at home.

A few rows over from Davies’ stall, Mathieu Calder and Blake Williams offer an array of spicy relishes, jams, jellies and hot sauce made from ultra-hot peppers, herbs such as chamomile and other fresh, locally grown ingredients.

Both veterans of the restaurant industry, Calder and Williams have been running Jargon Preserves for about five years.

anyway, Calder adds, so it’s a relatively easy transition for them.

“It’s a way of not wasting as well,” he says. “Less waste, obviously more profit, is always good. You can’t always throw everything out and feed it to the pigs.”

Downtown in the ByWard Market, longtime fruit and vegetable vendor Jeremy Schell agrees it’s getting tougher and tougher for traditional growers to make a go of it.

Schell is part of the extended Rochon family, which has operated stalls in the Market for six decades and has been entrenched in the same spot at the corner of York Street and ByWard Market Square for more than 50 years. In the past several years, he’s seen a number of longtime colleagues pack up and leave, he says, because they simply can’t compete with supermarkets.

“I don’t think there is anything you can do,” Schell says. “Today, it’s give me convenience or give me death.”

The fourth-generation family enterprise has dipped its toes into the value-added product market by selling homemade jams at markets throughout the region.

The Rochons also tried selling pickled beans, jalapeno peppers and asparagus a couple of years ago but soon abandoned that sideline, Schell says.

“They sold like hotcakes, but it was the time that we needed to do it,” he says. “It didn’t pay.”

Back at Lansdowne, Davies says the cider business is in full bloom.

The family now churns out about 24,000 litres of beverages a year, or about 60,000 bottles’ worth, and the firm’s products can be found at 18 pubs and restaurants in the Ottawa area.

Sales have grown 3,000 per cent since Farmgate launched two years ago, says Davies, adding he’s already planning to add 4,000 square feet of production and storage space to the operation’s current 1,300-square-foot facility.

He expects Farmgate to be cash-flow positive some time this year, ahead of his original projections. He says the company will likely apply to put its products on LCBO shelves in 2021, once it’s ramped up production enough to meet the expected demand that move will bring.

“Our limit to growth is how fast we can make it,” Davies says. “So we’re gonna go for it.”

AGRICULTURE

Agri-tourism sector a growth industry A new generation of entrepreneurs is launching markets, mazes and other attractions catering to visitors looking to get away from it all

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

SEPTEMBER 2019

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ith a background that includes being a documentary filmmaker and heading up fundraising efforts for a wide range of non-profit organizations, Eleanor McGrath is not exactly your prototypical farmer.

But the former Toronto resident says she’s now found her true entrepreneurial calling ​– not on the busy streets of downtown T.O. but on a tranquil rural farm just outside the small community of Apple Hill, about 90 kilometres southeast of Ottawa.

McGrath and her husband, Finbarr McCarthy, have owned Springfield Farm, a 55-acre property in South Glengarry, since 2014. They’re part of a growing number of Ontarians who are finding business opportunities in the province’s thriving agri-tourism sector, which includes everything from traditional market gardens that sell fresh fruits and vegetables to operations like Springfield Farm, where guests can escape the noise of the city and stay overnight in a large tent-like structure called a yurt.

Originally a small organic growing operation, Springfield Farm began to attract more tourists after it added the

Springfield Farm, an agri-tourism operation in South Glengarry, offers guests a chance to stay overnight in an insulated tent called a yurt (above left) and will open a new barn catering to “farm-to-table” tourists next spring.

yurt in 2017. Since then, the business has welcomed visitors from across Canada and the United States as well as England and Sweden, McGrath says.

“We’re very proud of it,” she says of the yurt, which is insulated, includes a stove to heat it in cold weather and cost about $15,000. “It’s really lovely.”

Businesses like McGrath’s are sprouting up across Ontario as city-dwellers seek ways to escape the concrete jungle and get back to nature, says Cathy Bartolic, the executive director of Ontario Farm Fresh,

which represents about 300 agri-tourism operations.

Today’s consumers aren’t just looking to pick their own strawberries, she adds, noting the proliferation of businesses such as Ottawa’s Saunders Farm that offer attractions such as mazes carved out of crops and Halloween-themed wagon rides.

“If I had to sum it all up, I think we’re moving more towards a farm experience,” Bartolic says, adding the evolution of agri-tourism is inspiring a whole

new generation of young, enthusiastic entrepreneurs in rural areas who might once have left the family farm for better opportunities in the big city.

“A lot of them are now coming back because they can see a career for themselves on the farm,” she explains.

BOOMING BUSINESS Consequently, agri-tourism has become big business in Ontario. The organization’s latest research indicates that up to 1,700 farms in the province now offer markets of some kind, attracting six million tourists and pumping more than $1.2 billion into the economy each year.

Still, McGrath says newcomers to the industry should be prepared to endure a few hardships as they establish their agritourism cred. While her overnight stays have garnered rave reviews online and she’s seeing a gradual uptick in traffic to her farm, a good month will see the yurt occupied about eight times.

“It’s a very new industry,” she says. “It’s not like it’s non-stop visitors, to be very honest. You can get a little discouraged sometimes.”

In a bid to boost revenues, Springfield

Farms recently erected a new barn that features a wood-burning stove and has one wall made of stone to give it an authentic old-school look. Next spring, McGrath plans to work with local Good People. caterers to start offering “farm-to-table” Great Lawyers. experiences where visitors can sample dishes that include her freshly grown squash, pumpkins, beans and sweet peas or chow down on pizza cooked in the wood-burning oven.

“I would say we’re definitely in the development stage,” she adds. “The pressure is entirely on our shoulders to make this farm a destination for visitors as well as profitable.”

While she concedes that growing the venture has been a “huge challenge,” McGrath also calls her work “very satisfying.” And like any farmer worth her salt, she can’t resist mentioning the weather at least once in her conversation.

“It’s very much true to the entrepreneur spirit,” she says, explaining why she loves her adopted vocation. “You business@mannlawyers.com | www.mannlawyers.com really feel like you’re in charge. If you work hard, something will pay off. The hardest 613-722-1500 part of it is Mother Nature. She’s really in charge.”

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“For people who work nearby, it’s easy to visit us for a birthday or going away function,” says Inglis.

“We try to accommodate special requests as much as possible.”

The Clocktower also caters to its neighbouring office tenants by offering afternoon specials that match the schedules of downtown workers.

Betty Ann Atwood is senior manager at IPSOS, located at 1 Nicholas St.

Patios, restaurants and meeting venues multiplying for Rideau Street office workers Office tenants benefitting from convenience of downtown location

SEPTEMBER 2019

A

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fresh wave of retailers, restaurants and patios is flourishing on Rideau Street – the iconic commercial main street of Ottawa’s downtown core – giving downtown workers a host of new and unique options for offsite meetings, post-work gatherings and staff lunches.

“It’s all right here,” says Betty Ann Atwood, senior manager at IPSOS, a global market research and consulting firm that has called 1 Nicholas St., an office building at the corner of Rideau Street, home for 28 years.

“There are so many options for us when it comes to stores and restaurants,” says Atwood, whose long

tenure in the area has allowed her to see the changes in the retail and dining mix. “It’s much nicer down here now, it’s beautiful to walk around. The Rideau Street renovation has done a lot to clean up the street.”

For Atwood, new additions such as the Clocktower Brew Pub and Joey Rideau – both located on Rideau Street, on either side of Nicholas Street – make entertaining clients or planning staff outings a logistical piece of cake.

Jessica Inglis, the front of house manager at the Rideau Street Clocktower Brew Pub, says the restaurant is accustomed to hosting large groups.

OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

CONVENIENT LOCATION In recent years, several major redevelopments have also helped to reshape the retail landscape for downtown workers. This includes the Rideau Centre’s $360-million expansion and renovation and, across the street, the 2015 facelift of Hudson’s Bay on Rideau Street.

The number of unique meeting and event venues within easy walking distance has also multiplied.

The National Arts Centre fully reopened in 2017 following a $110-million renovation project. More recently, the Ottawa Art Gallery and Arts Court completed multimillion-dollar improvements, and the area welcomed Le Germain Hotel in 2018.

These expanded spaces complement tried and true event venues such as The Westin, the Shaw Centre and The Novotel, making the area rich in resources for offsite meetings and conferences.

For Atwood and her colleagues, Farm Boy’s addition to the Rideau Centre’s roster in 2017 has arguably made the biggest difference in the lives of the many working parents at IPSOS, making it easy to pick up last-minute dinner supplies. Having highend stores like Nordstrom, Simons and Zara within walking distance is another, perhaps more indulgent, perk.

“Our location is so accessible and so convenient,” says Grace Choueiry, branch manager at Adecco Canada – another tenant at 1 Nicholas St. “It makes coming to work easy and stress-free,” she adds.

That’s feedback that Michael Morin, a commercial property manager at District Realty, hears frequently.

“Tenants at 1 Nicholas St. love the location because they have every convenience at their fingertips, without being in the centre of the busy ByWard Market,” he says. “With all the enhancements that have come to the area in the last few years, tenants are more enthusiastic about the location than ever.”

There are currently several blocks of space available for lease inside 1 Nicholas St. Companies and organizations interested in office space options in the heart of downtown Ottawa can explore their options at http://bit.ly/District-1-Nicholas.

2019 Share your creative, clever and inspiring work spaces.

Eye-catching designs, colourful details and innovative layouts are just some of the elements that create an engaging work space. What is your story?

Contact Wendy Baily 613.238.1818 ext. 244 wbaily@obj.ca | bestofficesottawa.ca

SEPTEMBER 2019

21 OBJ.CA

AGRICULTURE

Ottawa-based farm investment fund leader in its field SEPTEMBER 2019

With $750 million in holdings across the country, Bonnefield reaps benefits for both farmers and investors

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BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

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t first glance, it might seem odd that a guy who grew up in the fisherman’s paradise of Lunenburg, N.S., would end up in charge of Canada’s largest investment fund dedicated to farmland.

But Tom Eisenhauer, who spent years running his own successful

private equity fund in Toronto, knows a good investment when he sees it. And when the global financial crisis of 2008 threw traditional markets into turmoil, he started looking around for a safer harbour to invest some of his own –​ and others’ –​ retirement savings.

“I began to think there’s got to be a different kind of asset out there to invest in that’s a little lower volatility, a little

lower risk,” says the president and CEO of Bonnefield, the Ottawa- and Torontobased fund that now owns more than 110,000 acres of farmland worth in excess of $750 million.

As it happens, Eisenhauer’s wife grew up in the southwestern Ontario town of Paris, and her uncles owned farms nearby.

During a visit to her hometown after the financial crash, Eisenhauer was riding his bike on a rural road when an idea struck him.

“No matter how bad things get, people still have to eat,” he remembers thinking.

“I became completely fascinated with the idea of investing in farmland.”

A “deep dive” into global trends soon confirmed his faith in agricultural land as an investment vehicle. He quickly discovered such funds were commonplace in Europe, South America, the United States and Australia, but were virtually unheard of here in Canada.

“I started to smell an opportunity,” he says.

