THE URBAN ISSUE
FEB/MAR 2022
BUILDING BACK THE
WORKFORCE SOLUTIONS ARE WIDE-RANGING AND SECTOR SPECIFIC
Chief Ken Watts, Tseshaht First Nation
HOB FINE FOODS A RESPONSE TO CHANGING CUSTOMER NEEDS
EFFICIENCY RULES HOW ONE LEADING CANADIAN RETAILER STAYS ON TOP
USER EXPERIENCE (UX) THINK LIKE YOUR CUSTOMERS AND IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS
Port Alberni’s
INNOVATION ECONOMY
ENTREPRENEURSHIP, TECHNOLOGY, DIVERSITY AND LIFESTYLE
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FOLLOW US
FEB/MAR 2022
CONTENTS FEATURES
14 Empowered by the Community
A new culinary space for Charlotte and Castro Boateng, HOB Fine Foods, is a response to a demand for services that saw the House of Boateng owners outgrow their first location. BY CARLA SORRELL
18
18 Efficiency Rules
The future of retail is all about customer productivity. At Canadian Tire Hillside, owner Justin Young is thinking outside the box to create an in-store experience that is efficient, engaging and technologically informed. BY ERIN SKILLEN
24 Port Alberni’s Innovation Economy
Port Alberni is experiencing a boom, thanks to the right leadership, revitalized economic partnerships and an increased interest in the city. BY ANDREW FINDLAY
32 Building Back the Workforce
The shortage of skilled employees on the South Island is a longstanding problem. For employers, solutions include everything from more housing and improved workplace respect to quicker recognition of credentials and more training spots. BY SHANNON MONEO
14
24 DEPARTMENTS 6 FROM THE EDITOR 9 IN THE KNOW What coming in first in the CPL means for business, making it to the music managers hall of fame and Langford’s commitment to low-carbon concrete. 46 POINT OF VIEW
Karen Hira, executive director of Victoria Immigrant Refugee Centre Society on community.
INTEL (BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE) 40 TECHNOLOGY
User Experience Design. BY CEARA CRAWSHAW
42 LEADERSHIP
Lessons From My Child. BY VIVIENNE DAMATAN
42 MARKETING
Podcast Guesting. BY SEPTEMBER SMITH
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Steering the Course
Enriched Thinking™ for your family, business and future. A team-based approach for a total wealth strategy that addresses the entirety of your life. C.P. (Chuck) McNaughton, PFP Senior Wealth Advisor 250.654.3342 charles.mcnaughton@scotiawealth.com
themcnaughtongroup.ca
WHEN I ARRIVED IN CORNWALL, U.K., over the holidays, I was reading a book called The Salt Path. It’s not about business or leadership, but about the systematic failures that lead to homelessness. It’s about a couple who loses everything and decides to walk the South West Coast Path in Cornwall. Over halfway into the 630-mile walk, there is a moment when the author, Raynor Winn, realizes that she is “no longer striving, fighting to change the unchangeable” but embracing “a softer season of acceptance.” It is in that softness and acceptance that I see successful businesses steering their course, navigating the tides and eddies of this wild river. I was fascinated to hear that for Charlotte and Castro Boateng (page 14), the majority of their time as business owners has been operating in this time of flux. Their products, menu and newly-opened HOB Fine Foods wwreflects an ongoing renegotiation with the times and their customers, from whose changing needs rose the Faced with the demand for the second location. At Canadian Tire Hillside, owner Justin Young reality that this is not has put technology and collaboration to good use in a passing phase and pursuit of the most efficient shopping experience for that change may be customers and employees (page 18). With respect to both, he thinks not a moment of anyone’s time should the only certainty, be wasted. many companies For both Young and the Boatengs, the extension of are innovating to their company culture is fuelling growth in potentially increase self-reliance lean times. They are casting their attention beyond just services provided to serving their people, too. With the and strengthen ties, labour shortage an ongoing challenge to businesses and trust, to their (page 32), any insights we can gain from the success of communities. others are valuable lessons. The outset of 2022 has been redolent of the past two years: offices emptying once again; a delayed reopening of schools in B.C.; some post-secondary education shifting online; the reintroduction of governmental restrictions. What has changed though is us, now equipped with more tools and a mindset that can better negotiate expectations. Faced with the reality that this is not a passing phase and that change may be the only certainty, many companies are innovating to increase self-reliance and strengthen ties, and trust, to their communities. No one knows what the future holds. Moving forward with a gentle acceptance might just ignite a bold and fearless approach, capable of elevating the businesses and policies that we want to see shaping our lives, communities and societies. After finishing the Coastal Path, Winn and her husband rebuilt their lives on a student loan and found a story waiting to be told. We all have the capacity for much more than we think possible. Let’s not wait until the ground falls out from beneath us, but blaze our trails now.
®Registered trademark of The Bank of Nova Scotia, used under licence. Scotia Capital Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. For more information visit www.scotiawealthmanagement.com. McNaughton Group is a personal trade name of C.P. (Chuck) McNaughton.
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LOG040-Jul-AD-McNaughton-2x9.indd 1
2016-08-04 12:33 PM
— Carla Sorrell
Our Members Are Economy Builders They come from every sector and every corner of Greater Victoria with their ideas and energy to champion smart economic growth. They are businesses, government and community leaders committed to building resilient prosperity. They know we are stronger when we work together.
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EDITOR Carla Sorrell DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Jeffrey Bosdet PRODUCTION MANAGER Jennifer Kühtz DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER Amanda Wilson LEAD GRAPHIC DESIGNER Caroline Segonnes ASSOCIATE GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Janice Hildybrant, Jo-Ann Loro EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Aldyn Chwelos MARKETING COORDINATOR Claire Villaraza ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Rebecca Juetten ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES D eana Brown, Cynthia Hanischuk, Brenda Knapik CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ceara Crawshaw, Vivienne Damatan, Andrew Findlay, Shannon Moneo, Erin Skillen, September Smith CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Michelle Proctor, Joshua Lawrence PROOFREADER Paula Marchese CONTRIBUTING AGENCIES Getty Images p. 11, 12, 32-36, 44, 45
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[IN THE KNOW]
LAYING A FOOTBALL FOUNDATION Championship win brings international play and heightened fan support to Island stadium.
CANADIAN PREMIERE LEAGUE
Vancouver Island’s professional soccer club, Pacific FC, celebrates becoming the Canadian Premier League champions. The win will bring new opportunities to the club and its players.
BY ALDYN CHWELOS
Vancouver Island’s professional soccer club is right where they hoped to be at the end of their third season. “We built the foundation from day one with the youngest team on the field. And we set out that we wanted to win in year three with the foundation that we started in year one,” says CEO and co-owner Rob Friend. The vision for Pacific FC began in 2018. “When we started from scratch, we didn’t have a desk,” says Friend. “We didn’t have a physio bench. We didn’t have anything.”
One of the early challenges was raising awareness within a community about what a professional sports organization is and does, and then trying to maintain that throughout the pandemic. Despite these obstacles, Pacific FC has become a key part of the Island’s athletic community. “I don’t think there are many people in greater Victoria that don’t know what Pacific FC is,” says Friend. In December, Pacific FC won the Canadian Premier League soccer championship in an upset victory against defending
champions, Hamilton’s Forge FC. This title brings excitement and new growth as well as new challenges to the Langford football club. “People love winners,” says Friend. “We’re seeing immediate effects with a significant increase in season ticket sales; huge increase in partnership sales. We’re seeing huge demand already for this kind of season.” This win means entrance into the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) league. Not only
will this bring more home games to the West Shore stadium but, with huge international competitions, will provide a higher level of soccer. The win presents new opportunities for expansion, such as improving the fan experience and increasing the Langford stadium capacity. However, it also places larger demands on the club and players with increased travel time and higher profile games. “It’s one thing to win a championship,” says Friend. “I think for any champion to defend their championship is really the biggest challenge.” DOUGLAS 9
BEHIND-THE-SCENES SUPERSTARS
Amelia Artists receive national recognition for managing global musical talents. BY GILLIE EASDON
O
n December 8, 2012, Amelia Artists Managers Nick Blasko and Piers Henwood fielded a call from twin artists Tegan and Sara. They were feuding and about to break up. Blasko dropped everything, flew to San Diego to listen, moderate and support. This was before their blockbuster Lego Movie theme song. Without this manager’s empathy and nimble skills, everything would not have been awesome. It’s easy for the work of a manager to go unseen, but the Music Managers Forum Canada Honour Roll Award exists to make sure that, every once and a while, the spotlight shines behind the scenes. Essentially, the industry’s “hall of fame” — the Honour Roll — recognizes the music management community’s contributions to maintaining a thriving Canadian music industry.
In October 2021, Victoria’s Henwood and Blasko (who, together, are the music managing company Amelia Artists) were awarded the 14th annual Honour Roll Award for their excellence in Canadian and international artist management. Their artists’ achievements include more than 1.5-million albums sold in the pre-streaming era, hundreds of millions of track streams, seven Gold certifications, twelve JUNO Award nominations with four wins, a Grammy nomination, an Academy Award nomination, a New York Times bestselling book, and a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for cultural contributions. An excellent manager helps plan albums and tours, navigates fame and relationships, protects artists, manages demand and international business, holds hands, strategizes, markets and ensures artists can “increase
Nick Blasko and Piers Henwood shine from behind the scenes. The pair of music managers, known as Amelia Artists, received the Music Managers Forum Canada Honour Roll Award for their steadfast commitment to the industry.
capacity in running and building their careers,” while keeping an eye on the long game. “If we do our jobs right, we’re invisible for the most part,” says Blasko. Challenges include managing artists, fans, industry expectations and navigating fame. Their experience as recording musicians [Piers was a member of the band Jets Overhead] gives them an intimate understanding of the process. No wonder Tegan and Sara, who they still work with but no longer manage, called them “momagers.” “It can be extremely exhausting, both physically with all of the travel and long hours, and mentally in navigating
people, situations and opinions,” says Blasko. With the pandemic and more people streaming music, Blasko and Henwood have pivoted by creating a music label, Amelia Recordings, “to release music from developing artists, putting all our experience towards helping a new generation of artists get career momentum.” Henwood is also part of Astrocolor, a multi-instrumental Victoria-based band that is taking off in the streaming world. “People assume we are in Vancouver or Toronto. We’ve had to give geography lessons — two managers on an island in the middle of nowhere,” says Henwood, whose success shows that music knows no bounds.
ARTISTS FEATURED
Tegan and Sara
Buck 65
Bedouin Soundclash
This award-winning Canadian indie band and identical twin duo formed in 1998 in Calgary. Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin, both songwriters and multi-instrumentalists have released nine studio albums, multiple EPs and a memoir. They have toured the world extensively with the likes of Neil Young, The Black Keys, Cake, Holly Miranda, Rufus Wainwright and opened for Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.
Buck 65, also known as Rich Terfry, is a Canadian alternative hip-hop artist, author and radio host. His original music was grounded in abstract hip hop, with his more recent music incorporating blues, country, rock, folk and other influences. The recipient of multiple Juno awards, he has also been nominated for a Genie. He has been hosting CBC Radio 2’s weekday Drive show on CBC Music since September 2, 2008.
