All posts by Brea Elford

Transportation links needed to B.C.’s Great Bear Rain Forest

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Data obtained from the 2015 British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure briefing notes point to financial losses as the primary reason the provincial government changed the Discovery Coast ferry service.  

This ferry service is the primary transportation link to the coastal region of the province and the Great Bear Rain Forest, one of the most bio-diverse regions and an area that sees tourists from all over the world. 

But Petrus Rykes, president of the West Chilcotin Tourism Association, claims the numbers the ministry used as justification for their decision are “complete bogus.”

In briefing notes obtained from the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry refers to a loss of $7 million from 2012/2013 as a primary reason for changing the ferry service.

BC Ferries 2015/2016 Budget Increase, page 1 (p. 134)
This is the first of two pages which details the governments decision to alter the Discovery Route ferry service - an international tourism draw that provides a transportation link from Port Hardy on Vancouver Island to Bella Coola, a gateway to the Great Bear Rain Forest.
View entire document on DocumentCloud
BC Ferries 2015/2016 Budget Increase, page 1 (p. 134)
This is the first of two pages which details the governments decision to alter the Discovery Route ferry service - an international tourism draw that provides a transportation link from Port Hardy on Vancouver Island to Bella Coola, a gateway to the Great Bear Rain Forest.
View entire document on DocumentCloud

Rykes, though, says that $7 million is inaccurately represented.

In a 2014 report, the West Chilcotin Tourism Association accused the government of “misleading the public by providing inaccurate financial information about the operation of Route 40.”

According to Rykes, the $7 million includes the refurbishing cost of a previously operational ferry- the Queen of Chilliwack – which was only used on Route 40 (the Discovery Route) for 13 weeks out of the year.  It was used on other routes the remainder of the year.

“They are stacking the figures to make it look like (the route) had lost that much,” said Rykes.

Rykes said the government used $15 million of taxpayers money to fix up the Chilliwack, even though they had intended to sell the vessel all along.

They fixed it up and then sold it to Fiji for one million dollars without telling anyone, he said.

Rykes added it is important to note Route 40 is actually two different routes, which the government fails to distinguish in their numbers: the larger vessel which operates from Port Hardy to Bella Coola, and the smaller vessel that docks at the smaller, native villages further inland.

He said the government cut the route making 75 per cent of the profits – the primary route from Port Hardy to Bella Coola – and kept the smaller route that incurred the majority of the losses. The reason, he said, was by keeping the route that “went to the native villages, that was the only way (the government) could keep getting their subsidies.”

But the tourism area and ferry services only see one per cent of the subsidies, according to Rykes. Instead, he said, the money is going to subsidize bureaucrats who have houses on the island.

“A logical business would get rid of the money losing parts,” said Rykes. “But they did totally the opposite. And they tried to bamboozle the public on this.”

A BC Discovery Route ferry service is still operational (which now replaces the Queen of Chiliwack) but it requires the tourists to switch ferries to the Nimpkish – a 16- car ferry that many say is not up to tourism standards.

For Pat Corbett, chair of the Cariboo Chilcotin Tourism Association, the Nimpkish is not an adequate solution. 

“This is an open vessel,” he said, “so while you are sitting on the ferry the water floods right over your vehicle.”

“You are sitting on that flipping thing for nine hours.  It’s scary if you are in rough seas.”

BC Ferries has plans to launch a new passenger-vehicle vessel for the 2019 season.

 

FOR JIM:

Access to Information Request information:

1) Municipal Request: (this is a screen shot from the mail sent to my home in Edmonton- I had not yet paid the fees)

Letter from the city of Edmonton
Letter from the city of Edmonton

 

 

 

 

 

(The above link is a document cloud of my Edmonton request.)

2) Provincial Requests:  I have included a document cloud of my provincial request form I filed.

 

3) Federal Request: Because I filed to the Health department, I was able to file my federal request online, so I have no copy of a filled out request form.  I have included a receipt indicating I did file and (unfortunately) pay for this request.

This is what I said in my request (not exactly word-for-word since I can’t remember ):  I am looking for data, correspondence, emails and complaints relating to chiropractic negligence.  I do not need names, I do need all instances of complaints filed and complaints received and processed.  As this is in the public interest, I ask that all fees be waved.

Federal request confirmation
Federal request confirmation

 

 

 

 

 

4) Previously filed request:

(I have included a screen shot of the email confirmation.)

Already filed request
Already filed request

Espresso drinkers rejoice: Gourmet coffee is here to stay

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From a triple-shot espresso to a slow roast, drip coffee made from beans cultivated high up in the Colombian mountains, a social culture surrounding coffee has emerged.

And with that, an increase of coffee imports.

From 2011 to 2015, coffee imports into Canada have gone up nine per cent to nearly $1.6 billion, according to the government of Canada’s trade data.

 

 

Dylan Gordon, an organic food advocate and PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, said that although population increase accounts for a portion of the nine per cent, it is not all of it.