Eisenhauer, who concedes “he didn’t know the first thing about farming” when he hatched his plan, contacted two

business acquaintances from Ottawa: Jan and Steve Kaminski, who run private equity firm Colonnade Investments. The Kaminskis had a stake in a number of enterprises, including Manderley Turf Products, an Ottawa-based sod farm.

“They had a crash course in farming as a result of that,” Eisenhauer says. “I thought, ‘Hey, here’s somebody who knows something about farming.’”

Like Eisenhauer, the Kaminskis had seen how Canadian farmers’ efforts to expand their businesses were often frustrated by a lack of access to capital.

Traditionally, Eisenhauer says, farmers in this country have had just two sources of financing things such as paying down debt, funding further expansion, preparing for retirement or planning the succession of the family farm: sweat equity and bank debt.

“There’s not much in between,” he says. “So if you’re a farmer who’s heavily indebted, what do you do?”

He felt he had the answer. In 2009, Eisenhauer partnered with the Kaminskis to launch Bonnefield, a fund designed to buy land from farmers in need of cash and

lease it back to them.

Bonnefield now works with more than 100 farm families in seven provinces, and its holdings stretch from northern B.C. to the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia.

Leases typically last 10 years, at which point the farmer has the option of buying back the land or renewing the agreement.

In addition, Bonnefield offers resources to farmers such as tutorials on agricultural economics and considers itself a financial partner to those who work the land.

“We don’t invest in (farmland) to flip it to developers or turn it into Costcos or what have you,” Eisenhauer says. “We’re buying the farmland to protect it and keep it as farmland.”

INVESTORS SKEPTICAL In return, Bonnefield’s investors acquire an asset that tends to appreciate over time and, according to Eisenhauer, stands to become even more valuable in the coming decades as global warming threatens agricultural economies in many other parts of the world.

Bonnefield’s first fund provided its investors with a 13 per cent annualized

We don’t invest in (farmland) to flip it to developers or turn it into Costcos or what have you. We’re buying the farmland to protect it and keep it as farmland.

– Bonnefield president and CEO Tom Eisenhauer return, and a second fund in 2013 produced 11 per cent returns.

Still, the Canadian financial community isn’t known for its penchant for risk-taking, Eisenhauer notes dryly, and it took a while for investors to warm up to Bonnefield’s concept. After two years, the initial fund had raised just $5 million.

“I will admit it took us a while to convince – particularly the big institutions in Canada – that this is a really fantastic asset that you should own. But they gradually came on board.”

Today, Bonnefield’s backers include some of the country’s biggest pension funds and a bevy of high-net-worth individuals – all of whom must be

Canadian to meet regulations in several provinces. The firm now employs nearly two dozen people, about two-thirds of them at its south-end Ottawa office.

Bonnefield’s lease negotiation team is led by vice-president Roy Farrer, who grew up on a grain farm outside Drinkwater, Sask., about 30 kilometres southeast of Moose Jaw. Farrer says it took his father 30 years to accumulate the 10,000 acres on which he now cultivates wheat, canola and lentils among other crops.

“If you’re forced to just finance that expansion purely with debt, then it’s a really slow grind to get the acres you need to be to be at that efficient size for the size and scale and cost of the equipment,” explains Farrer, who earned a commerce

degree from Queen’s University and joined Bonnefield five years ago.

Many farmers lease land from friends and relatives as a way to increase their growing capacity, but that has pitfalls, he adds.

“A typical farmland lease is a year on a handshake with your uncle,” Farrer says. “A lot of people have good relationships with their family, but a year on a handshake with no paper and heaven forbid that person passes away, or they have an insolvency situation or even .. divorce, what happens to your rights to the land on a handshake agreement? Well, you don’t really have any.”

Eisenhauer says the concept is gaining momentum, fuelled largely by positive word-of-mouth in the close-knit farming community.

“We have far, far more demand from farmers for our sale-leaseback financing than we have the capital to provide,” he says. “Those farm families just don’t have the connections and the contacts to Bay Street that would have them in front of massive institutional investors. They’re two different worlds. That’s the bridge that frankly we’ve been successful in creating.”

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Arlen Bartsch Director of sales and marketing

Chris Fenn Senior account executive

Adrian Rylski Product owner

SEPTEMBER 2019

A look inside Canada’s fastest-growing digital agency

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Staff at Ottawa-based OPIN share some of the secrets to the firm’s success The first thing visitors notice when they walk into the Catherine Street headquarters of OPIN Software – an Ottawa-based digital agency

specializing in a versatile, open-source content management system (CMS) called Drupal – is the buzz of activity.

OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

Julia Adler Marketing coordinator

You’ll see diverse employees at work, huddling together around computer screens, scribbling on white boards, refilling mugs of coffee – maybe even taking a well-deserved break at the office foosball table.

OPIN’s modern workspace has all the hallmarks of a growing tech firm. But OPIN isn’t just expanding – it’s exploding.

Founded in 2011 by CEO Chris Smith, OPIN’s sales figures have ballooned, doubling over the past few years and are currently tracking towards $10 million.

Adrian Rylski, a product owner at OPIN, has been with the company since the beginning, and is thrilled with the growth he’s seen. He attributes much of that growth to the vision and

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“We’re dedicated to doing something very, very well” – Arlen Bartsch, director of sales and marketing at OPIN

innovative approach of the firm’s leadership and Smith in particular.

“He’s so focused on making OPIN the best of the best, and he’s still true to the philosophies that I first learned seven years ago,” Rylski says.

Smith’s philosophy for OPIN is based on three key pillars: a mutual and reciprocal trust between the company and its employees, an on-going desire to learn, and a focus on clear communication throughout every project. Trust, learning, communication – TLC. This might sound a bit like something out of a self-help book, but it is working wonders for both OPIN and the agency’s clients.

The proof is in the feedback.

“OPIN’s teams are highly skilled, professional and a pleasure to work with,” says Terri Harlow, digital platforms manager at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax. “We felt that were full partners in the project. OPIN kept us up-to-date with frequent communication, guidance and transparent processes.”

Harlow’s comment represents just a sample of the positive feedback that OPIN receives.

The combination of Smith’s TLC philosophy and OPIN’s use of the Agile methodology, which breaks projects into bite-sized pieces and allows constant collaboration with the client, have left a long list of high-profile clients happy.

OPIN founder and CEO Chris Smith applies three key philosophies in his leadership of the company: trust, learning and communication.

TRUST:

“We not only put faith and trust in our employees, but they do the same for us,” Smith explains. “We provide an autonomous environment, that allows employees to step out of their comfort zone and innovate, promoting personal and professional growth.

Prioritizing trust allows new graduates and emerging experts to further their professional skills within a supportive work environment to become the best they can be.”

LEARNING:

“There is a high focus on mastery, a lot of career development focus and learning plans to allow our employees to explore areas of unfamiliar territory,” Smith says.

“I think the best lessons are learned while out of your comfort zone, while also being within a supportive environment.”

COMMUNICATION:

“I believe a large aspect of the company should be one in which the team is stronger than any one individual – teams that are dynamic central units,” Smith says. “At OPIN we focus on the development of highly functioning groups where teamwork is paramount.”

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OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

SEPTEMBER 2019

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES Of course, tackling complex projects for large enterprise clients isn’t always easy. But OPIN is well-equipped to overcome challenges through its expertise and focus on Drupal, rather than attempting to be a jack-of-all-trades.

“We’re dedicated to doing something very, very well,” says Arlen Bartsch, director of sales and marketing at OPIN. “Many agencies will

say they’ll work in Wordpress, Sitecore, whatever. We don’t say that. We specialize in Drupal, and we’re constantly advancing our certifications in that area.” This philosophy of developing specialized expertise extends into how OPIN staffs its project teams, known as “pods.”

“We have a combination of people with multi interdisciplinary expertise – designers, developers, product owners and so on,” explains Chris Fenn, a senior account executive at OPIN. With its growing client roster, OPIN is continuing to expand both in the National Capital Region and in the U.S. The agency has already opened a new office in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and has plans to open additional offices. OPIN is also expanding its Ottawa workforce, which has now blown past the 40-person mark.

Julia Adler, a marketing coordinator, is one of OPIN’s newest hires and says she’s excited for her future with the company.

“What OPIN is doing is interesting and innovative, and I wanted to be a part of it,” she says. “I’m excited. I’ve already done a lot of learning, and I’m excited to put it all into action.”

In light of its recent successes, OPIN’s team continues to look for opportunities to further advance its offerings.

“We’re growing and expanding,” says Rylski.

“As we grow, we have to re-evaluate every aspect of the way we grow. We have to have a constant re-birth of the company, with the same goals at hand.”

THE TLC PHILOSOPHY OF OPIN CHIEF EXECUTIVE CHRIS SMITH

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www.ottawabot.ca

ISSUE NO. 5

THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE OTTAWA BOARD OF TRADE

FOCUS ON BARRHAVEN

www.ottawabot.ca

Two new hotels set to open next year in Barrhaven

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Facilities will create much needed conference and event space for business, tap into growing demand from sports teams news@obj.ca

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“(Barrhaven is) overdue for a hotel.”

– ANDREA STEENBAKKERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE AREA’S BIA. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON

built by developer Dhanwant Bhatti at 4433 Strandherd Rd. The five-storey TownePlace Suites by Marriott will have 99 rooms, according to city documents.

When first announced, it was expected to open around the same time as the Hampton Inn. The Strandherd application says there is potential for a second phase that would include an additional hotel on the property. A fourth possible hotel is interested in the area according to Councillor Jan Harder, although an

application hasn’t made it to the City of Ottawa yet. Patel also has a second lot suitable for additional development.

“There is definitely a lot of interest from the hotel industry. I’m not surprised,” said Andrea Steenbakkers, executive director of the Barrhaven BIA. “We are approaching 100,000 people now and we’re probably overdue for a hotel.”

Harder echoed those sentiments.

“We’ve been waiting a long time,” she said.

Continues on page 29

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said Patel. “I’m hoping for more businesses to move into the industrial park, and if that happens then there is a great opportunity for even more hotels there.

“We’re there to serve the community,” he added.

Patel’s proposal is among the first to break ground in what is shaping up to be a hotel building boom in Barrhaven, with three more potentiel properties being planned.

A second hotel is currently being

SEPTEMBER 2019

fter 20 years of having nowhere to host sports tournament attendees or out-of-town visitors, Barrhaven is finally getting two hotels – with the possibility of more on the way.

Owner Raj Patel plans to open his sixstorey Hampton Inn and Suites, a Hilton brand hotel, in July 2020.

The hotel is currently under construction at 4401 Fallowfield Rd., just off Highway 416 at the growing Citigate Business Park, and will have 102 rooms, suites, a pool, fitness centre and conference facilities. Patel said construction costs are expected to be around $18 million to $19 million.

“I moved to Ottawa in 2015 and I saw the market was growing, but there is no hotel in the area, so I thought it would be a good place to start our new adventure,”

Advocating for business. Fuelling the future.