Bedouin Soundclash’s tight rock, ska and reggae fusion established them as a Canadian music industry favourite. Current band members include Jay Malinowski (lead vocals), Eon Sinclair (bass) and Chuck Treece (drums). They have toured with artists including No Doubt, Ben Harper and Thievery Corporation. Their most recent studio album MASS was recorded in New Orleans with the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
10 DOUGLAS
SIX WAYS CITIES CAN TAKE CLIMATE ACTION, SAYS THE UNITED NATIONS
New Tools
The City of Campbell River continues to invest in its entrepreneurs. Economic development manager Rose Klukas speaks to the City’s ongoing commitment to innovation. Why did you want to expand the region’s efforts to encourage entrepreneurs? The Modern Entrepreneur initiative [designed and launched in 2017] invited innovative subject matter experts to speak to business trends and innovations, offer economic insights and equip entrepreneurs with tools to help drive their businesses. We’ve built the foundation and now are expanding offerings to our local businesses with the innovative addition of virtual programming, allowing the economic development team to engage more businesses from the community. Ultimately, our goal is to help businesses stay and grow, and to attract new businesses. How did you choose these new initiatives? Building on our experience during the pandemic, and recognizing that the first phase of the Modern Entrepreneur focused primarily on existing businesses, phase two will increase programming aimed at investment attraction, using innovative tools. Providing good information about Campbell River through podcasts and other online tools, providing opportunities for people to collaboratively problem solve in hackathons, supporting our local businesses with expert advice through speaker series and other events are all ways we are working to address two big pillars of business development: investment attraction and business retention and expansion. What opportunities has the pandemic provided? [We’ve been able] to connect with our local businesses in new ways — virtual meeting platforms being the obvious but also other virtual public engagement tools. We even created our five-year rolling economic development strategy, getting input from the community, using virtual tools. We were cautiously optimistic and super pleased with the response, and believe we probably had more engagement than in past processes using traditional methods.
CITIES ONLY COVER 2% OF THE WORLD’S SURFACE, YET THEY CONSUME 78% OF THE WORLD’S ENERGY AND PRODUCE MORE THAN 60% OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
1 Build Better (or Retrofit)
2 Smart Water Use
3 Amplify Green Spaces
4 Embrace Green Public Transport
5 Adapt to Electric
6 Encourage Walking and Cycling
PROGRESSIVE POLICY
WILL LANGFORD’S COMMITMENT TO DECARBONIZING CONCRETE BE A VANGUARD FOR CITIES ACROSS CANADA? The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, shone a light on the power that mayors and city leaders hold to influence emission reductions. Canada was one of five countries — along with the U.K., Germany, India and UAE — to commit to decarbonizing steel, concrete and cement through procurement policies. This marks significant progress for a country where there has been “a lot of talk but little action,” says Robert Nivens, CEO of CarbonCure. “Everyone’s blind spot has been the materials,” says Nivens, whose company manufactures a technology that introduces recycled carbon dioxide into fresh concrete to reduce its carbon footprint. The Honolulu Effect In April 2019, Honolulu, Hawaii, became the first municipality to pass a resolution requesting their city administration to consider using carbon dioxide mineralization concrete for all future city infrastructure projects utilizing concrete. The U.S. Department of Transportation was the first to translate this resolution into procurement. In a matter of months, and at little to no cost, Hawaii’s concrete industry has been transformed and emissions have been significantly reduced. Shortly after passing the resolution, Honululu hosted the United States Conference of Mayors, who were all keen to learn more. “That’s when things went viral,” says Nivens. “We passed that same resolution — the Honolulu model — across the whole country. After that happened, the fire just started spreading. That allowed resolutions to turn into more tangible policies and rules that are changing the concrete industry, including the largest economies like New York and California.” The Langford Way The City of Langford’s low carbon concrete policy is a global first for three key reasons, says Nivens. First, it mandates rather than incentivizes the use of post-industrial carbon dioxide mineralization technologies in construction projects over 50 cubic meters. In a fast-growing community like Langford, it ensures that densification doesn’t cost the city its carbon footprint. Second is the fact that the policy applies both to public and private buildings (the recently-opened BoulderHouse climbing gym was the first adopter). Finally, the policy includes a critically important reporting system that records carbon content, water and other environmetal impacts. Nivens says that this kind of reporting has been “critially lacking” up to now. Measuring the impact will allow better management, enable data-driven decisions, show real action and “stamps out all risk of greenwashing,” he adds. “Governments around the world are trying to figure this out,” says Nivens. “This is going to be a really important model that everyone is going to be watching to see whether it can be replicated in other places, because we just simply don’t have time — we have got to learn from each other.” DOUGLAS 11
Disciplined Value Investing That Works COMPOUND ANNUAL RETURNS (Including reinvested dividends, as of December 15, 2021) 1 YEAR
3 YEAR
5 YEAR
10 YEAR
20 YEAR
INCEPTION1
Odlum Brown Model Portfolio
26.8%
17.9%
11.2%
14.8%
11.8%
14.7%
S&P/TSX Total Return Index
21.9%
16.0%
9.7%
9.3%
8.1%
8.8%
*
December 15, 1994. *The Odlum Brown Model Portfolio is an all-equity portfolio that was established by the Odlum Brown Equity Research Department on December 15, 1994 with a hypothetical investment of $250,000. It showcases how we believe individual security recommendations may be used within the context of a client portfolio. The Model also provides a basis with which to measure the quality of our advice and the effectiveness of our disciplined investment strategy. Trades are made using the closing price on the day a change is announced. Performance figures do not include any allowance for fees. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
1
Whether your goal is retiring comfortably, maximizing your legacy, or spending more time on the golf course or boating (like me), planning and executing the right investment strategy to achieve your goals is fundamental, and part of my role in supporting you and your family. If you would like to discuss your investment strategy and whether it aligns with your life goals, please contact me today.
R. H. Mark Mawhinney, CPA, CMA, ICD.D, CIM® Associate Portfolio Manager, Investment Advisor
Tel 250-952-7755
mmawhinney@odlumbrown.com Member-Canadian Investor Protection Fund Odlum Brown Limited
@Odlum_Brown
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OdlumBrown
YOUR 2022 STORY IS WAITING TO BE WRITTEN! Moleskine notebooks, daytimers and journals for office and home. Available now at
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12 DOUGLAS
Built for BEES
ALVÉOLE BRINGS BEEHIVES TO VICTORIA BUSINESSES. Canadian company Alvéole, which provides turnkey beekeeping services to local businesses and schools, recently expanded to Victoria. While beekeeping on the city’s rooftops is nothing new (The Empress, Chateau Victoria and Bear Mountain Resort maintain their own hives), the venture does the heavy lifting — installing and maintaining hives while providing educational workshops for employees and students so they are a part of the process. “The purpose of what we do is connecting people to nature,” says Étienne Lapierre, cofounder of Alvéole, who formed the company with two friends after they spent time working as beekeepers in Manitoba. “Instead of managing 2,000 hives in the countryside, we decided to shift the model into something that was a lot more human and connected to the process. So, we now have 2,000 people in a building that are managing two beehives.” Alvéole works with more than 700 companies globally and their goal is to have 50 sites in Victoria by the end of the year. Current local customers include Sobeys and The Fort Common. Pollinators are a pivotal part of healthy ecosystems, and Lapierre believes businesses have strong potential for supporting urban bee populations. “Why we try to work with businesses is because there’s more impact,” says Lapierre. “It’s a place where a lot of people are engaging together. We think that this is the best place to start a conversation and build awareness.” Alvéole has a rule of no employee maintenance without attending a workshop. Every time a beekeeper returns to a site, there’s an opportunity for employees to engage and learn from the process. Beyond workshops, companies also receive custom branded honey produced from their on-site hives as well as beeswax soaps, candles and lip balms.
COMOSUN COLLEGE
HYBRID LEARNING NOW
At Camosun College, students returned to campus full time in September, 2021.
How have post-secondary institutions adjusted to the changing landscape of digitally enhanced education?
T
he abrupt closure of colleges and universities at the outset of the pandemic came with a steep learning curve for students and lecturers. After two years, online learning is not a panicked kneejerk response but a practiced pedagogy. “The pandemic has brought online learning to the forefront in many respects,” says Veronica Thompson, vice-president academic and provost at Royal Roads University (RRU), where blended learning was first introduced in 1996 and has since evolved to define RRU’s approach to education. “This approach increases access for people who want to earn a credential while they continue to work and live their lives anywhere in the world, and creates a rich learning community from the very beginning.” Striking a balance between the flexibility of blended learning and the benefits of a busy campus is tricky. For some institutions, it is now encouraged, but not required, to attend lectures in person. At Camosun College, two surveys undertaken during the pandemic revealed a majority of students want hybrid options. Remote attendance can’t replicate the social experience but can
better prepare students for work and can also benefit students for whom travelling to classes poses physical challenges. Online learning brings with it complications, challenges and risks. Globally, teachers have reported increased workloads. Video conferencing and using third-party platforms raises questions about copyrighting issues, data and privacy, and may increase legal complications. Camosun saw COVID bring into focus the digital divide, with the library stepping up to offer laptop loans and space to work. “We believe that hybrid or blended approaches provide the flexibility that quality teaching needs,” says Sybil Harrison, director of Learning Services at Camosun. “Choice is at the core of this approach. Choice allows for multiple modes of presentation, engaging learners of all types. Choice supports students’ personal and cultural needs and realities.” At its best, virtual learning and online activities do not replicate face-to-face teaching but engage students through experimental, learner-centered experiences. One example from Camosun shows how delivering a hands-on clinical-practice unit
virtually added a new dimension to the project. Instructors weren’t able to observe every demonstration, so students worked in pairs to film and critique each other — both of which became part of their grade. “These [pedagogical strategies] were so successful that we are looking at possibly continuing this approach for some programs to make them accessible to more students,” says Thompson of RRU’s post-pandemic shift to offering more online options. When delivering learning in the classroom, digital fluency has had a positive knock-on effect. Although digital tools like MyMedia, Moodle, D2L and Padlet were in use before the pandemic, they are now essential. “Our on-campus instruction makes better use of the systems we used during COVID,” says Harrison. “For example, many instructors have embraced the ‘flipped’ concept. Much of the content is delivered online, and on-campus time is used for the learning experiences that are best done in-person — discussion, hands-on learning, presentation.” Hybrid learning has shown students what is possible, with flexibility quickly becoming a distinguishing factor in education.
DOUGLAS READS Are your New Year’s resolutions now a longdistant memory? Understanding the science of motivation can shine a light on the best ways to set and stick to goals. In GET IT DONE: SURPRISING LESSONS FROM THE SCIENCE OF MOTIVATION, behavioural science professor Ayelet Fishbach explores the influences that affect motivation. Different personalities are one factor, and Fishbach, who teaches at The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, recommends identifying yourself as an “approacher,” someone who goes all-out, or an “avoider,” whose progress might be impeded by fear of criticism or fault. Dedicating a chapter to goal juggling, Fishbach highlights
the importance of understanding any conflicts between goals and existing priorities. A common mistake that people make is approaching a resolution as a chore. Fishbach suggests reframing goal-setting to pursue a resolution that is enjoyable and intrinsically motivating. The language used to articulate a goal should be delicate and concrete, abstract enough to inspire and convey action. While we carve out time to celebrate the beginning and end of a project or goal, we rarely mark the middle. “It’s in those ordinary times,” she writes, “that our enthusiasm and motivation are the hardest to maintain.” Keeping aware of all that has been achieved along the way will bolster a goal’s success.