BY HALEY RITCHIE

OTTAWA BOARD OF TRADE

THE OTTAWA BOARD OF TRADE WELCOMES ITS NEWEST MEMBERS: • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Howard Fine Jewellers & Custom Designers iPrint Media Group Lar-Mex Lauft | Flexible Workspace LGG Media Lycée Claudel d’Ottawa Modern Niagara Ottawa Myers Motors Group Nespresso O’Farrell Financial Services Ottawa Hair Loss Clinic & Wellness PandaPay - J&M Consulting PGR Consulting Rancourt Roofing SmartCone Technologies Steve Georgopoulos Urban Block Media

Membership in Ottawa’s single largest independent business organization has many benefits. To learn more about why your organization should join the all-new Ottawa Board of Trade, visit www.ottawabot.ca or contact Rob Campbell at BusinessDeveloper@ottawabot.ca or 613-236-3631 x200.

OBOT member spotlight

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Ottawa airport unveils new retail, restaurant brands amid $27M concession overhaul

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CONNECT!

Advocating for business. Fuelling the future.

• • • • • •

Auberge et Spa Le Nordik BuildAble - Accessible Design & Renovations Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre Demolition Plus Destiny’s Way Support Services Dymon Storage Fenix Solutions Helix Hearing Care Holiday Inn Express & Suites Downtown Ottawa East

•

KICHESIPPI BEER OPENS NEW BELLS CORNERS BREWERY AND TAPROOM Congratulations to Paul Meek and the team at Kichesippi Beer on the grand opening of its new brewery and taproom, located at 2265 Robertson Rd.

Kichesippi Beer celebrated the milestone in late July with an afternoon of live music, brewery tours and the launch of its latest brew – BC Light.

ig Rig Brewery, Bridgehead Coffee, La Bottega Nicastro and Zak’s Diner are among the local brands headed to the Ottawa International Airport as part of a major revamp of its concession offerings.

Mark Laroche, the president and CEO of the Ottawa International Airport Authority, named SSP Canada and Paradies Lagardère as the airport’s master concessionaires for food, beverage and retail at a reception this summer.

The announcement followed several years of consultations and design as well as a competitive tender process.

“We listened to our passengers and employees,” Laroche said in a statement. “(We’re) incorporating more modern options (and) diversity of product in new and beautiful spaces. We are confident that this new program will be a delight to all.”

The new concession program is part of a broader redevelopment and expansion of the airport’s passenger terminal, which saw more than 5.1 million travellers pass through its gates

in 2018.

In addition to the expanded food court and retail services, the plans include moving passenger security screening from the second to the third floor. Group Germain Hotels has also announced plans to build a 180-room hotel that will be directly connected to the airport terminal.

The concession construction program has a total budget of $27 million and will be phased in over two years. The airport authority will be contributing $12 million, with the new master concessionaires covering the remaining $15 million.

In addition to SSP Canada and Paradies Lagardère, global quickserve giant Subway was assigned an independent contract to round out the program.

Other brands that will be a part of the new concessions include Tim Hortons, Canal Market Hall, Urban Crave, Dylan’s Candy Bar, Maison de la Presse, TripAdvisor, Relay, No Boundaries and The Locks.

OTTAWA BOARD OF TRADE

SAVE THE DATE

Lyft deepens Ottawa commitment, community connections with new hub

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institution.

“We spend a lot of time in the community, being about the community,” says Rob Woodbridge, Lyft’s Ottawa market manager and a wellknown local entrepreneur.

“So there’s the business side of it – the ride-share side. Then there’s also the civic side – the engagement side inside of Ottawa – where we support local charities, businesses and initiatives that make the community we live in much better.”

As it improves transportation accessibility and equity, Lyft recently launched its driver resource centre and support hub on Carling Avenue – the

Visit ottawabot.ca for more information and registration details on these and other upcoming business events.

Business After 5 Lyft Headquarters Sept. 17, 2019 5 p.m. - 7 p.m.

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It’s the latest initiative in what has already been a busy year for Lyft locally. Earlier in 2019, the company implemented its “Community Grants Awards,” a monthly ride credit program that donates $1,000 in ride credits to local charities and non-profit organizations.

“They can use those credits towards getting people to a venue or a location as well as getting volunteers out to help deserving charities,” Woodbridge says.

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SEPTEMBER 2019

inside the community due to the lack of conference space.

Barry Nabatian, director of market research for Shore-Tanner & Associates, said the group conducted several studies in the area roughly five years ago and found Barrhaven could support two or three hotels.

“Probably the demand is higher now,” he said, noting the area’s rapid growth.

Nabatian said the business market for the hotels, while growing rapidly, is secondary to the larger family-based and recreation-based need for rooms.

He said the hotels, once constructed and open, are likely to translate to upwards of 200 jobs in the area.

“It is convenient, it makes the business community more complete, and it will serve tourists, locals and business people,” he said. “It’s a great thing for Barrhaven; the only question is, why so late? But it’s much better late than never.”

Advocating for business. Fuelling the future.

Continued from page 27 Harder said the absence of a hotel has been a noticeable inconvenience for out-of-town businesspeople as well as travelling sports teams and individuals visiting family in the region.

Barrhaven hosted the Canadian Little League Championships in 2015, but families had to stay outside the community.

Next year, the East Nepean Eagles are scheduled to host the Ontario Little League Championship and organizers are already set to stay at one of the new hotels, according to Harder.

In addition to the recreation and family demands from the community, Steenbakkers said having conference space will be valuable for the burgeoning business community in the area.

In previous years, the BIA has been unable to host large events, like breakfasts or annual general meetings,

www.ottawabot.ca

s business leaders and politicians cut a pink ribbon to officially open Lyft Ottawa’s new hub this summer, it was a special fuzzy guest onstage who symbolized the relationship between the popular ride-hailing service and local community.

The presence of CHEO Bear alongside the local dignitaries illustrates Lyft’s business philosophy as it grows in Canada’s capital. When the service launched locally slightly more than two years ago, Lyft partnered with CHEO. The “Round Up to Donate” program on the Lyft app allows riders to round up their fare to the nearest dollar, donating the difference to the local health-care

UPCOMING EVENTS

REAL ESTATE Co-working spaces Continued from page 13 In addition, Moore says, some property owners and managers might resent tenants charging a premium to sublease their space, as most co-working providers do.

OKAY WITH UPCHARGING But Hugh Gorman, the CEO of local property management firm Colonnade BridgePort, says he thinks such worries are overblown.

“I think as the (co-working) business matures, and it is maturing, I think a lot of those original … concerns that landlords had are starting to dissipate,” says Gorman, whose firm manages 66 Slater St., where Spaces is set to occupy six floors this fall.

“They’re providing a service that we don’t provide,” he adds, referring to amenities such as WiFi, fully furnished areas and IT support. “I don’t really have any issue with them upcharging because we aren’t, as the landlord, providing that flexibility and those services. We kind of see it as a complement as opposed to a threat.”

Kane Willmott is CEO of Torontobased co-working firm iQ Office Suites, which is expanding to Ottawa early next year. He says more and more landlords now view co-working spaces as an asset that enhances the value of their property.

“It brings a lot of energy to the

building,” says Willmott, the former president of the Global Workspace Association, a major industry group. “It brings more clientele to the building. It gives people access to smaller spaces as opposed to having to go in and take on their own spaces. So it really becomes a great offering for the landlord.”

As an added bonus, Gorman notes, some of the startups that will be renting individual desks at Spaces come October

SEPTEMBER 2019

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might eventually blossom into thriving companies that ink long-term leases at his properties down the road.

“I think it’s introducing new players to the market, and if they grow, maybe they’ll grow into more traditional occupants as they grow out of those incubator-type situations,” he explains.

But whether the Shopifys of the future will still be locked into long-term leases remains to be seen. As more and more tenants grow accustomed to the shorter terms offered by co-working providers, many observers believe Colonnade BridgePort and other landlords will be forced to change their approach or risk losing clients.

Before the birth of modern coworking spaces about 15 years ago, “there was essentially one business model for real estate and that was a (long-term) lease,” says Ian Graham, who founded the Code Factory, one of the city’s first co-working spaces. “Your option was essentially one of two things: will that be five or 10 years?”

He predicts landlords will adapt by offering more flexible lease terms. Moore agrees.

“I’m not suggesting that the five- or 10-year lease is going to go away, but I think that there’s just more of a question mark over, maybe three years is the new norm,” he says.

As another way to cash in on the co-working boom, landlords south of the border are now starting to enter into revenue-sharing agreements with co-working spaces, a trend that could eventually gain traction here as well, Willmott says.

Whatever changes the flexible office space craze heralds for the real estate industry, one thing appears certain: coworking is here to stay.

“The difference between this and a coffee shop or a library, it wasn’t even a comparison,” Rhodes says from his desk at Head Office Ottawa. “Now that I’ve worked in an office that I enjoy this much, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to work in a cubicle farm again.”

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Telfer, spent 20 years as a management consultant and partner with Deloitte. It was there that he honed the highly consultative and client-centric approach he takes at Telfer.

“When a client like the Taggart Group engages with us, we sit down and spend time to understand their needs and to custom develop a program that is suitable for the current experience levels of their managers and targets the specific areas they need to upskill,” Orsak said.

To date, two cohorts of 25 Taggart Group managers and executives have benefited from the program, with a third cohort pending.

“An increasing number of growing companies have come to realize they need to invest in this kind of professional development to ensure their people have the leadership and management skills and an understanding of the strategic dynamics of the business to lead its continued growth,” Orsak added.

TAGGART GROUP SEES EARLY DIVIDENDS Taggart Group staff engaged in a learning simulation as part of the professional development program created by Telfer Executive Programs at the University of Ottawa.

Taggart Group invests in its leadership team with Telfer Custom Professional Development Program lays foundation for future growth

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“It’s extremely important to invest both time and money into professionalizing and improving our current business operations, as well as to continue to prepare for the future with a focused approach,” said Simon Taggart, Manager, Business Transformation at Taggart Construction.

To assist with that, the Taggart Group turned to Telfer’s Executive Programs at the Centre for Executive Leadership (part of the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa).

NOT AN OFF-THE-SHELF ACADEMIC PROGRAM The Telfer team, led by Glen Orsak, Director of Executive Programs, created a custom professional development program for the Taggart Group.

Facilitators included subject matter experts with specialized expertise in management and leadership development and real-world business experience.

This includes Orsak himself, who, before joining

To learn more and discuss a custom executive program for your team, please contact Telfer at 613-562-5921 or executiveprograms@telfer.uOttawa.ca

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IS IT TIME TO UPSKILL YOUR BUSINESS FOR THE FUTURE? SEPTEMBER 2019

he executive team behind the Taggart Group of Companies is getting ready for the next generation of growth.

“Our business has grown and diversified tremendously,” said Pierre Bergeron, CEO of the Taggart Group. “We needed to focus on creating an environment where we have processes, structure and consistent practices in place to continue growth that will align with the family ownership expectations.”

Investing in people is key to preparing for the future … and to breaking down the silos that inevitably emerge as a business diversifies.

Over the past 70 years, Taggart Group has evolved from a “big small company into a small big company” with four distinct businesses – Doran Contractors Ltd., Tamarack Homes, Taggart Construction Ltd. and Taggart Realty Management.

The challenge is to ensure these businesses continue to work together cohesively to deliver quality projects.

“Thanks to Telfer, the level of professionalization among middle and senior managers at all four of our companies has clearly improved,” said Taggart.

“They are now able to speak in a common language when we discuss topics such as corporate strategy, goals and KPIs, as well as the importance of our succession plan. Morale has risen and everyone is pulling in the same direction.”

Taggart Group’s experience illustrates how critical an outside perspective can be to help an organization identify and address the blind spots that threaten its long-term outlook.

“Telfer was successful in assisting us to engage our employees to create new business models that address weaknesses and build on our strengths,” said Bergeron. “This has helped us to set realistic and aspirational goals and take the necessary steps to achieve them. We would recommend Telfer to anyone who wants to take their business to the next level.”

Re-thinking Talent in the Capital

PRODUCED BY

SPONSORED BY

Brookstreet Hotel

Don’t miss the inaugural Ottawa Talent Summit, a two-day event dedicated to one of the city’s most pressing business issues: developing, recruiting, retaining and maximizing employee talent.

DAY 1

CRAIG DOWDEN, PHD AND AUTHOR

5:30 P.M.

Cocktails and Networking

6:15 P.M.

Employees’ Choice Awards

6:45 P.M.

Keynote presentation: Craig Dowden, PhD and Author of Do Good to Lead Well: The Science and Practice of Positive Leadership

7:30 P.M.

Event Concludes

SEPTEMBER 2019

Purchase your tickets today, don’t miss out!

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Hear from an array of distinguished speakers on varioustopics pertaining to talent in Ottawa, and business. The day will feature panel discussions on Education vs. Employment: The Debate of Skills, Sourcing Diverse Talent: A Supply-Side Approach and The Future of Work: Technology and the Workplace. You’ll also hear unique perspectives on Second Careers, Retention Strategies and Skills Mapping.

TICKETS SINGLE TICKETS:

DAY 2 8:30 A.M.

Continental Breakfast and Networking

9:30 A.M.

Opening Remarks

9:30 A.M. - 12:00 P.M

Content

12:00 P.M.

Lunch and Networking

1:00 - 4:00 P.M

Content

4:00 P.M.

Closing Remarks and Event Concludes

Ottawa Board of Trade Member: $200+HST Future Members: $250+HST

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REGISTRATION

www.ottawabot.ca Early Bird pricing in effect until August 31. See website for details.

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OBJ.Social is supported by the generous patronage of Mark Motors, Marilyn Wilson Dream Properties and Bruyère Foundation.

STORIES AND PHOTOS BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

FUNDRAISER

OSEG Foundation dinner helps get kids off the sidelines and into sports dinner. They’re self-professed foodies, “as in: I like to eat,” quipped Klassen, who’s 6-foot-5 and 275 pounds.

The football players were joined by their coaches, including head coach Rick Campbell, general manager Marcel Desjardins and OSEG president and chief executive Mark Goudie. Kicker Lewis Ward was there, having just ended his record field-goal streak of 69.

The OSEG Foundation’s honorary president is local sports hero Henry Burris, former Grey Cup-winning

quarterback for the Redblacks. He spoke of the business community’s responsibility to help remove the barriers, financial or otherwise, that prevent kids from participating in sports.

“If you look around this room, there’s a lot of success in this room, but none of you would be here if it wasn’t for somebody coming to your aid, having your back and giving you the resources to help make your dreams come true,” said Burris. “Now, it’s time to hand that torch off to the next generation.”

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SEPTEMBER 2019

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What’s red and black and fun all over?

The OSEG Foundation’s Gourmet on the Gridiron, presented by Site Preparation Ltd. The popular dinner returned for its second year to TD Place Stadium at Lansdowne Park on Aug. 18 to give more kids in our community a shot at playing sports.

Roger Greenberg, executive chairman and managing partner of the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, was among some 300 community and business leaders who attended the relaxed, enjoyable and inclusive fundraiser. He was joined by Janice Barresi, executive director of the OSEG Foundation, and the entire football team from the Ottawa Redblacks.

OSEG owns and operates the Redblacks, the Ottawa 67’s junior hockey team and the Ottawa Fury soccer club. It also manages the TD Place stadium and arena.

The Redblacks really brought their ‘A’ game to the event, from offensive lineman Alex Mateas and defensive back Antoine Pruneau helping out as friendly doormen, to athletes playing locker room tour guides, to defensive lineman Michael Klassen and punter Richie Leone providing play-by-play descriptions of the four-course gourmet

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OBJ.Social is supported by the generous patronage of Mark Motors, Marilyn Wilson Dream Properties and Bruyère Foundation.

STORIES AND PHOTOS BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

EVENT

FUSE FESTIVAL BUILDING ‘FEELING OF CAMARADERIE’ IN WESTBORO

SEPTEMBER 2019

When in your life have you not been in the mood for jugglers?

Never, right?

Attention-grabbing street performers made a special appearance on Aug. 15 at a launch party held at the Clocktower Brew Pub, located on Richmond Road.

They gave invited guests a sneak peak of what was to come at the Westboro Fuse street festival.

The giant block party took place Aug. 17 and 18 in Westboro, one of the city’s most desirable neighbourhoods.

It’s brimming with cool coffee shops, restaurants, boutiques and specialty

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stores, and even a local beach.

The street festival, now in its fourth year, is mostly funded by the Westboro Village BIA, which is a roughly 300-member association of businesspeople looking to draw more business and customers to the neighbourhood by promoting the area and by improving its overall attractiveness.

It’s the festival’s sense of community spirit that Molly van der Schee finds most rewarding.

“I love the feeling of camaraderie that we’re trying to build,” said van der

Schee, head of the board of the Westboro Village BIA and owner of The Village Quire greeting card and gift store.

The family-friendly festival featured crafts, activities, games, performers and special guests to delight children of all ages.

On hand were Michelle Groulx, executive director of the Westboro Village BIA, and Darren Prashad, vicechair of the BIA board, as well as the manager of festival sponsor Merit Travel.

The number of Westboro merchants actively involved in this year’s event more than doubled from last year to 46, Groulx

said. That’s a good sign, she added, especially when one considers that the festival is not about generating profits at the cash register but about getting the community to come together and celebrate all that Westboro has to offer.

The event’s live music lineup featured Vancouver alternative rock band Odds, Tragically Hip tribute band Road Apples, Ottawa’s Dueling Pianos, The Rock Steadies seven-piece party band, Good Advice, The MacLovins, Five + None, Joshua Earth & The Rotators, Pei & The Joynt, and singer-songwriter Mikhail Laxton, who performed at the launch party.

Special guests included Mayor Jim Watson, who credited Ottawa’s festivals ​ – all 100-plus of them ​– for helping to boost tourism in the area.

“The third-largest industry, after government and high-tech, is the tourism and hospitality sector,” said Watson. “If we can do a better job of attracting more people here to shop in stores and eat in restaurants and have a beer on the patio from not just outside of Westboro but outside of Ontario and outside the country, that bodes well for employment and that bodes well for the quality of life here in the beautiful city of Ottawa.”

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bruyere.org/give

SEPTEMBER 2019

New Listing! 17 Carlisle Circle - $2,500,000

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OBJ.Social is supported by the generous patronage of Mark Motors, Marilyn Wilson Dream Properties and Bruyère Foundation.

STORIES AND PHOTOS BY CAROLINE PHILLIPS

FUNDRAISER

SEPTEMBER 2019

Boys and Girls fundraiser suits donors to a tee

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After a one-year hiatus, the Tremblant Charity Classic was back in full swing this summer.

Over the course of its 11-year history, the charity golf tournament has netted more than $1.6 million for the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa. It has also proven to be a premier golf event that showcases the best of what the Tremblant region has to offer, hosting guests at Le Maître de Mont-Tremblant golf club, followed by dinner, an after-party and an overnight stay at Hôtel Quintessence.

The year’s event, held in late July, had added horsepower with Liza Mrak and her brother Michael Mrak, co-owners of Mark Motors Porsche, stepping into the driver’s seat as the new presenting sponsor and doubling the field of foursomes with the addition of the Porsche Cup to the tournament.

The winners of the Porsche Cup were David MacIntosh, Dave Seibel and Josée Lacasse. They’re all invited to the Canadian finals, which takes place at Le Maître in Tremblant in late September.

Longtime supporters were spotted in the latest fashions, both on (and in some cases off) the fairway, playing a round for the kids on a perfect day. Seen were Solace president and CEO Les Rechan, 1251 Capital Group co-CEO Mike Wilson, Investment Partners Fund president James Maxwell and Monica Singhal from Richcraft Homes as well as two-time Olympic skier Ryan Semple.

CLV Group, acknowledged at dinner for having donated more than $2 million to the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa over the years, brought out some of its long-ball hitters with Curt Millar, Dave McGahan and Oz Drewniak.

Cottage life didn’t stop some guests from participating. Russ Jones, former CFO of Shopify, was called up from Calabogie to carry his playing partner Steve Gallant, who seemed to struggle with his short game this year.

The highlight of the evening was a fireside chat with Tolu Lawal, who grew up benefiting from the club’s free after-school and weekend programs for

local children and youth. He now works with the non-profit organization and is also enrolled in biomedical engineering at Carleton University. He captivated the entire crowd with his spontaneous and heartwarming replies to questions posed by moderator and board member Meredithe Rechan about his time at the Boys and Girls Club and how important it was in shaping his future.

A number of special guests joined the dinner, including Canadian skiing legend Erik Guay, French Ambassador Kareen Rispal and Solace founder and director Craig Betts. He was sporting his Dolce & Gabbana track suit, which was at risk of being auctioned off for charity.

The auction, led by Ottawa auctioneer Ryan Watson, was lively. There were some spectacular items sold off that night in support of the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa, including a Fogo Island getaway for $6,000. Rispal donated a dinner for 20 people to be held at her official residence in Ottawa. It sold for $14,000 to the Mrak siblings.

SPONSORED CONTENT

WHAT COULD OREB HAVE DONE FOR YOU LATELY? Professional development core to Ottawa Real Estate Board’s mandate to help Members succeed

A

Annual trade show The 2018 edition featured more than 85 vendors, exhibiting products of interest to commercial and residential OREB members, and drew almost 600 attendees. This year’s trade show takes place in October and is exclusively for OREB members.

Annual golf tournament OREB’s annual tourney is a networking event that supports the REALTORS Care® Foundation. OREB members raised a total of $92,180 last year through their various charitable activities. These funds provided grants to 25 local shelter-related charities.

• Commercial numbers: Realtors learned how to properly calculate the price of commercial property – including cap rates, cash-flow worksheet analysis and equity return – with a financial calculator.

• Tenant rep 101: Topics covered included the types of transactions, from the basics of tenant prospecting and how to get hired, to how commissions work, finding available properties, basic negotiating strategies and (most importantly) how to make sure you get paid.

• Commissionectomy: The nitty gritty of how to negotiate your commissions as part of your listing presentation, reasons commissions get attacked, when and why clients attack your fee, protecting your fees from a client attack and strategies to repel a fee attack.

Other learning opportunities include legal issues in a real estate transaction, certified negotiation expert designation, LRT commercial update, new mortgage rules, cannabis update, Condo Act updates, MPAC 101, optimizing matrix settings, GeoWarehouse training, standard forms, FINTRAC legal … and much more. OREB even holds selfdefence training for members four to six times per year.