DOUGLAS 13
IN CONVERSATION CHARLOTTE AND CASTRO BOATENG, OWNERS OF HOUSE OF BOATENG AND HOB FINE FOODS
EMPOWERED BY THE COMMUNITY BY CARLA SORRELL | PHOTO BY MICHELLE PROCTOR
A new culinary space for Charlotte and Castro Boateng, HOB Fine Foods, is a response to customer demand for services that saw the House of Boateng owners outgrow their first location.
O
n meeting Charlotte and Castro Boateng, their care and sense of humour come across immediately — living proof of why their community holds the couple, and their expanding business, in such high esteem. “We weren’t really looking to expand,” says Castro Boateng, speaking of the newly opened HOB Fine Foods across the street from their restaurant, House of Boateng. “It came down to COVID.” Lockdowns and restaurant closures saw the pair adapt by expanding their take-and-bake [takeaway] offer. Knowing their customers missed more than just their food, the couple got creative, offering themed three course meals that could be enjoyed at home in PJs.
14 DOUGLAS
“The restaurant has been open for three and a half years — look at all the changes that we have had to make to survive,” says Castro. “We have only really been operating for a year and a half with normal recipes and reports.” When House of Boateng reopened, the kitchen had to return its focus to serving the restaurant, and lost its capacity to do much else. The couple wanted to continue the take-and-bake meals, while anticipating the return of larger-scale events would increase demand for catering. They also wanted to bring back the group dining experiences and add cooking classes into the mix. “Through all this we’ve always kept on juggling,” says Charlotte. “We continued to evolve and change things.”
Charlotte and Castro Boateng at their newly opened HOB Fine Foods, where they sell take-and-bake meals, sauces and other treats; prepare catering orders and host dining experiences and cooking classes.
DOUGLAS 15
You say you didn’t plan for a lot of things, but decisions have snuck up on you. How was this the case for this new space?
Castro: We live in a community where people understand change, and they want to be a part of that change. Even small things, like when the mask [rules] came into effect. People came in with their masks and passports ready. The Island is different — there’s a different feeling of understanding and moving forward.
Castro: We walked in here, we looked around and it needed love. We’ve always looked beyond esthetics. It’s right downtown; it’s very close to our location. That was one of the big factors. A What is unique about your menu and lot of times, you have chefs or companies open approach to making food accessible? up two businesses. But, you can’t be in two Castro: We learnt so much before we opened places at once. I can just walk over there and that restaurant [House of Boateng]. For me, as help, and vice versa. We didn’t have to displace a chef, I started looking at food differently. I’m any of our staff. I think this was a location that not a plant-based person. We went to Portland was almost calling us to take it over. to do a research trip for the restaurant. Halfway Charlotte: It’s not another restaurant; it’s through, Charlotte said to me, “Did you notice an extension of what we do. We can still do most of the restaurants that we’ve been to have the catering, we can still offer the long table been vegetarian based?” And I had no idea. dinners, we can still sell our We started thinking: products and we can still have How do we make our our restaurant. The way we thought foods more accessible?
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of the business in the beginning, we didn't give ourselves enough chances to grow — there's more opportunity [than we realized].
We realized we needed to think backwards. When a chef makes a dish, they Castro: When you work all look at the highlight of day, and then you get home, the dish. For example, you’ve got kids, you’ve got I might want to make a practice and you’ve got steak dish, so I start with lessons — not everybody has a certain cut and age of time to cook at 7:30 at night. steak and the vegetables We realized there is a market are usually last. So, we for that — for people that started building as a are busy but still want to eat vegetarian-based dish, —Castro Boateng healthy. When you look at and then we can add a the demographic of Langford, protein on top. It made it it’s mostly families. These are easy for us to build the menu for the restaurant. people who are like us, busy. Even the ones that We looked at all our recipes and started are not busy, like the elderly, don’t want to cook tweaking them. For example, pesto doesn’t need seven days a week. nuts all the time or dairy. How do we do that?
Why did you start offering takeaway meals?
You seem deeply ingrained in the community here. How important is that relationship? Charlotte: We’ve always gotten the support from people here. And the pandemic was a game changer. People went out of their way to come in. We’d have customers that sat outside in the pouring rain saying, “We just want to see you guys succeed.” Castro: They saw the service that we are trying to provide and they really wanted it. It’s something that they don’t have to travel to Victoria or go to Vancouver for — it’s in their own neighbourhood. So, they’re going to do whatever they can to help us succeed. Charlotte: There’s a lot of people that don’t know what the ingredients are. They might be far out of their comfort zone, like with stinging nettle hollandaise sauce. But we cater to everyone. We have a really wide range of diverse customers. With the Black Lives Matter movement, we got loads of support. We saw a lot of young people looking for businesses to support.
Is accessibility important to you? And how does that translate into food? Castro: We want a place that includes everything. Anybody can come in here [all diets]. We have a wide range of prices. The key to that is us, as staff. It doesn’t matter what the person is spending. If they walk into our home, it’s our job to make sure that they have the best time. If somebody comes to the restaurant, and all they have is a coffee and a doughnut, make it the best coffee and a doughnut because this could be the most important part of their day. I think that’s why the restaurant is successful, because of the understanding of people — and the food is good.
Your team chose to share tips evenly rather than be paid a higher wage. How does that impact culture? Charlotte: They chose the potential to make tips. Half go to the front; half go to the kitchen, and it’s divided on the hours that you work. It doesn’t matter if you’re the dishwasher or the head chef.
Castro: We have a 16-year-old dishwasher making the same tips as the head chef. He [the chef] can turn around and say, “listen, I need you to do this.” You know you’re accountable. When you treat your people well, then you can ask them to do more. They also said that [as a result] teamwork is better. Everybody knows we’re all in this together. I always bring it up — this is the system that we all created. If you’re not happy with it, you can change it.
Are people surprised that you are expanding in a pandemic? Castro: I believe our job in this community is really to help it thrive when it comes to culinary. The City of Langford has provided us so much. Now, how do we make it even more accessible for more people? It’s not just us — we could have opened up a second restaurant. But this is something that customers want. Not everybody’s vaccinated and we understand that, and that’s why we do other things for them to be able to take away food. People might not want to go into the restaurant. They can order online, and we can meet them in their car and give it to them. We think, “How are we able to make their lives a little easier?” Charlotte: We would never, ever have thought to do this if the community hadn’t given us that feedback. We’re lucky in business because we’ve been very open to the customer, and the customer has been very open to us. We never look at it as criticism. It’s positive feedback — people want to be a part of it.
[in our home] before we had the restaurant. But now we get to do it here.
What values are important to your business? Castro: Being sustainable. I think sustainable isn’t just about the food; sustainable is about the business. The business needs to be able to survive. Your business needs to be able to employ people in the community so that people can live in the community to support other things. I wouldn’t call this a passion project, this is a lifestyle — it really is.
Charlotte: We always check in [with staff] and make sure they tell us if they need to book a holiday. We always close in January. So it’s a really good opportunity for everybody to do something and go somewhere and take a break from each other. Castro: We’re building something for the long term. We want something that’s going to last and that’s going to continue to service the community. When it comes to culinary experiences, it’s really underserved. When people walk in some days it’s like “Wow, this is fantastic.” It’s just nice to know we’re doing something that people can find useful.
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How is it working together? Castro: We’ve worked together long enough to know each other’s strengths. We try to make all the decisions together. We also let our staff know that, if there’s certain things that they might not want to talk to me about, you have Charlotte. And vice versa. I think we’re building something special. And we’re looking for people who want to help this thing grow. The situation with staffing right now — I disagree with what a lot of people are doing. You want to hire people that want to be there — not because of money — they want to genuinely be there. Then you’re able to always provide for them, to help them succeed.
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You’re both obviously very hands on. Is it important to you to be so involved? Charlotte: I love talking to people, meeting people and serving in the restaurant. I hate office days; it’s lonely and quiet and boring. Castro: The food service is about meeting people and building a sense of community. People want to know about the food and the ingredients. We used to entertain quite a lot
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The future of retail is all about customer productivity. At Canadian Tire Hillside, owner Justin Young is thinking outside the box to create an in-store experience that is efficient, engaging and technologically informed.
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hile brick-and-mortar retail has struggled to compete with the convenience of 24-hour online shopping — with many companies shuttering as a result — there is still hope for the in-person shopping industry. The Future of Shopping: the Canada Market Report 2021, found that “half of Canadian consumers have missed the social aspect of shopping in-store since the start of the pandemic.” While that brings some reassurance for retailers, many stores on the South Island are facing a looming threat in the form of the disruptive behemoth Amazon. When the 115,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment centre opens at the Victoria International Airport, products will be delivered to the doorsteps of Greater Victoria customers within hours instead of days. These shortened delivery windows will undercut the biggest advantage local retailers currently have — ensuring that products are available and accessible on the day of purchase for customers. Without that advantage, how can local stores compete? One Victoria-based retailer is ahead of the pack, using data-informed tech innovation and old school respect to challenge the online giant.
Combating Complacency The Canadian Tire store at Hillside Shopping Centre is the third largest in the country and the largest in B.C., with over 93,000 square feet of retail space and a total footprint of 150,000 square feet. It’s owned and operated by Justin Young, who is well aware of the need for retail to innovate and evolve — fast. His store is thriving, moving over three million units of product every year with sales increasing each year since opening in 2016. “I think the biggest risk that the industry faces is complacency,” says Young, whose first Canadian Tire store ownership was in Thompson, MB, in 2001. “Traditional retailers are masters of disrespecting the customer. Traditionally, employers look at employee productivity, because of how it affects the business.
The Canadian Tire store at Hillside Shopping Centre is one of the largest in the country with over 93,000 square feet of retail space and a total footprint of 150,000 square feet. Its warehouse (pictured) is benefiting from Young’s next tech endeavor, a sorting system that is so innovative it qualifies for a Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit.
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“What we ultimately want to do is create an environment where we are removing the barriers for you to shop and not waste your time.” — Justin Young, owner of Canadian Tire Hillside, is pictured behind the scenes, where systems are under continual improvement to create a smooth and efficient experience for customers and employees.
Customer Productivity
What we're trying to do is respect customer productivity. And customer productivity, at its core, is about respecting the customer's time.” Eight months after opening, Young and his team tore apart their store design and remerchandised it from scratch, focusing around an approach called absorption merchandising. This involved redesigning the entire structure of the store, based on a measurement of sales to space, with a goal of reducing the team’s walking path when replenishing stock. For example, five per cent of the store’s unit sales is a single item — those ubiquitous blue Rubbermaid storage bins. Prior to absorption merchandising, capacity on the sales floor was for 1,400 units. This meant that to keep up with the sales volume, employees would have to restock those bins 49 times a year to prevent the shelf from being empty. “Keeping those shelves full would kill your labour costs, because you're constantly having to fill it, and you're not going to execute at that level,” says Young, who made the data-based decision to increase shelf capacity to 6,200 units, which only needs to be replenished 11.1 times per year. “We're able to grow sales because the probability of having it on the shelf is extremely high compared to what it was before,” says Young. Another strategy to increase productivity 20 DOUGLAS
was to invest in repositioning the escalators. Young had the option to keep the originals left behind by Target, which faced the back of the store and required customers to travel further to get upstairs. This was a common feature in traditional department stores designed to keep customers in the store as long as possible. “What we ultimately want to do is create an environment where we are removing the barriers for you to shop and not waste your time,” says Young. Now, the escalators face the front of the store, making the second floor easier to access directly from the front entrance. In addition to changing the direction of the escalators, Young commissioned Limbic Media to design a light installation to draw further attention to them. This not only helped lure customers upstairs to see what was on offer on the second floor, it offered an interactive experience that customers were craving. Shoppers of any age can control the colour and movement of the lights with a touchscreen and can choose sounds to accompany it. The result is a tactile moment of fun that’s hard to replicate online. In addition to the escalator lights, Young also had Limbic create a 60-foot lighting display on the front of the store to attract attention and, again, bring some delight to the shopping experience.