And on the continuing education front: • Multi-Res – The ins and outs: Realtors received expert advice about commercial classifications, zoning, retro-fit history and compliance, the Residential Tenancies Act, the eviction process, implications of a lease, and buyer and seller goals.

HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES: The 6th Annual Commercial Summit (2018) This full-day event, hosted by the Commercial Services Network, featured a keynote address from Derek Lobo, CEO and founder of SVN Rock Advisors. SVN is the master franchise for the

Did any of this catch your interest?

To learn more about membership with OREB, to keep up to date on learning and networking opportunities open to non-member registrants, and for the latest updates on our 7th Annual Commercial Summit coming early in 2020, please visit www.oreb.ca/contact

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OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

SEPTEMBER 2019

s plans unfold for its 7th Annual Commercial Summit coming early next year, take a moment to consider what membership with the Ottawa Real Estate Board (OREB) can do for you as a registered commercial real estate practitioner.

OREB is one of the two largest real estate boards in Ontario outside of the Greater Toronto Area, with thousands of registered brokers and salespeople, all of whom share the distinction of being able to use the trademark REALTOR®.

It is distinguished company to keep, and OREB makes it an enriching experience with all kinds of educational and networking opportunities of interest to commercial and residential members alike.

OREB’s mission is to help members succeed and one of the ways in which it does that is through its education program. For example, OREB held 57 learning opportunities for its members in 2018.

These included a commercial summit, brokerage leadership information sessions, new member orientations, technology training sessions, courses, designation programs, workshops, and lunch and learns.

largest privately held commercial brokerage in the world and Lobo shared great insights with attendees about building a presence in the marketplace.

Next came a panel discussion from Fotenn Consultants, RoyNat Capital and Argue Construction about build-to-suit projects, and the steps to follow to get from land sale to finished product.

Attendees also heard a presentation from Pinchin Ltd. about how to survive the hurdles of environmental assessments, while lawyers from Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall helped attendees understand the key legal issues found in an 80-page commercial lease.

CONNECTING TECH IN OTTAWA

“Depression made me believe that the strong, confident, can-do-anything person I thought I was was simply a farce.” – Erin Blaskie with their ability to work.

I was the one in two when I owned my company and to be frank, it almost killed me.

A CRUSHING WEIGHT

SEPTEMBER 2019

L-SPARK’s Erin Blaskie says we’re failing entrepreneurs who need mental health support.

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Entrepreneurship nearly killed me. Why it’s time for us to do something about founder burnout

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arlier this summer, the Canadian Mental Health Association produced a report called Going It Alone: The Mental Health and WellBeing of Canada’s Entrepreneurs and the statistics within the report were

alarming but not that surprising based on my personal experience with being a founder.

The study outlines a number of statistics that help illustrate the mental burden on entrepreneurs. Nearly half

of the entrepreneurs interviewed in the study experienced low mood or felt mentally tired at least once a week, while roughly three in five felt depressed at least once a week. Nearly one in two felt that mental health issues interfered

In February of 2015, nearly 10 years after starting my company, I woke up one morning to a crushing weight on my chest. My back and shoulders were on fire – it felt like my skin was going to peel away from itself – and I could barely get out of bed. A series of negative business-related events, combined with a divorce, had floored me and the 10-plus hour days, the lack of self-care and the cognitive dissonance around the state of my mental health had caught up to me.

In short, I was burnt out beyond belief.

The days that followed were messy and blurry but I remember trying to pretend like everything was fine and maintain my strong, heroine-like persona. That didn’t last long, however.

One night, after having dinner with my family, I drove myself to a walk-in clinic and told the receptionist that I needed to see a doctor immediately or I might not make it through the night.

It was one of the scariest moments in my entire life – I teetered gingerly on the edge of life and death and I thought there was only one way out of my burnout and stress.

As I began to seek out various treatment options to get through this period of burnout and depression, I came to the stark realization that there are very few support frameworks in place for entrepreneurs who are suffering from mental health issues.

There is no paid leave, no paid sick days and most clients won’t wait around for you to get your life together – they have businesses to run, too.

When my doctor would suggest taking time off, I’d get more stressed out

thinking about the bills I needed to pay as a newly single mother. When they suggested I do therapy, I had no idea where I’d get the time to do that while I was also trying to keep my clients happy and ensure my life kept chugging forward. The suggested solutions felt misaligned to what I needed.

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S COMPLEX As an entrepreneur, you wrap a lot of your identity around being a founder.

The company you run, being productive, creating solutions for customers, shipping a product – these are all things that become the fabric of what makes you, you. In my case, depression made me believe that the strong, confident, can-do-anything person I thought I was was simply a farce. I felt like a fraud and carried doubt, fear, frustration, confusion and vulnerability with me daily.

In the CMHA study, it says: “Both popular and academic discussions tend to favour a romantic view of entrepreneurs as heroes, visionaries and pioneers, leaving little room for

discussions around their vulnerability.”

This couldn’t be more true to my own experience.

In my own article, which I shared on Medium.com shortly after opening up to the world about my experiences, I shared this: “We live in a society that values fortitude and optimism and business owners must have both in abundance. We have been taught that the weak do not rise to the top and as a result, we have become extremely wellversed in ‘impression management.’ We stuff our vulnerabilities down under the sheets knowing full well that there is only one place for them – hidden and out of sight.”

LIFTING THE WEIGHT We (founders, mental health organizations, organizations that support founders, etc.) need to find better ways to support entrepreneurs who are in a crisis due to stress, anxiety and overwhelm. We need to find a way to reduce the stigma so that entrepreneurs don’t feel silenced. I’m fortunate that I survived and made it through but that’s not the case for many

and we need to figure out how to ensure that we’re doing better for our founders.

The report suggested a few recommendations, based on the findings, which included: • Developing flexible and relevant mental health support for entrepreneurs • Creating tools to help entrepreneurs achieve better work-life balance • Strengthening research around entrepreneurial mental health • Shifting the popular view of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship • Including mental health in entrepreneurship education Given my own experience with entrepreneurial burnout and depression, I couldn’t agree more with these points – particularly the first point around flexible and relevant support for entrepreneurs. The current framework around mental health support isn’t setup in a way that many self-employed people, especially contractors, consultants or solopreneurs, can engage

with without loss of income or loss of customers.

I don’t have all of the answers as to how we change the support system for entrepreneurs but I am feeling extremely inspired by organizations like CMHA who are researching this topic, producing these reports and starting the conversation. I’m grateful that there’s light being shone on this shadowy side of entrepreneurship and I’m encouraged to continue forward with the work we’re doing around mental health in the accelerator at L-SPARK. As I continue to share my own story and create as many containers for this tough-but-needed conversation in the entrepreneurial circles I find myself in, I’m hoping that you’ll look for ways to do the same because you just never know when a single conversation will save someone’s life.

Erin Blaskie is the director of marketing at Kanata’s L-SPARK accelerator.

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Techopia Live: ‘Sweat’ equity can improve employee retention

BY CRAIG LORD

Check out

TECHOPIA LIVE’s interview with Russell Coltess, CEO of Ottawa-based Fitchek.

craig@obj.ca

W

hile many companies offer perks that incentivize employees to exercise and stay fit, the returns on these programs are notoriously difficult to track. Techopia Live sat down with Ottawa’s Russell Coltess this week to hear about how his new platform is helping HR departments track ROI on these programs.

Coltess, the CEO and founder of L-Spark alumni company Fitchek, told Techopia Live there’s a disconnect between the money large organizations are putting towards employee wellness and the returns on employee retention and company culture. In cases of companies with thousands of employees, where each worker gets a few hundred dollars a year for gym memberships and the like, employee wellness can quickly become a multimillion-dollar spend.

Russell Coltess, founder of Fitchek Photo by Khaled Abdel Jabbar

“HR has no idea what is going on with this budget,” Coltess said. “And no one knows how this is actually contributing to the bottom line of the organization.”

Coltess said he spoke to 150 HR managers and wellness experts over the past two years about how these programs could be improved and better

Help wanted: Escape artists

BY CRAIG LORD craig@obj.ca

SEPTEMBER 2019

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articipants in Escape Manor’s new cybersecurity-focused experience might walk off with more than just the self-satisfaction of cracking complex cryptography.

The Ottawa-based company’s latest partnership with a federal intelligence agency could see the capital’s top codebreakers recruited for a role with the Communications Security Establishment.

Escape Manor unveiled plans for its new room, titled The Recruit, in August.

The escape room experience will see

participants play as CSE freshmen going through orientation when disaster strikes. As per the standard escape room formula, the group will have to rely on quick thinking to solve the puzzles and save the day before it’s too late.

While most of Escape Manor’s rooms attempt to simulate the gravity of dangerous situations or high-pressure heists, there’s a distinct element of realism in The Recruit. CSE’s own technical experts provided input on the puzzles and codes for the room, and the videos and other imagery used in the game were all filmed at CSE’s Ottawa headquarters.

tracked. He created a platform that can track workers’ fitness preferences when they’re on-boarded and encourage employees to form “crews” to exercise in a way that suits the group – from lunchtime walkers to yoga enthusiasts, the platform aims to unite disparate employees around a shared interest.

“We find that there’s a better engagement between employees,” Coltess said. He noted local companies such as BlackBerry are already using the solution in its beta phase.

Encouraging employees to exercise together forms bonds within an organization, Coltess said, which can help keep them around for the long term. While it’s true that HR departments often devise benefits and amenities to attract new talent, he

noted that conversations must now shift towards keeping it.

“People would think that the largest problem an HR department wants to solve is attracting employees. That is a big problem and they are doing that,” Coltess said.

“However, it actually costs a lot more to replace an employee once they leave.

So employee retention is paramount.”

Coltess said that Fitchek, which started out as a marketing platform for fitness studios, has outgrown the name and that he intends to rebrand the company later this year. The name Sweatcrew, he told Techopia Live, has a much closer tie to the firm’s new mission.

“Employees that sweat together, stay together,” he said.

Merging the local company’s flair for drama with CSE’s expertise has made for a unique escape experience, says Steve Wilson, one of the founding partners of Escape Manor.

“They’re very analytical thinkers; we’re very dramatic and over the top.

We had to marry those two mentalities to come up with a game that our clientele would play without CSE, but it had to represent CSE and get people involved in that world of intrigue,” he says.

The idea to collaborate on a cybersecurity and espionage-themed room came up last year when CSE’s marketing team was looking for new strategies to spread the word about the agency’s work in processing foreign signal intelligence and protecting Canadian computer networks. Public

polling recently revealed to CSE that only three per cent of Canadians were familiar with the organization.

As an agency made up primarily of professional codebreakers, CSE already had a lot of escape room fans among its members. Evan Koronewski, a spokesperson for the organization, says the hope is that the escape room crowd would have significant overlap with prospective CSE candidates.

If a group successfully completes The Recruit, they’ll be given a chance at a bonus cryptographic puzzle. If a participant cracks that code, they’ll have the opportunity to voluntarily leave their name and email address with Escape Manor for forwarding to CSE, at which point a recruitment officer might reach out to talk about opportunities with the agency.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Securing the connected building in the IoT Age KRP Properties’ best practices approach turns rivals into allies

The last report on the subject from security firm Symantec found that the number of IoT attacks increased from about 6,000 in 2016 to 50,000 in 2017—a 600 per cent rise in just one year. According to IoT Analytics, the number of IoT-connected devices worldwide rose to 7 billion in 2018 from 5.9 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach 21.5 billion by 2025.

Terry Young is KRP Properties’ vice-president of operations.

“I get all our vendors in the same room and I tell them, we are not here to talk about who gets the next contract” — Terry Young HVAC, lighting, building automation, physical security, access control – every operational system has or is in the process of being upgraded with IoT technologies for more cost-efficient and reliable operation.

Supply chain collaboration is key The industry eco-system to enable all this hasn’t really changed since the pre-IoT era. Original equipment manufacturers deliver the various products and solutions. Integrators configure and implement.

Service providers review and maintain. The facility staff manage and monitor with support from any required IT, data security and legal resources.

What has changed is how these various players, many of whom are competitors, must learn to work together in the same sandbox. To adequately secure a connected building, in which hundreds of touchpoints may be passing data back and forth to the cloud, they must collaborate like never before.

“I get all our vendors in the same room and I tell

them, we are not here to talk about who gets the next contract,” Young said. “But what are the best practices, how do we create a safer and more secure environment for our tenants and what does that look like?”

These questions shape the agenda at the industry conferences which Young attends, for example, June’s IBCon Commercial Real Estate Conference and Expo in Nashville. This event (Young sits on the advisory board) drew attendees from 20 countries to discuss best practices on how best to secure, and operate, a connected building. Knowledge sharing that he applies every day at KRP Properties.

“It’s all about focusing on relationships,” Young said. “Understanding the relationships between sensors, devices, controls and systems and appreciating how different vendors in our supply chain have to cooperate for our tenants’ benefit. The best people in our supply chain understand they need to work together in the same sandbox. Those who don’t are not invited to work in mine.”

SEPTEMBER 2019

The CEO of cybersecurity AI company Darktrace made headlines last year when she told the story of a casino that was hacked through its aquarium thermostat.

That’s right, a fish tank thermostat. This connected device transmitted data to the cloud for remote monitoring of the aquarium’s temperature.

Hackers exploited a vulnerability that gave them a foothold in the casino’s network, allowing them to access a database of high-roller customers.

Internet of Things technologies offer commercial landlords and their tenants elegant new ways to be leaner, greener and more efficient – but also provide new vectors of attack for external hackers and disgruntled employees alike.

Addressing that threat is always top of mind for Terry Young. As KRP Properties’ vice-president of operations, he bears the responsibility for securing 33 buildings spanning 3.1 million square feet of space in Kanata North.

Buildings, it should be noted, that house worldclass technology companies and some of the greatest minds on the planet. Innovation and bleeding edge tech are considered par for the course, even if most people give little thought to what happens when they flick a light switch or adjust their office thermostat.

“We have clients who live and work in buildings where the financial impact of a vulnerable digital system can be quite significant,” he said.

In the absence of a blank cheque and an unlimited budget, Young and his team work as costeffectively as they can to raise the standard of every building in KRP Properties’ portfolio, regardless of its vintage.

“You just need the right attitude and a lot of smart people,” Young said.

IoT cybercriminals find plenty of targets

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SPONSORED CONTENT

How the ‘missing middle’ can create affordable infill housing in Ottawa Architect Toon Dreessen breaks down the barriers to creating four and six-storey developments that integrate into existing communities

W

SEPTEMBER 2019

e have a housing supply problem. One solution lies in the way we design, approve and construct infill homes.

We need more development within our urban core, especially on our traditional main streets. Think of Bank, Wellington West, Rideau, Montreal, Somerset, Gladstone and Stittsville Main Street. We need more people living and working in these areas to create the dense, walkable communities that make public transit viable and to capitalize on existing water, sewer and hydro services.

Most of these streets are zoned to permit six or eightstorey developments. This building scale is often referred to as the missing middle (#missingmiddle) and is faster to market: design to occupancy could be as little as one to two years, instead of five years or more for tall buildings.

This matters when we’re talking about housing affordability. As the Ontario Association of Architects noted in its 2018 Site Plan Study, larger buildings take longer to approve, adding to the cost of units – which is transferred to owners or tenants.

But planning approval – even for projects that are fully compliant with zoning bylaws and other requirements – takes nearly a year and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for geotechnical studies, design studies, legal fees and other reports.

Once approved, landowners shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars in development charges and put up a letter of credit for site services and landscaping.

In short, unless you have very deep pockets, you

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per unit doesn’t work at the scale of the “missing middle.”

However, at 10 or 12 storeys, the project becomes financially viable again.

But since that exceeds the permissible height limits on traditional main streets, it is sure to result in a planning appeal or approval delay. To cover the inevitable legal costs and delays, the developer might submit a plan for a 12 or 15-storey building, leaving room for negotiation, tapering and other efforts to get approval in place.

That further raises the ire of the community and pits the development industry against homeowners and community groups. Years drag by and no one wins.

So, what are the solutions?

PLANNING AND DESIGN

could be out well over a million dollars before a shovel even hits the ground. That’s a huge cash flow problem especially for smaller landowners wanting to capitalize on the equity in their land, and forge a stronger community in the city’s core.

SNOW STUDIES AND WOOD CONSTRUCTION

Here are a couple of other barriers to constructing more “missing middle” housing.

If a new building is going to be taller than a neighbouring building, the developer has to show that the new construction won’t affect the amount of snow that accumulates on the existing building. The only way to do this is to study their roof and, if needed, reinforce it.

Most neighbours might be fine allowing someone to study their roof (especially if they get a new roof out of it) but if the neighbour refuses, the developer has to set the new building back at least five metres from the adjacent property. On an infill site 20 metres wide, this could amount to half the available lot area.

There’s also a huge leap in construction costs and complexities going from low-rise housing to four-to-eight-storey buildings DIGITAL that’s hard to recoup in sales or rental EXCLUSIVE income.

Visit OBJ.CA/ For example, wood (as mass timber) can OBJ-DIGITAL-EDITION only be used in buildings of up to six storeys. to view the digital And above three storeys, residential buildings edition for exclusive require sprinklers. features But go a bit higher, and building codes see little difference between a seven and 70-storey building.

Developers quickly realize that the cost OBJ360 CONTENT STUDIO

The city needs to incentivize planning approvals for these desirable developments. If a site is compliant with zoning, planning and overall use, with only a very minor amount of variance (such as increasing height by less than five per cent with no additional storeys), the planning review should be a straightforward compliance check.

City officials should also guarantee planning approvals within three months to save developers tens of thousands of dollars in delays and carrying costs, as well as allow development charges to be paid prior to occupancy of the building; this frees up needed working capital, incentivizing smaller scale developers.

On the design side, we need to collectively advocate for building code changes to give architects flexibility on the scale and size of buildings to create a #missingmiddle to suit individual conditions: raise the threshold for what is considered a tall building to be more than eight storeys and look at evidence-based analysis for safety systems.

With new classifications, we could consider a balance of sprinkler systems, emergency power options (including batteries), fire separations and construction types to incentivize missing middle construction that keeps people safe and housed in affordable, well-built and sustainable buildings.

We can create the city we aspire to: walkable, moderately dense and sustainable with housing options that keep our communities vibrant. Small policy changes can have a huge impact on the sort of city we aspire to build.

Toon Dreessen is president of Ottawa-based Architects DCA and past-president of the Ontario Association of Architects. For a sample of Architects DCA’s projects, check out the firm’s portfolio at bit. ly/DCA-portfolio. Follow @ArchitectsDCA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

1

year

(as of Aug. 9, 2019)

Net income (loss)

52-week low

Fiscal year end

1

$54.97 billion

US$1,073 million (US$64.6 million)

$488.36 $490.95 $159.25

SHOP TSX Dec. 31

THE LIST 3 2

41 5 2 6 3 7 4 8 5 9 6 10 7 11 8 12 9 13 10 14 11 15 12 16 13

18

$15.01 billion

LARGEST PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES $253.4 million ($670.1 million)

$43.39 $76.68 $32.01

WEED TSX Mar. 31

$81.73 Share price $100.68 $60.01 (as of Aug. 9, 2019) / 52-week high / 52-week low $15.15 $488.36 $15.39 $490.95 $10.71 $159.25

KXS TSX 31 / StockDec. Symbol Exchange/ Fiscal year end IIP.UN SHOP TSX TSX31 Dec. Dec. 31

Licensed producer of medical and recreational marijuana

(LOCALLY HEADQUARTERED COMPANIES, RANKED BY MARKET CAPITALIZATION. SOURCE: TMX GROUP AND REGULATORY FILINGS) US$150.7 million US$14.4 million

Provides software assistance to clients in Canada. Its products find use in consequence evaluation and alerting, responsibility-based collaboration, high speed analytics, and scenario simulation.

3 Rank last year

$2.14 billion Market capitalization (as of Aug. 9, 2019)

5 1

$1.83 billion $54.97 billion

$127.3 million US$1,073 million $168.3 million (US$64.6 million)

6 2

$1.58 billion $15.01 billion

$4.9 million $253.4million) million ($23.4 ($670.1 million)

$6.14 $43.39 $11.29 $76.68 $4.11 $32.01

HEXO WEED TSX TSX31 July Mar. 31

A consumer packaged goods cannabis company that creates and distributes products to serve the Canadian cannabis market.

Licensed producer of medical and recreational marijuana

7 3

$909.72 million $2.14 billion

$42.5 million US$150.7 million $49.4 million US$14.4 million

$19.98 $81.73 $20.72 $100.68 $16.01 $60.01

MI.UN KXS TSX TSX31 Dec. Dec. 31

Owns and operates a portfolio of income-producing multi-residential Provides software assistance to clients in Canada. Its products find use in rental properties in Canadian urban markets. consequence evaluation and alerting, responsibility-based collaboration, high speed analytics, and scenario simulation.

9 5

$269.02 million $1.83 billion

$305 million $16.1 million $127.3 million $168.3 million

$34.00 $34.95 $15.15 $25.76 $15.39 $10.71

CGY TSX IIP.UN Sep. TSX30 Dec. 31

Provides business and technology services to industry, government and An open-ended real estate investment trust. The company along with its major organizations in Canada. subsidiaries is engaged in increasing value and creating a growing distribution through acquisition and ownership of multi-residential properties.

11 6

$80.94 million $1.58 billion

$751,000 ($19 $4.9million) million ($23.4 million)

$1.10 $3.00 $6.14 $0.92 $11.29 $4.11

ERKA CNX HEXO June TSX30 July 31

A drug manufacturer engaged in developing cannabis based health and wellness products.

Thegoods firm also provides hemp based products.

A consumer packaged cannabis company that creates and distributes products to serve the Canadian cannabis market.

13 7

$83.01 million $909.72 million

$112,320 ($7.9 million) $42.5 million $49.4 million

$0.39 $1.42 $19.98 $0.23 $20.72 $16.01

TBP TSX-V MI.UN Nov. TSX30 Dec. 31

Biopharmaceutical firm in cannabinoid-based drug discovery and development with a clinical program aimed at bringing novel drugs and Owns and operates a portfolio ofhealthcare income-producing multi-residential treatments to patients and their providers. rental properties in Canadian urban markets.