While Young values the importance of these eye-catching differentiators, his primary focus remains customer productivity — how efficiently customers can get what they need. One significant friction point he’s using tech to tackle is the challenge of selling high value and hard-to-access items. Whether they’re small enough to be slipped into a pocket or too big to be lifted, these items can tank productivity for customers and employees alike. Large and expensive items required timeconsuming processes to release the item to the customer. Tracking down keys or paper chits, unlocking display cases, stock shortages, disrupting shopping patterns and lack of being able to track in-store product movement were just some of the frustrating barriers customers used to encounter. Not to mention the cost of employee time, potentially canceling out any profit made from the sale and risking customers leaving empty-handed. All of that has changed with the new OrderUp system. After their success working together to create the store’s curbside pickup software during COVID, Young hired SYNQ Access + Security Technology (SYNQ) to build out a new system. Locked cabinets and large items on display are fronted with a tablet, allowing customers to access stock lists and select items that are located in the stockroom. They are then brought to the customer — who has meanwhile been tracking their progress via a QR code — at checkout. “We want to get to a place with software and with operational processes where we can have goods waiting for customers before they even wait,” says SYNQ CEO Nolan Wheeler. If the employee has retrieved the purchase before the customer shows up for it, the item is placed into a compartment in the store’s new SYNQ-created touchless locker, which can be opened with the customer’s phone whenever they’re ready to leave. Beyond OrderUp, Young’s next tech endeavor is so innovative that the store qualifies for a Scientific Research & Experimental
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CUSTOMER PRODUCTIVITY
An impressive five per cent of the Hillside Centre store’s sales are of Canadian Tire’s ubiquitous blue Rubbermaid storage bins. Young made the data-based decision to increase shelf capacity from 1,400 units to 6,200 units, which means replenishing stock only 11.1 times per year.
According to Justin Young customer productivity is all about respecting the customers’ time. Retailers generally disrespect their customers unintentionally by:
Development (SR&ED) tax credit. Young’s Canadian Tire store is one of the first retailers to access the credit that is a funding staple in the tech sector. The project being supported is a dynamic “powered sortation and diversion” system. In most retail environments, employees would use a secondary replenishment model, which requires walking inefficiently in a nonsequential manner to pick the items needed to restock the store’s shelves. “They zigzag, zigzag, zigzag, and every single footstep is wasted,” says Young. The goal of Young’s Fast Find system is to eliminate these wasteful footsteps. “It’s a codified system like the Dewey Decimal System, except it's for product location,” says Young. “We created a barcodeenabled location system that allows for employees to locate products so that there's knowledge on the products that are located in the store all the time.” When leaving the retail floor and entering the stockroom, the first difference you notice is the change in the volume of light. Work areas are illuminated. Additional lesser-accessed areas are only lit up when needed, triggered by motion. Unlike standard warehouse spaces with aisles that are wide enough to accommodate a forklift
1 - Not having the product in stock and on the shelf where it can be easily purchased. 2 - Not making the item easy to locate inside their store or letting customers know how to find it. 3 - Not supplying information quickly to enable an easy buying decision, either through adequate customer service staff or point of purchase information for customers to make an informed choice. 4 - Not providing consistent speed during the checkout process. If it is a sunny day, and people are shopping and you have a couple of cashiers call in sick, it is very difficult for the retailer to maintain a high level of consistency, compared to a cloud-based POS sale. 22 DOUGLAS
and warehouse workers, these ones are narrow. With each product organized by barcode, the entire shelf rotates, similar to the rack at a dry cleaner, bringing forward the correct product for retrieval. From a machine resembling a cherry picker, employees can access different levels of product shelves. Footsteps — both lateral and vertical — are all but removed. Instead, employees use a control panel to access. The efficiency of the store’s powered sortation and diversion process, in tandem with the absorption merchandising method and OrderUp system, helps ensure that the right item gets to the right place when and where the customer wants it. Every decision is driven by data with Young’s commitment to customer productivity in mind. And this is just the beginning. “We're using data now to drive the next level of automation,” says Young. “We’re going to validate and test things that are still wasteful … for example, for a retail worker, they've got a handheld device most of the time. And when they scan a product, they set [their device] down to pick up the box.” Similar to footsteps, Young sees this too as waste that can be minimized. He’s working with two companies to explore voice picking
— using voice prompts to direct workers to product locations — and hand-integrated finger scanners, both of which will remove the waste of picking up and setting down a device endless times.
People Power Young is also navigating the circuitous route to collect new employees — another problem that requires innovation and thinking outside of the box. (Read more about the skilled labour shortage on page 32.) Young’s employees can number from a low of about 150 up to 175. “But despite our best efforts, we still need 10 to 20 percent more,” says Young. Young has devised a three-step approach to inflate his employee roster: retention, development and training, and recruitment. As well, over the last four years, the average wage at his Canadian Tire store has increased by 57 per cent. And he’s still making money. Beyond good pay, Young has managed to retain employees by making his store a desirable place to work. A social committee organizes a raft of events — ugly sweater day, foosball tournaments, Easter egg hunts, barbecues. Staff who work off-hours are paid more. For staff development and training, Young doesn’t hold employees back. “We don’t own them,” he says. Instead, employees who want to advance are trained to move up in the company and are encouraged to leave the store, armed with valuable marketing skills. Young has shepherded three employees who went on to own Canadian Tire stores. He’s gone outside B.C. to find workers. His first foray was moving 22 Ontario residents [workers and their families] to Victoria to work at his store. Some of the earlier transplants could afford to buy a home, but to house others, Young created a real estate holding company to purchase homes that employees can rent. In March, he’ll be welcoming eight or nine new workers from Singapore, Kuwait, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, who will live in his homes. Young had to confirm that there were no Canadians who could do the work. “They’ll be off-hours folks [night time work], managerial, very niche,” he says. The new employees will be doing auditing, stocking and logistics duties. For Young, innovation offers opportunity. When it comes to the future of retail, Young is optimistic yet pragmatic. “I'm absolutely convinced that they won't eliminate brick-and-mortar,” says Young. “We're going to coexist in a hybrid world of digital and physical. But I can strongly say that our traditional way of retailing is fundamentally going to change.”
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Port Alberni’s INNOVATION ECO 24 DOUGLAS
ONOMY
Mayor of Port Alberni, Sharie Minions, pictured on the Somass Lands, a prime chunk of Port Alberni that unites the city with its waterfront. It’s “one of the most important pieces of Port Alberni’s future,” says Minions, who led Port Alberni to serve notice to and purchase the property from Western Forest Products.
Port Alberni is experiencing a boom, thanks to the right leadership, revitalized economic partnerships and an increased interest in the city. BY ANDREW FINDLAY
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFFREY BOSDET DOUGLAS 25
Andy Richards (left) and Robin Miles (right) opened Dog Mountain Brewing in December 2019. This year their BEES! Belgian Pale Ale with honey took home gold at the Canadian Brewing Awards in Quebec, and their business is expanding.
S
ometimes, when the carrot doesn’t work you have to bring out the big stick. The mayor of Port Alberni, Sharie Minions, and her council, got tired of looking at a prime chunk of Port Alberni waterfront known as the Somass Lands — five parcels, totalling 43 acres of former industrial land — remaining idle and neglected. In 2016, the owner, Western Forest Products (WFP), had closed its Somass sawmill. For the next five years, the Vancouver-based forestry giant sat on the property. When attempts to bring WFP to the table fell flat, city staffers mined the province’s Community Charter and found an obscure provision enabling a municipality to expropriate property under special circumstances. On June 22, 2021, Port Alberni served the logging company notice. That got its attention. Two months later, the city closed a deal to purchase the land from WFP for $5.3-million. The land will be transformed to create permanent public access to the waterfront, which had previously been cut off. “I would have preferred not to go that route,
but we didn’t think it was acceptable for this land to sit vacant for almost half a decade,” says Minions. “I see this property as one of the most important pieces of Port Alberni’s future.” Minions says the city has no plans to court another heavy industry tenant to fill the void. “We feel it has a higher purpose,” says Minions. And by a higher purpose, Minions means a mix of residential and commercial development, with some light industrial sprinkled into the mix. Right now, it’s blue-sky thinking. Whether or not the city takes on the role of developer, partners with private interests or sells it, is yet to be determined. But Minions says the city will be in the driver’s seat. It takes some creativity to see how Port Alberni’s future could be tied to this desolate-looking industrial land with rusting tin-roofed buildings and a remediation price tag that will likely top $1-million. But Minions’, who grew up in Port Alberni, left and and came back in 2010, has an infectious can-do attitude at the right moment in the history of this gritty city of 20,000, where at one time, a high school dropout could
Last year, the city experienced a 40 per cent increase in the price of a singlefamily home, a higher year-overyear price jump than any other Vancouver Island municipality.
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stumble into a high-paying mill job. Today, Minions’ aspirations reflect those of a more progressive demographic that sees innovation, technology, diversity and lifestyle as the town’s future calling card. Last year the city experienced a 40 per cent increase in the price of a single-family home, a higher year-over-year price jump than any other Vancouver Island municipality. Suddenly, it’s on people’s radar — and for something other than the negative stereotypes of homelessness, drug addiction and a decaying downtown core of boarded-up buildings that barely hinted at the city’s fading 1950s and ‘60s glory as a roaring timber and fishing town. Port Alberni is now being seen as a place to live, start a business and invest.
Business Is Brewing On a sunny break between rain showers, Port Alberni looks good from the rooftop patio of Dog Mountain Brewing, housed in a renovated two-storey building on 3rd Avenue. Alberni Inlet, rippled by a light wind, sparkles in the sun. In the western distance, ragged clouds cling to the MacKenzie Range around Sutton Pass, where Highway 4 cuts through the mountains to Tofino and Ucluelet. The sawback ridgeline of Mount Arrowsmith, designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2000, dominates the eastern horizon. Dog Mountain Brewing owners Robin Miles and Andy Richards, partners in life and business, are fresh off a big win at the Canadian Brewing Awards in Quebec where they took home gold for their BEES! Belgian Pale Ale with honey.
You can still be the best dressed in the room, even if you’re working from home.
“There are still a lot of people that want Port Alberni to go back to the way it was, with high-paying mill jobs. Then there’s the young people moving to town who want other amenities.”
Casual, dress, office, or maybe a party (remember those?), you’ll find your look here.
The Best in the Business of Style
— Robin Miles, Dog Mountain Brewing
534 Yates Street, Downtown Victoria Main Boulevard, Uptown Mall 53 Station Street, Downtown Duncan
“We knew Port Alberni had potential, there was only one brewery at the time [now there are three], and we could afford to buy a building,” Miles explains as she prepares for an early afternoon opening. “We got some pushback from people when we announced our plans on social media. They said we were going to put the other brewery out of business, but City Hall was super supportive.” Their instincts were bang on. Despite the ill fortune of opening Dog Mountain in December 2019 — two months before COVID forced the hospitality sector into temporary hibernation — the brewery is flourishing. The couple recently bought the house next door and will soon renovate it into a commercial kitchen, in order to make more room in the brewery for hophead customers. Downtown is changing and Miles says, “There’s a buzz.” It has a diamond-in-the-rough feel to it, which is no doubt part of its growing hipster appeal. Within a 10-block radius, new businesses have been sprouting up and helping to transform what was the epitome of boarded up, urban decay into a place of potential and energy. A few blocks away from Dog Mountain Brewing, at Timber Tiles, on 2nd Avenue and Argyle, workers are producing innovative wooden tiles from custom retooled machinery at a rate of four per second. The company has a staff of eight, including founder and owner Mark Anson. “We’re at 15 per cent capacity, and we plan maxcourier.com to be ramping up soon,” says Anson. maxcourier.com |
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Timber Tiles is doing something often talked about in the forest sector — creating value from wood waste. While working as a researcher at the private non-profit FPInnovations, Anson, an architect by profession, was exploring possible uses for hemlock that is still too wet for exporting after it goes through WFP’s Port Alberni kilns. “We tried making all kinds of things, including tiles,” says Anson. In 2017, when they took some sample tiles to Vancouver’s Interior Design Show, he says the response was positive. But the tiles sat on a shelf at FPInnovations in Vancouver — a bright idea looking for someone to run with it. When COVID-19 landed like a bomb in early 2020, Anson lost his job at FPInnovations. He and his wife mortgaged their family house to start Timber Tiles. “Port Alberni was a natural [fit],” says Anson. “It had a workforce, land prices were better and Western Forest Products was where this idea started.” Kelly Flurer, who co-owns Flurer Smokery with her husband, Brian, is another entrepreneur who has found success in Port Alberni, at Dock+, the region’s new food hub. Port Fish was once a bustling fish plant on the city’s waterfront near Harbour Quay. But it had sat vacant for a decade — another albatross from days gone by and a big space looking for a fresh idea. So, the Port Alberni Port Authority, Island Coastal Economic Trust (ICET) and the City of Port Alberni teamed up to cobble together $1.5-million and renovate the space into an incubator and coworking space for value-added food businesses. After a soft opening last spring, Dock+ is already at 100 per
cent occupancy, with six tenants, including Eat Circadian Wellness, Cascadia Seaweed, Forest for Dinner, Canadian Seafood, Nova Harvest and Flurer Smokery. “We wanted to be closer to the source of fish; we can get black cod, tuna and halibut, and it’s right out our front door,” says Flurer, about the decision to relocate from Campbell River. “And the opportunity to move into a brand-new facility was appealing.” According to the port authority, plans are already taking shape to expand Dock+ to the adjacent Somass Land site.
Innovation Economy Down at the Wildflower Bakeshop and Café, Pat Deakin, the economic development manager for Port Alberni, is all smiles. “I’ve been in my role for 14 years, and I’ve never experienced this kind of interest,” Deakin says. “It’s affirming — we’ve believed all along that Port Alberni has a future based on diversification.” It’s not exactly revolutionary to hear an economic development staffer speak highly of their community — cheerleading is, after all, part of the job description. Yet Port Alberni is no longer content to stand on the sidelines and watch other Vancouver Island communities like Campbell River and Nanaimo nurture tech and investment. To this end, Deakin says the city is embarking on an “innovation economy” initiative that will include a Spring Activator impact investment program and a Dragon’s Den, style tech competition that he hopes will be underway next fall. ICET has kicked in $84,000 in funding and a local investor, who prefers to remain anonymous, has committed
an additional $50,000. In a fortuitous alignment, Raissa Espiritu practically landed in the city’s lap to head up the initiative as project manager. Espiritu is a successful, well-connected medical-tech entrepreneur who recently sold a company and moved from Toronto to Port Alberni, where her partner works as a pilot for Coulson Aviation. A year ago, she couldn’t have found Port Alberni on a map. First order of business, says Espiritu, is doing an inventory of local innovators and entrepreneurs to see what they need in order to grow and scale. She may also be shaking the local trees and virtually knocking on the doors of some of the Sproat Lake mansions to see how to leverage latent investment capital in the Alberni Valley. But these are early days. Port Alberni isn’t the only community talking about the innovation economy. The forest sector hasn’t turned its back on the region, and that’s an ace in the hand for the city. Paper Excellence’s Catalyst Port Alberni mill, which started operations in 1946, produces telephone directory, lightweight coated, and specialty papers for printers and publishers throughout North America, South America and Asia. Despite closing the Somass mill five years ago, WFP’s Alberni Pacific mill remains a thriving business and is now minority-owned by the Huu-ay-aht First Nations.
“Port Alberni was a natural [fit]. It had a workforce, land prices were better and Western Forest Products was where this idea started.” — Mark Anson, Timber Tiles
Sharie Minions is the mayor of Port Alberni. Her aspirations At Timber Tiles,reflect workers are aproducing vision for innovative innovation,wooden technology, diversity, tiles from wood wasteand and lifestyle the town’s custom as retooled machinery future calling card. at a rate of four per second.
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In 2017, San Group, a diverse Langleybased forest products manufacturer with operations around the world, bought Coulson Forest Products’ specialty cedar mill. This was followed up by the construction of a new $70-million processing facility with a finger jointing, lamination and small log line capable of milling logs with three-inch diameter tops. The San Group plant has added 130 highpaying jobs to the local economy. Vancouver Island, let alone Port Alberni, hasn’t seen this kind of investment in the manufacturing of forest products in decades. Deakin calls the San Group’s investments a “tipping point” for Port Alberni.
Truth, Reconciliation and Partnerships The San Group is so enamoured with Port Alberni that it recently pitched a 1,500 to 2,200-unit housing project on property it owns on the outskirts of town. It’s a bold proposal, maybe even a tad grandiose for a city that currently has just 6,500 homes. And according to Roger Nopper, the recently-hired CEO of the Hupacasath First Nation, the San Group committed an honest faux pas when it failed to consult his employer about the proposed residential development. The Hupacasath and the Tseshaht First Nations have overlapping rights and title claims in the Alberni Valley. Nothing happens in the Alberni Valley these days without engaging First Nations in a meaningful way. And the city is at a turning point in how it lives and works with its Indigenous neighbours. The past year has been a sobering one for Port Alberni — and all Canadians. The discovery last May of more than 200 unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School brought attention to the Alberni residential school, which closed in 1973. The discovery sparked a renewed sense of cooperation and collaboration between the city and the two First Nations on whose territory Port Alberni was built, the Hupacasath and the Tseshaht. “When the Kamloops residential school situation went down last May, it was heavy knowing we will have to do this at Alberni Residential School,” says Ken Watts, elected chief of the Tseshaht First Nation. “But I feel like more and more Canadians are walking shoulder-to-shoulder with us.” Small gestures can go a long way towards truth and reconciliation, and this has been a year of milestones. Late last September, Watts gathered with school trustees, community members and students for the renaming of A.W. Neill Elementary School to Tsuma-as Elementary School, after the Nuu-chah-nulth name for the Somass River. It was about much more than taking down one sign and putting DOUGLAS 29
up another. Neill is a dark character from the City’s past. He was mayor of Port Alberni and then MP for the riding of Comox-Alberni from 1921 to 1945. He was also a racist who supported Indian residential schools, anti-Chinese laws and the internment of Japanese people during the Second World War. The decolonization of Port Alberni is happening in other ways as well. The city recently committed to a project that will remake the 40-year-old clock tower at the end of Harbour Quay into the “Story Tower,” which will recount the narrative of Tlukwatkwuis the Tseshaht winter village that existed on the site before settlers arrived. “I feel we have a good government-to-government relationship with Port Alberni,” says Watts. “I meet with the mayor regularly.” Both First Nations are significant players in the local economy and are in a bullish mood, looking to grow their influence. The Hupacasath are 72.5 per cent owners of Upnit Power Corp., a 6.5 MW hydroelectric station on China Creek that powers 6,000 homes. The Nation of 350 members also owns Nootka Insurance Agency, Kleekhoot Gold Bigleaf Maple Syrup and Tsuumaas Seafood, and has numerous partnerships in the forest sector. However, Nopper says the Hupacasath are keen to look beyond raw resources and get involved in tech and innovation. “That’s what the young people are telling us they’re interested in,” says Nopper. The Tseshaht own Orange Bridge Cannabis
Colorectal Cancer Kills On average Colorectal Cancer (CRC) kills 26 people each day in Canada. Don’t be one of these victims. CRC is detectable, treatable and beatable. If you are over 45 or have a family history, learn the symptoms, talk to your doctor and get tested. Michael Butterfield is beating cancer. He was diagnosed with CRC in January and had surgery in February 2020 and November 2021. On February 26th, 2021 Michael raised almost $3000 for CRC research by running 26 km — one km for each person who would die that day.
Detectable, Treatable & Beatable 30 DOUGLAS
Ken Watts is the elected chief of the Tseshaht First Nation, one of the two First Nations on whose territory Port Alberni was built (the other is the Hupacasath Nation). He says the government of Port Alberni and the Tseshaht Nation enjoy a good relationship.
“There’s a little boom happening. Families are moving here because it’s still affordable. But we want to make sure that Port Alberni does it right, that we have the infrastructure and services in place to handle the growth.” — Chief Ken Watts, Tseshaht First Nation and Tseshaht Market, the last full-service gas station on the way to Ucluelet and Tofino. The Nation also runs a suite of forestry companies, including Cisaa Forestry Corporation, which manages two band-owned forest tenures, and Omoah Forestry Corporation, established as part of an agreement with WFP that gives the Tseshaht access to harvest and sell timber on Tree Farm Licence 44. Currently, the Tseshaht are in the process of rezoning the land occupied by the closed Sproat Elementary School to make way for up to 50 units of market housing. Watts says he’s excited about the future. Like Dog Mountain Brewing’s Robin Miles and Andy Richards, he’s also feeling the buzz. “There’s a little boom happening,” says Chief Watts. “Families are moving here because it’s still affordable. But we want to make sure that Port Alberni does it right, that we have the infrastructure and services in place to handle the growth.” For a community that has been saddled for decades with the negative stereotypes of a has-been resource boomtown, these seem like relatively good problems to have. “I have to say, it feels good to hear people finally talking about Port Alberni in a positive light,” says Mayor Minions.
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DOUGLAS 31
Building back
WORKFORCE
THE
The shortage of skilled employees on the South Island is a longstanding problem that has been sharpened and spread by the pandemic. Solutions include everything from more housing and more workplace respect to quicker recognition of credentials and more training spots. BY SHANNON MONEO
Pre-pandemic, Greater Victoria had one of Canada’s lowest unemployment rates, at about 3.4 per cent. In late 2021, it sat at around 4.2 per cent. But the numbers aren’t wholly indicative of the challenges being felt by employers. In the last 20 months, job vacancies in unexpected fields have opened: lifeguards, accountants, engineers, paramedics, mariners, butchers, truck
32 DOUGLAS
drivers. In the case of lifeguards, the pandemic deep-sixed training. Immigration cuts have kept foreign butchers out. Unprecedented 9-1-1 calls overwhelmed paramedics. But for other occupations, a confluence of factors is playing out, in the process leading to lost revenue, business closures, highly-stressed workers and rising costs.