N/A 9

$74.93 million $269.02 million

$10.4 million ($5.4 $305 million) million $16.1 million

$0.39 $1.67 $34.00 $0.18 $34.95 $25.76

MTLO TSX-V CGY March TSX 31 Sep. 30

Software company offering solutions that deliver real-time services on cloud andbusiness enterprise Provides andnetworks. technology services to industry, government and major organizations in Canada.

17 11

$62.54 million $80.94 million

$12.1 million ($2.5 million) $751,000 ($19 million)

$0.53 $0.56 $1.10 $0.30 $3.00 $0.92

PFM TSX-V ERKA Dec. CNX31 June 30

Provides mobile computer software solutions; researches, develops, and markets mobile business solutions A drug manufacturer engaged in developing cannabis based health and wellness products. The firm also provides hemp based products.

16 13

$64.26 million $83.01 million

$13.5 million $2.3 million $112,320 ($7.9 million)

$1.70 $1.96 $0.39 $0.99 $1.42 $0.23

CMI TSX-V TBP Nov. 30 TSX-V Nov. 30

Development of satellite-based technology allowing the delivery of highBiopharmaceutical firm in cannabinoid-based drug discovery and speed Internet services. development with a clinical program aimed at bringing novel drugs and treatments to patients and their healthcare providers.

N/A

$34.73 million

N/A

$74.93 million

$0.225 $0.83 $0.39 $0.15 $1.67

SAFE:CC CSE MTLO Dec. 31 TSX-V

20

$20.25 million

17

$62.54 million

18

$19.26 million

16

$64.26 million

27 N/A

$16.53 million $34.73 million

15

$15.7 million

20

$20.25 million

19

$15.28 million

18

$19.26 million

25

$10.27 million

27

$16.53 million

22 15

$9.71 million $15.7 million

Edgewater *1 Shopify is also traded on theWireless NYSE underSystems SHOP *2 3|Sixty is also traded on the OTCQB under SAYFF 200-50 Hines Rd. Ottawa, ON K2K 2M5 19 $15.28 million 613-271-3710 / 613-271-1152 edgewaterwireless.com Ackroo

Cloud-based, multi-channel commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses. The platform provides merchants with a single view of their business and customers across all of their sales channels

Full-year revenues / Net income (loss)

$5.4 million ($4.7 $10.4 million) million ($5.4 million)

Description An open-ended real estate investment trust. The company along with its Cloud-based, commercevalue platform designeda for small distriand subsidiaries ismulti-channel engaged in increasing and creating growing medium-sized provides merchants with a single bution throughbusinesses. acquisitionThe andplatform ownership of multi-residential properties. view of their business and customers across all of their sales channels

Security service provider to the cannabis sector.

Software company offering solutions that deliver real-time services on cloud and enterprise networks.

$0.18

March 31

$1.1 million ($4.8 million) $12.1 million ($2.5 million)

$0.58 $0.99 $0.53 $0.33 $0.56 $0.30

VIV TSX-V PFM Oct. 31 TSX-V Dec. 31

Develops and commercializes products to replace antibiotics in livestock feeds to optimize the health and growth of animals by supporting their own health defences.

Provides mobile computer software solutions; researches, develops, and markets mobile business solutions

US$3.4 million (US$8.5 million) $13.5 million $2.3 million

$0.03 $0.06 $1.70 $0.015 $1.96 $0.99

ENA TSX-V CMI June 30 TSX-V Nov. 30

Designs, manufactures and sells optical components and subsystems for access, metro and long-haul markets.

Development of satellite-based technology allowing the delivery of highspeed Internet services.

$0 ($1.3 $5.4 million) million ($4.7 million)

$0.075 $0.12 $0.225 $0.02 $0.83 $0.15

NRN TSX-V SAFE:CC Dec. CSE31 Dec. 31

Exploration and evaluation stage company engaged in identification, acquisition, and exploration of mineral properties in Ontario and Quebec.

Its projects include Idefix,to Huckleberry, SĂŠquoi and Tempest.

Security service provider the cannabis sector.

US$14,000 (US$4.9 million) $1.1 million ($4.8 million)

$0.055 $0.275 $0.58 $0.04 $0.99 $0.33

LTV TSX-V VIV31 Dec. TSX-V Oct. 31

A cloud solution software provider that offers blockchain-enabled software-defined object storage solution and governance, risk manageDevelops commercializes to replace antibiotics in livestock ment and and compliance solutionsproducts for enterprise users. feeds to optimize the health and growth of animals by supporting their own health defences.

$72,607 ($3.9 million) US$3.4 million (US$8.5 million)

$0.09 $0.17 $0.03 $0.075 $0.06 $0.015

YFI TSX ENA April 30 TSX-V June 30

Develops and commercializes edge technologies and intellectual property for the communications market.

Designs, manufactures and sells optical components and subsystems for access, metro and long-haul markets.

$4.4 million ($1.1 million) $0 ($1.3 million)

$0.135 $0.165 $0.075 $0.085 $0.12 $0.02

AKR TSX-V NRN31 Dec. TSX-V Dec. 31

Develops and sells an online loyalty and rewards platform that enables businesses to design and execute customer transaction, engagement and Exploration and evaluation stage company engaged in identification, retention strategies. acquisition, and exploration of mineral properties in Ontario and Quebec.

Its projects include Idefix, Huckleberry, SĂŠquoi and Tempest.

$17.4 million US$14,000 $619,479 (US$4.9 million)

$0.06 $0.055 $0.09 $0.275 $0.06 $0.04

TMG LTV TSX-V TSX-V May 31 Dec. 31

Development, engineering and supply pollution control, heat recovery A cloud solution software provider thatofoffers blockchain-enabled systems, and condensate return solution solutions.and governance, risk managesoftware-defined object storage ment and compliance solutions for enterprise users.

$72,607 ($3.9 million)

$0.09 $0.17 $0.075

YFI TSX April 30

Develops and commercializes edge technologies and intellectual property for the communications market.

43 OBJ.CA

17 14 18 15 19 16 20 17

2

Description

SEPTEMBER 2019

Phone/Fax/Web Shopify*1 150 Elgin St., 8th floor Ottawa, ON K2P 1L4 888-746-7439 shopify.ca Canopy Growth 1 Hershey Dr. Smiths Falls, ON K7A 0A8 855-558-9333 / 888-977-2595 canopygrowth.com Kinaxis 700 Silver Seven Rd. Ottawa, ON K2V 1C3 613-592-5780 / 613-592-0584 kinaxis.com Company/Address/ Phone/Fax/Web InterRent REIT Shopify*1Bank St. 207-485 150 ElginON St.,K2P 8th 1Z2 floor Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K2P 1L4 613-569-5699 / 888-696-5698 888-746-7439 interrentreit.com shopify.ca HEXO Canopy 120 Rive Growth Rd. 1Gatineau, Hershey QC Dr. J8M 1V2 Smiths Falls, ON K7A 0A8 844-406-1852 855-558-9333 / 888-977-2595 hexo.com canopygrowth.com Minto Apartment REIT Kinaxis 200-180 Kent St. 700 Silver Rd. Ottawa, ONSeven K1P 0B6 Ottawa, ON K2V 1C3 613-230-7051 613-592-5780 / 613-592-0584 mintoapartments.com kinaxis.com Calian Group Ltd. InterRent REIT Dr. 101-340 Legget 207-485 BankK2K St. 1Y6 Ottawa, ON 613-599-8600 Ottawa, ON K2P/ 613-599-8650 1Z2 calian.com 613-569-5699 / 888-696-5698 interrentreit.com Eureka93 179 Promenade du Portage, HEXO 3rd 120 floor Rive Rd. Gatineau, QC J8X J8M 2K5 1V2 livewellcorp.com 844-406-1852 Tetra BioPharma hexo.com 200-2742 St. Joseph Blvd.

Minto Apartment REIT Orleans, 200-180 ON KentK1C St. 1G5 613-421-8402 / 613-421-8406 Ottawa, ON K1P 0B6 tetrabiopharma.com 613-230-7051 mintoapartments.com Martello 110-390 March Ltd. Rd. Calian Group Kanata, K2KDr. 0G7 101-340 ON Legget 613-271-5989 Ottawa, ON K2K 1Y6 martellotech.com 613-599-8600 / 613-599-8650 calian.com ProntoForms 920-515 Legget Dr. Eureka93 Ottawa, ON K2Kdu 3B8 179 Promenade Portage, 613-599-8288 3rd floor prontoforms.com Gatineau, QC J8X 2K5 livewellcorp.com C-COM Satellite Systems 2574 Rd. TetraSheffield BioPharma Ottawa, ON 3V7 Blvd.

200-2742 St.K1B Joseph 613-745-4110 613-745-1172 Orleans, ON /K1C 1G5 c-comsat.com 613-421-8402 / 613-421-8406 tetrabiopharma.com 3|Sixty*2 12-83 Little Bridge St. Martello Almonte, ON K0A 110-390 March Rd. 1A0 866-360-3360 Kanata, ON K2K 0G7 3sixtysecure.com 613-271-5989 Avivagen martellotech.com 100 Sussex Dr. ProntoForms Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6 920-515 Legget Dr. 613-949-8164 / 613-993-0796 Ottawa, ON K2K 3B8 avivagen.com 613-599-8288 Enablence Technologies prontoforms.com 119-390 March Rd. C-COM Systems Kanata, Satellite ON K2K 0G7 2574 Sheffield /Rd. 613-656-2850 613-656-2855 Ottawa, ON K1B 3V7 enablence.com 613-745-4110 / 613-745-1172 Northern Shield Resources c-comsat.com 440-55 Metcalfe St. 3|Sixty*2 Ottawa, ON K1P 6L5 12-83 Little Bridge St. 613-232-0459 / 613-232-0760 Almonte, ON K0A 1A0 northern-shield.com 866-360-3360 Leonovus 3sixtysecure.com 1400-340 Avivagen Albert St. Ottawa, ON Dr. K1R 0A5 100 Sussex leonovus.com Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6 613-949-8164 / 613-993-0796 Edgewater Wireless Systems avivagen.com 200-50 Hines Rd. Ottawa, ON Technologies K2K 2M5 Enablence 613-271-3710 / 613-271-1152 119-390 March Rd. edgewaterwireless.com Kanata, ON K2K 0G7 613-656-2850 / 613-656-2855 Ackroo enablence.com 62 Steacie Dr. Northern Resources Ottawa, ONShield K2K 2A9 440-55 Metcalfe St. 613-599-2396 / 613-280-1551 Ottawa, ON K1P 6L5 ackroo.com 613-232-0459 / 613-232-0760 northern-shield.com Thermal Energy International 36 Bentley Ave. Leonovus Ottawa, ONAlbert K2E 6T8 1400-340 St. 613-723-6776 / 613-723-7286 Ottawa, ON K1R 0A5 thermalenergy.com leonovus.com

FOR THE RECORD

SEPTEMBER 2019

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

OBJ.CA

44

As Invest Ottawa’s new vicepresident of global expansion, Jens-Michael Schaal is on a mission to sell companies from around the world on the merits of doing business in the capital.