NURSES Nurses have been dealing with high-stress conditions, brewing for years, but boiling over during the pandemic. “We’re looking down the barrel of a major problem,” says Michael Sandler, executive director of the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of BC. “The requests for service are far outstripping the service available.” Even before COVID began its destruction, a 2009 study by the Canadian Nurses Association predicted that by 2022, Canada would be short 60,000 nurses. It’s not news that the pandemic forced many nurses to retire early or seek new roles, says Sandler, a registered nurse working on his PhD. “COVID has substantially increased the overall workload and also shone a light on system inadequacies,” he says, citing shortages of protective equipment and ER overloads as major obstacles. A solid step would be to hire a chief nursing officer for Canada, who would investigate system-level solutions. “Nurses make up the largest proportion of healthcare providers,” Sandler says. Unlike doctors, they are found in most communities, including remote locations. The work of nurses could also be streamlined by working smarter. To retain nurses, remuneration, benefits and respect
CONSTRUCTION When it comes to finding carpenters, associated trades and even labourers, a longstanding misconception needs to be hammered home. “There’s a stigma about construction,” says Mark Liudzius, executive VP at Kinetic Construction. Liudzius comes from a university-educated family, but went on to become a Red Seal carpenter and Gold Seal project coordinator. “Why is shop a second-grade choice? High school is where promoting this has to start,” says Liudzius. “There’s such a different attitude in Europe. The family plumber is like the family dentist.” Changing attitudes is a pipe dream unless the government steps up. As well, government regulations around apprenticeships need to be fixed. But training is one part. “You have to retain them. There has to be a career path,” Liudzius says. A BuildForce Canada report estimates that by 2030, 41,000 construction employees will have retired in B.C., and there will be 35,100 new workers. But between residential construction and large highway, bridge, public transit, education and health care construction, roughly 23,000 more workers will be needed. “Companies are losing a lot of senior people,” Liudzius says. In-house development is a priority, but companies are finding they
should be improved. And to determine why nurses burn out or what is the impact of workplace abuse, credible data has to be collected. As for training more nurses, again, it falls into the government’s lap. “To open more spaces, there’s a problem finding clinical locations,” Sandler says. As well, to teach, a PhD is required, but again, the PhDs are “greying out,” so there is a shortage of certified teachers. And training venues are not offering tenure to teachers, so educators are abandoning academia for more lucrative private sector work. It’s a destructive cycle. Finally, the role of immigrant nurses becomes somewhat of a loaded question. In B.C., in late 2021, there were about 800 internationally-educated nurses who cannot work until they pass English-language testing and meet entry-level competencies. But as Sandler points out, there’s a nursing shortage all over the world.
THINGS TO CONSIDER: Workload and systematic pressure.
need to recruit, often outside B.C. In fact, Kinetic Construction has hired a full-time recruiter to fill its many job vacancies. Kinetic has also had to offer finders’ fees, signing bonuses, career path guidance, in-house mentorships and significant bumps to wages to stay competitive, Liudzius says. Accordingly, those employer expenses translate into steadily climbing construction costs, be it for a house or warehouse. And because there are more less-skilled workers on job sites, work that could be done by three workers now requires five, another factor driving up costs. Ironically, when an Alberta or Manitoba carpenter looks at the cost of housing in Greater Victoria, they realize they can’t afford it. “If you are finding people out of province, where do you put them?” Liudzius asks. He’s aware of companies that have bought houses in Victoria to house employees. Other Island businesses in communities such as Campbell River, Gabriola Island, Mayne Island and Tofino have had to shell out for employee housing.
THINGS TO CONSIDER: Removing the stigma associated with the sector and increasing government support for apprenticeships. DOUGLAS 33
VETERINARIANS Consider veterinarians. If 100 new vets showed up in B.C., they would all have instant jobs, joining the approximately 1,600 registered vets in the Province. Despite agreement from B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham in 2018 that more training spots at the University of Saskatchewan would be sought, the results have yet to be seen. “We’re not optimistic at all,” says Dr. Al Longair, a vet for 45 years, who works part-time at the Prevost Veterinary Clinic in Duncan. “The
shortage is going to take three to five years to fix.” But right now, people bringing their pets for care can wait up to 12 hours for emergency treatment. And securing a regular vet is nearly impossible. “We have to say no,” Longair says. The doctor shortage has long been a documented problem in B.C. and much of Canada. Who would have imagined that a lack of professionals, who tend to animal health, would also be dogging pet owners? Some of it comes down to the provincial government refusing to fund more seats at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, one of only five
THE BIG PICTURE In Nanaimo, it seems those who either lost hospitality jobs or decided not to return to them have embraced side hustles, says the Chamber of Commerce President, Kim Smythe. From 2020 to the first six months of 2021, the city has issued over 600 business licences. “The bulk of those are home businesses,” says Smythe. He’s also aware that some Nanaimoites have decided to retrain, particularly for tech jobs, rather than return to the low pay and high expectations demanded in the hospitality sector. But the game of musical chairs still means there are jobs to fill. Making it easier for immigrants to work in Canada is a solution, he says. As well, better transportation and more housing are necessary. But
HOSPITALITY The B.C. Restaurant and Foodservices Association’s (BCRFA) challenges are well documented. Before the pandemic, there was already a shortage of skilled chefs and line staff. In the third quarter of 2019, Restaurants Canada calculated that a record 64,000 vacancies in the country’s foodservice industry led to curtailed business hours or partial services. In B.C. alone, the restaurant industry has only 66 per cent of the workers needed to run efficiently, according to the BCRFA’s president/CEO. “There’s a huge shortage in kitchens,” says Ian Tostenson. At least 40,000 more workers are needed in B.C. Pandemic-related effects added to the bottoming out of the bottom line, with 10 per cent of B.C.’s approximately 15,000 restaurants disappearing, coupled with a 20 per cent drop in revenue, Tostenson says. Meanwhile, costs have surged. 34 DOUGLAS
training venues in Canada. For the last 20 years, B.C. has funded 20 seats per year at the school, despite B.C.’s 25 per cent population growth and the even larger boom in pet ownership. At least 140 qualified applicants apply for those 20 university spots. A 2019 market study, done by the Society of BC Veterinarians, found that the shortage will only worsen in the next three years, as about 22 per cent of baby boomer vets check out and the remaining ones work fewer hours in their desire for work-life balance. Burnout is becoming a growing problem for vets. “Our job is time consuming,” says Longair, who can work up to 14 hours per day. Not only do vets handle sick animals, they have to deal
until government red tape is cut, affordable housing is a castle in the air. Smythe cites lengthy delays at city hall for high-rise development permits, which can add thousands of dollars in costs each month to new housing. And Nanaimo’s 0.5 per cent vacancy rate for rentals renders it almost impossible to find housing. “It’s a problem for any entry-level worker,” Smythe says. The challenges to find and produce employees for many, many workplaces won’t be solved soon in a world crushed by a virus. As Michael Sandler, of the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of BC, says, his profession has been very good at doing more with less. That’s because the nursing shortage has been around since 2009. “What I worry about is that COVID is the piece that will stress it beyond the breaking point,” he says.
The swinging door of closing, reopening, closing and uncertainty, in general, due to government dictates around COVID protocols, led to many people leaving the industry. So did the risk, of what suddenly became frontline work, to health and safety. Some moved from the commercial side to institutional settings or chose to retire. Inconsistent incomes and a workplace that discouraged social contact were also cited as negatives, Tostenson notes. Some point to the CERB $500-per-week payment delaying the return of workers, draining the employee pool and forcing employers to cast their nets far and wide. But the subsidy saw people taking home less than minimum wage, raising questions about the larger implications of CERB. With less spending, due to lockdown measures, came the realization for many that they could live on less. For others, it was enough to supplement the creation of their own revenue streams, or a catalyst to reskill and try a new sector. In February 2020, the BCRFA introduced its Express Entry Foreign Worker Program for those with culinary diplomas or hospitality
management. Chefs and managers have been hired from India and the Middle East, says Tostenson. Before the pandemic, more than 1,200 international restaurant employees (various capacities) were recruited in 2019–2020. Getting them to B.C. wasn’t a piece of cake. Working with a recruiter, the BCRFA had to prove there were no Canadians available to do each job, which required a labour market opinion. The process can take several months. “We’re working with the provincial government to shorten the time to get immigrants,” Tostenson says.
THINGS TO CONSIDER: Remuneration and increasing engagement through value-driven employment.
with pet owners who can become beastly when they get bad news. “It’s not all about cuddly kittens,” Longair says.
THINGS TO CONSIDER: Increasing education opportunities by making more seats available for students to study veterinary medicine.
Ethical, dedicated, reliable.
ONE COMPANY’S SOLUTION In August 2021, Sam Jones decided to pay all his employees the living wage. (The living wage for Greater Victoria is $19.39 an hour vs minimum wage at $15.20 an hour.) The owner of 2% Jazz Coffee had always paid his employees a dollar or more above the minimum wage. But the situation had changed. A lot of people don’t have to come back to work, or are choosing not to work someplace where they don’t feel valued. Historically, one of the biggest expenses business owners in the industry face is labour costs, so when looking at the bottom line, it made sense to many to pay people the least they could and work them hard. Subsequently recruiting for a barista job, Jones had over 100 applicants. He was thrilled with that level of choice — a shift away from the position that many find themselves in — taking whatever they can get. Jones is a member of Victoria’s Bread and Butter Collective, created during the pandemic to share resources and to impact positive change within the industry. As one of the first to raise wages, he hopes others will follow suit.
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chocolate chocolate together together
DOUGLAS 35
EMBRACING IMMIGRATION Jean McRae has worked with immigrants and refugees since 1982, and since 1998 has been CEO of the Inter-Cultural Association (ICA) of Greater Victoria. “For immigration to do its job, we need to speed up the process,” she says. Employers who approach the ICA wonder how their workplace vacancies can be efficiently filled given the sluggish system. One example: a company needed an engineer, found one and then waited three years before
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the employee arrived. The federal government has been slow to respond. And thanks to COVID, much catching up is required because for more than one year, immigration ground to a near halt. By late spring 2021, things opened up, McRae says, as people from several countries began arriving in the region. Because statistics are only released annually by the federal government, accurate numbers remain unknown. What is known, is that immigration targets for 2021 were met, but that’s because temporary foreign workers and international students, both groups already in Canada, were accepted. McRae did have an estimate for refugee arrivals, guessing that by the end of 2021, about 160 new permanent residents arrived in Greater Victoria, coming mostly from Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq and Afghanistan. Because refugees are selected, not for their skills, but for their need for protection, their entry into the workforce may take a long time. Refugees often need to learn English and other employment skills. Immigrants, on the other hand, can often take jobs soon after arrival. Many international students arrive with a student and work visa. Often, after graduating, they remain in Canada. But the pandemic-induced shift to online learning temporarily dried up that work pool. When international students returned in the fall, it wasn’t only COVID causing problems. “It’s super hard to find housing,” McRae says. There’s a desperate need for more housing options. And everyone’s heard the story about the taxi driver who was a doctor in Pakistan. Not quite an urban myth; McRae knows of a taxi driver who was an accountant and a store owner who was a doctor. “Ethically, it’s a waste of human capital,” she says. But the problem of credential recognition has been around for decades. The process must be accelerated, she says. To fuel labour growth, the spark will be foreign workers. “We do have immigrants looking for work and we encourage employers to contact us about vacancies they have. We may be able to find a good match,” McRae says.
Business Profile
PHILOSOPHY MD Leaders in holistic cosmetic treatment planning
I
n 2017, Dr. Matthew Carere and his wife relocated back to Victoria — where they were brought up — to raise their own two children near to family. Since then, Dr. Carere has been devoted to the Royal Jubilee and Victoria General Hospitals as an Emergency Physician, and to UBC’s Department of Emergency Medicine as a Clinical Assistant Professor, while simultaneously training with the country’s finest cosmetic providers. Spring 2022 will mark a new chapter for this local doc as he partners with a tremendous group of young local entrepreneurs — including his wife Tara, Dr. Bri Budlovsky and Carla Matheson — to introduce a landmark medispa experience in James Bay’s Capital Park: Philosophy MD. This iconic community lends a heritage and legacy akin to the experience, service and care this new practice promises. The concept behind Philosophy MD relies on research which has proven how
investment in cosmetic experiences and outcomes from well-understood treatments and skincare yields happier patients. In an atmosphere dedicated to excellence in self care and luxury, the clinic is poised to empower its patients in self-confidence by offering physician-led, time-invested, personalized cosmetic treatment planning and services in a world-class clinical spa setting — which will allow accommodations for even the most private of patients. Through Philosophy MD, Dr. Carere has recently introduced cutting edge PRP (platelet-rich plasma) treatment for hair restoration. His signature programming was designed with influence from global experts and involves the combination of PRP treatments with topical compounded prescription therapies for optimal outcomes. Thinning hair and hair loss (androgenic alopecia) in both men and women is incredibly common; often referred to as male- or female-pattern
baldness, the condition affects up to 75% of the population. Philosophy MD’s hair restoration program seeks to prevent continued hair loss and to revitalize and stimulate persisting hair follicles, improving the condition and volume of hair. Through a blood draw and subsequent centrifuge cycle, the body’s own platelets and growth factors are skillfully isolated to be re-injected into the scalp. Philosophy MD will open this Spring with a customized offering of injectables, complexion and skin tightening treatments, hair restoration programs and skincare, including signature facials and peels. The practice looks forward to building meaningful roots in the community, and to serving Victoria for years to come. Keep updated on this exciting local business through social media (@philosophy_md on Instagram) or by signing up for email through their website.
559 Superior Street, Victoria // 250-889-1658 // philosophymd.com
Business Profile
PACIFIC ROLLSHUTTERS & AWNINGS Comfortable outdoor living, all year round
“
W
e want our customers to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible,” say Peter and Lori Stofko, owners of Pacific Rollshutters and Awnings. “So, we have products that offer protection from sun, rain and wind, allowing them to create outdoor spaces for all seasons. We offer retractable awnings, screens, patio covers with roof panels and railings. We’re also the exclusive dealer of StruXure Outdoor Louvered pergolas on Vancouver Island, and we continue to add new products that customers love.” It’s very exciting that their staff has grown from four to ten in the past 18 months, considering the times. And, as Peter says, “We’re just getting started!”
Disciplin
COMPOUND A Serving Vancouver Island since 1991
2745 Bridge Street, Victoria // pacificawnings.ca // info@pacificawnings.ca // 250-361-4714
Odlum Brown Model P
S&P/TSX Total Return I Business Profile
December 15, 1994. *The Odlum Brown Mo how we believe individual security recommen investment strategy. Trades are made using t
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SPARK STRATEGIC GROUP Common sense. Creatively applied.
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ooking for imaginative ways to reach your ideal customer without breaking the bank? We can help. You’ll enjoy working with us if you’re a business owner who wants to move marketing off the side of your desk and into expert hands, looking for help with specific projects, or in need of a fresh approach to your existing campaigns. We are as motivated about increasing your revenue as you are. Your success is our success, and it’s what gets us excited about going to work every day. Get in touch and let’s talk about putting the spark in your strategy.
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Whether y spending executing the rig and part of my ro
If you would like with your life go
Business Profile
PenCo LIQUOR The new game in town
T
wo new PenCo Liquor stores have popped up — in Saanich Plaza on Blanshard, and off Goldstream in Langford. If the name seems familiar, it’s for good reason. A division of Island-based Peninsula Co-op, PenCo Liquor offers yet another line of products members can earn a rebate on. Keeping to their roots, you’ll find lots of local products, including breweries like Hoyne, Driftwood, Lighthouse and Phillips, as well as wineries, cideries and distilleries like Sheringham, Sea Cider, Blue Grouse, and more. Plus, members can use their existing Peninsula Co-op number towards PenCo purchases. Not a member? Join today at peninsulaco-op.com.
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ANNUAL RETURNS (Including reinvested dividends, as of October 15, 2021)
3510 Blanshard Street, Victoria & 2835 Bryn Maur Road, Langford // peninsulaco-op.com/liquor
1 YEAR
3 YEAR
5 YEAR
10 YEAR
20 YEAR
INCEPTION1
Portfolio*
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14.7%
11.9%
14.3%
11.9%
14.6%
Index
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8.5%
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Business Profile
odel Portfolio is an all-equity portfolio that was established by the Odlum Brown Equity Research Department on December 15, 1994 with a hypothetical investment of $250,000. It showcases endations may be used within the context of a client portfolio. The Model also provides a basis with which to measure the quality of our advice and the effectiveness of our disciplined the closing price on the day a change is announced. Performance figures do not include any allowance for fees. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
ODLUM BROWN LIMITED
your goal is retiring comfortably, maximizing your legacy, or more time on the golf course or boating (like me), planning and ght investment strategy to achieve your goals is fundamental, Reed Pettinger, Investment Advisor ole in supporting you and your family.
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Odlum Brown Limited
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Odlum Brown Community
OdlumBrown DOUGLAS 39
INTEL
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
TECHNOLOGY
BY CEARA CRAWSHAW
Think Like Your Customer
User experience (UX) design is all about understanding how your customers interact with your business, both in person and digitally. High-impact improvements will result in a more positive experience with your company.
E
ver been stuck when making a decision for your business because you can’t tell how it would impact customer experience? Business owners grapple with making choices that are vital to business survival. Trusting your gut can only get you so far, especially when customers experience your company in a variety of ways: physically, digitally, over the phone. The pandemic caused massive disruptions to the traditional customer experience, and the expectations that came with it. Digital
transformation of governments, restaurants and other small businesses accelerated dramatically. Love it or hate it, many businesses have pivoted and today may even deliver their value to customers in new ways. Now, not only do you have to craft the in-person experience (in the ever-changing landscape of COVID-related rules and regulations), but you need to wrangle a cohesive experience across the digital sphere, whether that’s websites or apps. Given that the scope of the experience
for many businesses play out in-person and online, it’s difficult to keep track of what customers might be going through. If you could really understand the entire user experience, you could flag the weak points, inflate the good points and amplify customer delight and loyalty over time.
User Experience (UX) Design User experience (UX) designers employ a tool called user journey mapping. Digital experiences on apps, websites and software pose similarly complex
THE JOURNEY OF ORDERING FOOD FROM A RESTAURANT FOR THE FIRST TIME DECIDES TO ORDER
ORDERS
STARTS ORDERING PROCESS
Consider having a browser-based option, if possible. Removing a barrier to entry is almost always a positive thing.
In this case, the in-house experience is quite different from the digital one. With in-person, the guest can ask the server questions and discuss with their dining companion. When the experience is entirely digital, assistance from the server isn’t available. If the person has to put in a lot of work, there may be significant trade off with using fancy terminology.
Payment cards can be difficult and complicated to add in. In many cases a browser (like Chrome) may securely save this information making
sees good reviews about the restaurant
downloads app successfully
looks forward to trying this new restaurant
“oh, that’s stuff I like “; decides to add to order
“the healthy bowl looks tasty”
“everything’s here”; click to pay
accesses wifi
not sure how to order using either third-party app or restaurant website
realizes has to download an app
can’t identify ingredients has to use data to download app cannot succesfully download the app
gives up
40 DOUGLAS
not interested in this dish what’s “wild rocket?”
what’s a “bespoke herb melange?”
searching ingredient name on phone
“this is taking a while — I’m hungry”
needs to add credit card details by typing in information
flows, so this common practice helps you understand what’s happening at each step. Digital experiences on apps, websites and software can veer off in all sorts of directions, as things get complicated. Take a “forgot your password” workflow — it can take 10 seconds on one site and three months on another. User journey mapping ensures that clients can see different potential scenarios that affect their business play themselves out. Let’s use an example. Say I’m a restaurant owner, and I’ve introduced an online ordering system. My guests can either dine in or order and pick their food up. This new element means the flow of the restaurant needs to change (where people walk, wait, etc.). This process normally begins by mapping out all the steps we think guests need to take to order their meal and then we conduct interviews with customers. At this stage, it might be appropriate to do a test where the guest shows how they use their phone to actually order their meal.
During this process, people are asked to “think out loud” saying how they feel. We then will screen record to see precisely which moments and situations caught people off guard (or worked really well). Contextual research would also be key in this scenario. This is where people are observed in real life as they complete their goals and navigate their physical space itself. Taking into account the physical environment is really important to understanding an experience that takes place digitally as well as physically. Finally, it would be crucial to interview guests to understand how their experience was after the fact. It’s important to understand how the high points or low points translated to their overall expectations. Once the testing has reached a key number of participants, findings can be aggregated and mapped out. This high-impact process quickly unlocks opportunities for businesses to improve while acknowledging what is working well already.
Positive experience
& PAYS
credit card added successfully
order looks correct
card information typed incorrectly can’t find pay-upon-arrival option
“this is going to be a good meal” arrives in restaurant logistics are clear
“how long is it going to take?”
Negative experience
ARRIVES & EATS
Any order app should give good logistical feedback. Providing signage and space for guests waiting for their food can make people still feel welcome and taken care of, even if they are in the restaurant only for a fleeting moment.
order placed
Ceara Crawshaw is the CEO of Pencil & Paper, an enterprise UX studio that specializes in complex domains to improve life at work through good UX design, education and innovative products.
Opportunity for improvement
PICKS UP FOOD
payment easier. If guests encounter a problem, a “pay in-person” option might mean no lost business.
User journey mapping can give you a great basis on which to improve and applies to any and all types of businesses in different ways. The restaurant example (see graphic) shows a few touchpoints that people could experience throughout the process of ordering, picking up and eating their meal. By following a guest through possible trajectories in their experience, we identify points of friction and points of success. This map paints a picture of all possible experiences. If you’ve been troubled with negative indicators in your business, this mapping process might help you connect more meaningfully with your customers and give you the insight you need to make your business thrive.
knows where to go
The at-home eating experience is also important. Some of the experience is rooted in the food itself, some in the packaging and presentation and some in the order accuracy. Even a takeout experience can create a lifetime customer.
meal is enjoyed
receives order order is correct
knows how long it will take “where do I go?”
items are missing in order order is completely wrong
writes 5-star review
restaurant tries to troubleshoot & resolve
food packaging for food is OK; not great doesn’t work, leaks or is unappealing
recommends restaurant to friends
will try again
will try something else next time
gives up
DOUGLAS 41
MINDSET
Why work with Robyn?
Why work with Robyn?
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42 DOUGLAS
BY VIVIENNE DAMATAN
Child’s Play
Parenthood can be the most powerful leadership and development course you’ll ever take.