One look at his impressive CV suggests he’s tailor-made for the role. And if the story of how Schaal himself ended up calling Ottawa home doesn’t sway prospective entrepreneurs and investors to establish a presence here, it’s doubtful anything will.

The native of Germany spent the early part of his career in the banking industry, working his way up to a position as a credit risk manager at ING in the country’s financial capital of Frankfurt. The thought of moving to Canada never entered his mind.

Then, 15 years ago, he met a French-Canadian woman while both were on English-as-a-secondlanguage training in, of all places, South Africa. The couple fell in love, and Schaal soon found himself moving across the pond.

“Usually a guy leaves his country only for two reasons: it’s either money or it’s love,” he says with a chuckle. “In my case, it wasn’t the money.”

Schaal, who also speaks French, settled with his now-wife Danielle in Montreal, where he earned a degree in public policy and history at Concordia University. He followed that up with a master’s degree in public administration at Queen’s before embarking on a varied career that included stints at NGOs in Ottawa and London.

“I would recommend everybody to consider another degree at a later stage in life because it was really an

Jens-Michael Schaal/Invest Ottawa eye-opener for me,” the 45-year-old says.

“It opened up an entirely new career path.”

A job with Colleges and Universities Canada eventually landed him in New Delhi, where he helped launch a program to prepare skilled workers to emigrate to Canada. Schaal then shifted to a role with the government of Ontario’s Trade and Investment Office in the Indian capital, acting as a liaison for Canadian firms looking to invest in India while helping companies there find economic opportunities in Canada.

In early 2017, he transferred to New

York City to take on a similar role. Schaal and his family were loving life in the Big Apple and had no intention of pulling up stakes ​– until he spotted a job opening at Invest Ottawa while perusing LinkedIn last fall.

“I was really happy with what I was doing,” he says. “I would have not (left New York) for any other opportunity, for any other city in Ontario.”

But the lure of the IO post was too much to resist. Schaal was already familiar with the organization through his work with the Ontario trade office and liked

what he saw. And he also had a very personal connection to Ottawa, where his first and only child, Klara, was born in 2012.

“If you were to ask me where home in Canada is, it’s clearly Ottawa,” he says. “It’s really like a homecoming for us. And on top of that, there’s an awful lot of cool stuff going on in this city.”

Schaal, who officially took the reins as IO’s global ambassador on Aug. 12, says he plans to spend his first few months on the job getting the lay of the land. That will involve many hours of meetings with entrepreneurs and executives in the private sector as well as economic development officials from all three levels of government.

He believes Ottawa has a great story to tell, and he’s eager to get it out there. Schaal says IO-sponsored initiatives such as the new L5 autonomous vehicle test track in the city’s south end – the only facility of its kind in Canada – are capturing the imagination of foreign tech leaders, and it’s time for the city to capitalize on more of those opportunities.

“We have so much to offer,” Schaal says. “What we need to do is we need to raise the awareness level of all the great things happening here internationally so that companies come here with an open mind and are excited about our ecosystem.”

It’s a challenge he’s embracing with open arms.

“It’s an amazing opportunity for me to actually work on growing Ottawa’s ecosystem and adding companies and people to it and actually see the impact as the city transforms,” Schaal says. “This is what really motivates me a lot.”

– David Sali

CONTRACTS The following contains information about recent contracts, standing offers and supply arrangements awarded to local firms.

PwC Canada 710-99 Bank St. Human resource services Buyer: RCMP $5,393,660 DALIAN Enterprises and Coradix Technology Consulting, in joint venture 500-222 Somerset St. W. Informatics professional services Buyer: Canada Border Services Agency $4,510,484 Stantec, Merrick & Company, and DIALOG, in joint venture 400-1331 Clyde Ave. Architect/engineer services Buyer: PWGSC $3,737,428 CIMA Canada & Dillon Consulting, in joint venture 110-240 Catherine St. Architectural & engineering services Buyer: PWGSC $3,696,745

Deloitte 1600-100 Queen St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Treasury Board of Canada $3,294,780

CACHE Consulting 1502-275 Slater St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Canada Border Services Agency $2,048,930

TEKsystems 1000-123 Slater St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Treasury Board of Canada $3,228,653

Adobe Systems Canada 343 Preston St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Employment and Social Development Canada $1,999,415

TEKsystems 1000-123 Slater St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Canada Border Services Agency $2,504,248

TEKsystems 1000-123 Slater St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Transport Canada $1,984,088

TEKsystems 1000-123 Slater St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Canada Border Services Agency $2,504,248 CACHE Consulting 1502-275 Slater St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Canada Border Services Agency $2,048,930

Coradix Technology Consulting 500-222 Somerset St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Transport Canada $1,954,270 Motion Industries Canada 1656 Woodward Dr. Fire fighting equipment Buyer: DND $1,644,266

Thales Canada 1 Chrysalis Way Converters, electrical Buyer: DND $1,095,352

Advanced Business Interiors 2355 St. Laurent Blvd.

Office furniture Buyer: PWGSC $651,312

Brook Restoration 1520 Lagan Way. Masonry work Buyer: PWGSC $489,735

Thales Canada 1 Chrysalis Way Converters, electrical Buyer: DND $1,095,352

MindBridge Ai 540-1730 St. Laurent Blvd.

Military (R&D) Buyer: Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development $572,920

Brook Restoration 1520 Lagan Way Masonry work Buyer: PWGSC $489,735

Systemscope 61A York St. Informatics professional services Buyer: Industry Canada $1,000,000

Conoscenti Technologies 1595 Zachary St. Human resource services Buyer: DND $561,989

Neptec Technologies 202-302 Legget Dr. Military target ranges Buyer: Industry Canada $456,435

Get your OBJ at Hillary’s Cleaners OBJ’s monthly newsmagazine can be conveniently picked up at select Hillary’s locations, including World Exchange Plaza, Constitution Square, Place Bell, Minto Place and 1235 Bank St. in Old Ottawa South.

Visit www.Hillarys.ca for complete list of locations

T EAION R G AT C LO

Located at 250

CITY CENTRE

(adjacent to new LRT station at Bayview)

CONTACT

space@obj.ca

45 OBJ.CA

m Furnished. Room for two people. m Phones and wifi. m Access to boardroom, kitchen. m All included at $1100 per month. m 12-month minimum term.

SEPTTEMBER 2019

SINGLE OFFICE FOR SUBLET

LAST WORD

Moving toward a more livable city

In the last of a three-part series, OBJ columnist Bruce Firestone looks at ways the City of Ottawa can redesign itself to prepare for the economy of the future BRUCE FIRESTONE

bruce.firestone@ century21.ca

If you were to design your ideal city from scratch, what would it look like?

Would it be filled with busy arteries like Merivale Road, lined by big-box stores?

Or would it showcase more walkable neighbourhoods with a wide range of businesses, markets and public spaces like the ByWard market?

MULTIPLE BOTTOM LINES

SEPTEMBER 2019

City planners are heading more in the second direction, a smart move in my view. Many OBJ readers are aware of the drive to meet a triple bottom line ​ – an accounting reference that means in addition to meeting minimum financial goals, every new development project should also take into account social and ecological goals.

But I would suggest that developers might consider targeting more than just those three bottom lines. They could also:

OBJ.CA

46

• • • •

strive to produce close to zero waste be nearly self-sufficient in food production aim for net-zero energy use/ production push to become self-sufficient in jobs.

None of the above goals are new. In

fact, Andy Haydon, the former chair of the Regional Municipality of OttawaCarleton, decades ago set a long-term target of 0.3 jobs for each resident of Kanata, Barrhaven and Orleans. Had it been achieved, that ratio would have reduced the number of residents who needed to travel downtown to work, leading to less traffic congestion on Ottawa major roads.

Only Kanata has achieved that goal. And what does a place that mixes commercial and retail spaces with residential areas look like?

Well, if Kanata is a guide, it looks a lot like a conventional suburb, little changed since the 1970s or even the 1950s ​– a thousand homes over here, a tech park over there and big-box stores somewhere else.

Is that really the best we can do?

Ottawa’s next official plan, due out in 2021, will attempt to create a platform for creative people to try something different. Why might that appeal to future residents?

Well, in my view, we are heading towards a gig economy, whether we like it or not. So whether you are a millennial, middle-aged or a senior, you’ll want to live in a neighbourhood that offers plenty of opportunities to add to your income with your own business or allows you to make extra money via a basement apartment, coach house, micro-store in your garage or backyard workshop.

MAGIC WAND When I was part of the group trying

to bring back the Senators in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I told several local mayors: “You have a magic wand; you can use it to create the zoning we need to build a stadium. Help us!”

I still believe in that magic wand. The city approved developer Broccolini’s site plan for Amazon’s one-million-square-foot distribution centre on Boundary Road –​ a process that normally takes more than a year ​ – in just three months. If the wheels of bureaucracy at City Hall can turn that quickly for Amazon, why not for everyone else?

OTHER CONCEPTS Here are just a few other concepts the city might want to explore as part of its ongoing effort to redraw the official plan, including how to: • •

• •

•

•

•

nurture more entrepreneurs and startups develop coaching, mentoring and volunteer programs for entrepreneurs find new sources of startup funding build separate high schools devoted to technological arts, trades and budding entrepreneurs create more internship and apprenticeship programs for high schoolers and college and university students integrate Ottawa and Gatineau more closely, especially using light rail links make Ottawa-Gatineau a more vibrant festival, foodie and overall tourism region

CONCLUSION There will be numerous opportunities for Ottawans to add to this list or comment on any individual policy direction as the official plan process moves along. Please reach out to me via email if you’d like to make your views heard or if you’d like to attend one of our three upcoming live sessions with panel members who will take questions and hear your opinions.

Bruce M. Firestone is a co-founder of the Ottawa Senators, a broker with Century 21 Explorer Realty and a business coach.

Great River Media, 250 City Centre Ave., Suite 500, Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 6K7 obj.ca TELEPHONE Phone: 613-238-1818 Sales Fax: 613-248-4564 News Fax: No faxes, email editor@obj.ca PUBLISHER Michael Curran, 238-1818 ext. 228 publisher@obj.ca CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Terry Tyo, 238-1818 ext. 268 terry@greatriver.ca EDITOR, PRINT CONTENT David Sali, 238-1818 ext. 269 david@greatriver.ca WEB EDITOR Craig Lord, 238-1818 ext. 230 craig@obj.ca HEAD OF CONTENT Peter Kovessy, 238-1818 ext. 251 pkovessy@obj.ca CONTENT CREATOR & CAMPAIGN MANAGER 238-1818 ext. 251 pkovessy@obj.ca NEWS RELEASES Please e-mail to editor@obj.ca.

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Letters can be e-mailed to editor@obj.ca.

Ottawa Business Journal is published by

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Mark Sutcliffe

PRESIDENT Michael Curran

All content of Ottawa Business Journal is copyright 2019.

Great River Media Inc. and may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher. Publisher’s Liability for error: The Publisher shall not be liable for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value of an advertisement. The publisher’s liability for other errors or omissions in connection with any advertisement is strictly limited to publication of the advertisement in any subsequent issue or the refund of monies paid for the advertisement.

A guaranteed minimum of 10,000 copies are printed and distributed.

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