W
hen I joined the Victoria tech sector 10 years ago, the majority of the community was relatively young. It wasn’t uncommon to meet freshly minted founders/ CEOs and whole teams just out of university. Back then, we were all just trying to figure out what “being a business” even meant. Since then, the Victoria tech scene has matured significantly, and so have the people in it. Gone are the days of our culture being wholly defined by beer nights and Ping-Pong tables. What’s stepped into its place is a desire to build intentional cultures, which help create strong, resilient and highperforming teams. With the progression of those cultures comes the progression into the stage of life where parenthood features prominently, myself included. Parenthood has been the most powerful leadership development course I’ve ever taken. Here are a few of my top takeaways so far:
poached or an unexpected global pandemic hits. Author and leadership guru Simon Sinek refers to this idea as “the infinite game.” Unlike a game of chess or hockey, there is no definite end in business. Sure, there are fiscal quarters or other markers of time, but, unless you’re planning on selling the company or closing up shop soon, the game keeps on going indefinitely. While a crystalclear plan might work well in the near term, change is inevitable in the long game, so flexibility is key. Make a Plan B and a Plan C that keep your core values and what’s most important at the forefront, and adjust as necessary.
“You need to learn how to activate that brain in the middle of war, in the middle of challenges, in the middle of crises.”
Focus on what’s important and mute the rest.
Ever been that parent at the grocery store with a tantrum-throwing toddler at the till? Or a screaming beastie on the playground? I’ve definitely been there, and it taught me a ton. One day, my daughter Change is inevitable. had the most epic Flexibility is key. meltdown on a walk home If there’s one thing that from daycare. After a few being a parent has taught panicked moments and me over and over again, it’s with some serious effort, that flexibility is one of the —Shirzad Chamine, author I blocked out all of the keys to survival. of Positive Intelligence non-essential noise in When sleep training order to zero in on what my daughter, I made what was actually important in I thought was a perfect this situation. I took a few mindful breaths to plan. For a while, everything was on track. ground myself and calmed my mind enough And then a sleep regression hit. And then to take the right action. (In this case, the right teething. I fully expected to stick to the plan, action was getting down there in the grass to but the more tightly I held on to it while comfort and regulate a three-year-old.) conditions shifted, the more stressed and In Shirzad Chamine’s New York Times out of control I felt. When I finally learned to bestselling book, Positive Intelligence, he shift along and be flexible, things got easier talks about the importance for leaders being and more fun again. able to calm their minds when situations are The same goes for business. Sometimes at their epic-meltdown-like peak. everything is in a groove — your team is “You need to learn how to activate that working cohesively, you’re hitting your brain in the middle of war, in the middle of targets easily, things are feeling effortless. challenges, in the middle of crises,” says Those beautiful, on-plan moments are worthy of celebrating because you are bound Chamine. As a leader, there are a million things to veer off-track again: when a competitor happening all the time. You might feel out of comes up with a solution that the market control, drowning in demands and decisions. really responds to and you lose some market In those moments when things seem to be share; when one of your top producers gets
going off the rails, it’s important to be able to tune out the noise, pause and ask yourself a few questions: What doesn’t matter right now that I can let go of? What about this situation is in my control? What is the best next step I should take? When things are crazy, get Jedi-focused on what’s real and important. Mute the rest.
BRIGHT FUTURES START HERE
Develop a growth mindset for the win.
As a recovering perfectionist, this was a hard lesson for me to learn. It’s common for entrepreneurs to expect that they will succeed at everything they attempt. After all, that drive for success is probably a large reason they got to where they are. That competitive spirit can push you to do better, but it can be dangerous if you’re defining success solely as winning. If you’ve ever tried to teach a small child something new, chances are you witnessed dozens of failed attempts. What did you do when they failed? I’ll bet that you didn’t shame them and tell them that they’ll never be able to learn this new skill. Instead, you probably talked them through it, helped them take stock of their learnings, then encouraged them to try again. “In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome,” writes Carol Dweck, the Stanford University professor who introduced the concept of growth mindset. “If you fail — or if you’re not the best — it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome. They’re tackling problems ... Maybe they haven’t found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.” As leaders, we can strengthen this growth mindset when something doesn’t go quite right. Identify what worked well, what was tricky and what you might do differently next time. What lessons did you learn that could be important for the next attempt or the next challenge? How can you be 10 per cent better next time? Then, armed with new insight and new perspective, try again. In my opinion, striving to be a great parent is the closest thing to great leadership. In both roles, you are wholly committing yourself to the growth of another human being, through all of the ups and downs. Asking great questions and actually listening to the answers, having tough but effective conversations and building trust and connection so the other person feels safe to learn are all skills to master when stepping up your parenting or leadership game.
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• Before- and after-school care • World-class chorister program • A supportive and connected parent community • A new soccer pitch, basketball court and middle school building Contact us for a personal tour!
MIDDLE SCHOOL GR. 6-8
3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0% -1.0% -2.0% -3.0% -4.0%
2019
2017
2020 2021F
2018 2018 2019 2020
6M 3M 0
r Rive rce u pbell Cam ral Reso Natu ict Distr
d–C Islan ral atu Norath st N Co tr ict Dis
2021
Vivienne Damatan, ACC, is a certified executive coach with the International Coaching Federation. She is the founder of Lead-onPurpose, focusing on resilience and the development of emerging leaders. DOUGLAS 43
MARKETING
BY SEPTEMBER SMITH
Podcast Guesting Leveraging the potential of strategic podcast interviews can be a smart and effective addition to your marketing strategy.
P
odcasts are an incredible opportunity to promote and market your business. But you don’t need to start a podcast to leverage that potential. Running your own podcast can be a valuable but timeconsuming undertaking. Fortunately, there is an alternative that will let you work smarter, not harder. As a guest interviewee, you can leverage the existing audience, network and production of other people’s podcasts. By speaking on some else’s podcast, you can co-create some amazing showcase content that will be available on highly popular audio channels for years to come. And the best part? It comes for free and at a tiny fraction of the the time commitment. For most businesses, this option is the smartest move.
Which Is Right for My Business? Here’s a simple litmus test for you: Do you have the bandwidth for an additional 10–20 hours to devote per episode? Do you need to display expertise on dozens of topics to convey the value your business offers? If the answer to both of those is no, then podcast guesting is your best option. The strategy will work well if you have one core marketing message and you need to optimize your time and effort to effectively get it out to new segments of your target audience.
The Biggest Mistakes As an advocate of strategic podcast guesting, there are three overarching mistakes that I see DIYers make: Mistake 1 — Talking About Random Stuff
The Red Flag: “I’ve been invited on a podcast; I’m just going to let the host ask me questions and see what happens.” The goal of every interview you do is to 44 DOUGLAS
have an interesting, engaging conversation with the host that achieves one thing: an episode that when listened to by your ideal client, strongly resonates, telling them what you do what you do, why it matters to them, how you can help them solve a problem and what a joy you’d be to work with. Unless you are prepared and able to control the direction and flow of the conversation, there is little chance your interview will have the results you need for your marketing. While many hosts are very talented interviewers, some are amateurs (not necessarily a bad thing) in what is a relatively new industry. Never place your brand reputation wholly in their hands. Mistake 2 — Being In the Wrong Place The Red Flag: “A guy invited me on his podcast … What’s it about? I’m not sure.” You don’t want to be on a podcast that is the wrong venue for your message (but, given the large number of shows out there, that still leaves you with hundreds to pick from). Every podcast has its own vibe and its own audience coming to hear what they are interested in. You want to be interviewed and featured on a show where the host and their audience are primed and ready to engage in your message. Being on the wrong show is, at best, a waste of your time and, at worst, a damaging misrepresentation of who and what you are. Mistake 3 — Doing Nothing With It The Red Flag: “I went on a podcast once; it didn’t do anything for my business.” Most business people who fail to get any benefit from podcast guesting did nothing with it once their episode dropped. You need to have a strategic plan for how you are going to leverage your episodes — one that showcases content, now and in the future. Someone has just created some of the most valuable content you could ever want for your marketing. Third party endorsement
PODCAST AUDIENCE IN NUMBERS IN 2021
57%
of Americans declared they have listened to podcasts.
41%
declared they have listened to podcasts over the past month.
Source: Statista
positioning you as the go-to expert in your field. You are the star of that production; get all the advantage out of it that you can. While it behooves the podcast to promote your episode, by next week, you are no longer their promotional priority. You are the one who needs to build the momentum of your episode, to make it work for you and pay dividends into the future.
Doing It Right You need to think of your podcast appearances like promotional public speaking — the same as making a radio or TV appearance, or speaking from the stage. Similar to those opportunities, your success requires planning, strategy and preparation. This is doubly true for podcast appearances; for better or worse, that content will be
available on every audio platform and readily found for years to come. Getting on the right podcasts with the right hosts, takes time and research. Knowing exactly what you need to say to articulate your brand story via the unpredictable questions and topic shifts of the interview format will take preparation. Knowing how to co-promote and leverage each episode you are featured in for maximum impact for you and your business takes experience. None of that happens by accident. There is a strategic process to making podcast-guesting work for your business. Done right, what you get for your effort is authoritative, high-quality interview content positioning you as the go-to expert, all produced, packaged and promoted for you, cost-free, to target audiences you could never access yourself. That podcast content can be repurposed into myriad marketing pieces, from blog articles to audiograms to shorter posts to e-books. Using it prominently on your website or on your speaker one-sheet, your podcast appearances can be your stepping stone to ever bigger media opportunities. All for only a couple hours of your time.
September Smith is a podcast host, speaker, digital business consultant and podcast-guesting evangelist whose mentorship and coaching helps professionals establish their authority and rise above the noise.
Stay ahead of your competition in the ever-changing, digital world. From the Metaverse to a cookie-less landscape, from artificial intelligent Google Ad bidding to content no longer being king. Call us today and let us show you how to bring your digital marketing into the future.
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DOUGLAS 45
GROWING COMMUNITY Karen Hira, executive director of Victoria Immigrant Refugee Centre Society (VIRCS), is doing “the kind of work that feeds her soul.” Hira, who is also executive director of the Oasis Society for Spiritual Health of Victoria, an Indigenous non-profit, stepped into her new role in September. “I was connected to VIRCS for a long time. I did my practicum here,” says Hira. “It’s like a family to me. People are very invested in the work that they’re doing. They care a lot about the communities that they’re supporting.” What are some of the services that VIRCS offers?
It’s the only centre that really provides wraparound support. So they’ll take a look at the whole needs of the person, and then they’ll provide an individualized and holistic plan for that person or for that family. There’s a lot of firsts with this organization. A lot of first women’s programming and employment programs. Right now, our youth program is for black, Indigenous and people of colour. We’re about to open the first traumainformed daycare in Canada. Generally, it’s a hub for people to go to, whether you’re a newcomer or an immigrant, a person of colour. It’s a unique space in this city.
You started in September. What are you focusing on in your role?
It’s a relatively large organization, and a lot of the programs have been functioning in a silo. The main thing that I’ve been trying to do is develop a cohesive brand. Social media was a big piece. We redid our website [and] put online forms on there. It seems to be easier for people to access — bringing that life back into it and bringing that cohesiveness. We leverage resources across programs, but we are one family — really bringing that kind of message to the community and to each other.
VIRCS shares a building with the Oasis Society for Spiritual Health in Victoria and Family Services of Greater Victoria. In what ways do you collaborate?
The hub model works really well because, for instance, how often would Indigenous people get to engage with newcomers and vice versa? It’s important because we don’t want newcomers coming to Canada and picking up stereotypes, for example, and discrimination towards Indigenous people. We would also like them to learn about Indigenous ways. With Family Services, we share a lot of clients. It builds better understanding of what the needs are of people because it’s [multiple] perspectives. 46 DOUGLAS
MICHELLE PROCTOR
POINT OF VIEW
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