A “boutique” experience 

Gordon said people are no longer drinking coffee simply out of necessity; rather for a gourmet, “boutique” experience.  People are interested in what they are drinking and where it is coming from, which can explain the rise in coffee imports.

For Gordon, chains like Starbucks continue to “increase penetration” into the gourmet coffee market by adding more outlets to the suburbs and rural markets.

Fair Trade coffee market (p. 8)
In theory, adding a minimum price to Fair Trade coffee sold reduces the risk to farmers in developing countries, where a majority of beans are farmed. But, certifying and producing a product does not guarantee that buyers will purchase it as Fair Trade and provide the benefits, including minimum purchase price.
View entire document on DocumentCloud

Another explanation, he added, is with the desire for quality, fresh product, there is a faster turnover of inventory.  And in order to keep up with this upscale coffee trend, waste output has increased, raising the overall demand for cultivated beans.

Coffee education

Pietro Comino, operations manager at Francesco’s Coffee Company in Ottawa, said there has been a “massive consumer education on a wholesale level” when it comes to what coffee consumers are drinking.

“Big chains like Starbucks have come in and reshaped the landscape for coffee in North America,” said Comino. “Now everyone drinks espresso.”

“Not roasted, not decaffeinated” coffee is the most common type of coffee imported into Canada. By importing this type of product, buyers allows roasteries across Canada to roast and brew their own blends of coffee.

The biggest amount came from Colombia, while the country with the largest percent increase was the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at nearly 200,000 per cent.

Comino buys a lot of his coffee beans from Burundi, a country that showed a 69 per cent increase over the same five-year time period.  He said the coffee he buys from Burundi is not Fair Trade.

What is Fair Trade?

For many consumers, a big component in the gourmet coffee experience is drinking product that is labelled organic, or Fair Trade.

According to Comino, Fair Trade plantations are often bigger, more complex operations because it takes more money and effort to certify the product and the plantation. This means Fair Trade coffee will not only sell at a higher price – explaining the increase in coffee imports – but Fair Trade farms will put small farms out of business, which can have negative effects on local communities.

The small, family-run plantations –   micro lots –  that farm quality product aren’t always certified Fair Trade, said Comino. “But to not purchase from them” because they are not Fair Trade “means you are harming them.”

Fair Trade Requirements (p. 6)
Fair Trade is in place to improve the lives of workers in developing countries. Some of the requirements in place for Fair Trade certification include "Environment", meaning there can be no harsh chemicals and GMOs used in the farming process. The other five requirements are detailed in this document.
View entire document on DocumentCloud

For Comino, the most important aspect of the coffee trade is to ensure the product you are buying and selling is actually what it claims to be.  Accurately presenting your product is a necessary social commitment that gives the consumer the choice to engage as well, he added.

“That is a big deal,” said Comino. And that way, “the money does go back to the farmers, and it does make a difference.”

Comino said the shift in the coffee industry is “interesting” because with more Fair Trade coffee sold there are more people caring about better coffee.

“Fifteen or 20 years ago, Maxwell House was king,” said Comino. “You just see less and less of that.”

 

 

Didanosine: The HIV drug that gave hope and gave life

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When Grant Cobb was first diagnosed with HIV, the doctors gave him five years to live.

And this past year he celebrated his fifty-second birthday.

Cobb said that is thanks to the HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) medication Didanosine, or DDI, which was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration on October 9, 1991.

“It was a dire situation 25 years ago,” said Cobb, a manager with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa and a long time survivor of the virus.

“We were dying.”

The treatment of HIV in Canada has evolved tremendously since the FDA approved the use of Didanosine in 1991.
The treatment of HIV in Canada has evolved tremendously since the FDA approved the use of Didanosine in 1991.

Scott Allen, a doctor in Alberta, said DDI works by blocking the HIV infected cells in the body so the virus can’t replicate.  It blocks the enzyme that creates the virus, said Allen.

Cobb said Didanosine was part of the first drug cocktail he took.  He remembered dealing with side effects that were “almost worse” than the symptoms from the virus.

“Your options were to take the pill and live with the side effects, or die,” said Cobb.

Dr. Phillip Berger is an associate professor at the University of Toronto. He said the doses for DDI in the early days were extreme and it was “not an easy drug to take”, with lots of lasting gastrointestinal and neurological effects.

But, he added, it gave people “some additional hope.”

“They were just pumping the drug into our bodies, trying to get to the virus,” said Cobb.

He added even though the drugs and the doses have changed dramatically over the years, older survivors of the virus who took DDI are still suffering the side effects.

Known by members of the community as the “buffalo hump,” DDI caused lipodystrophy; it took fat from parts of the body, like the face or legs, and deposited it elsewhere, most commonly on the neck or the stomach.

You can tell by looking at them if HIV survivors were on the drug, said Cobb.

Nowadays, it’s a combination of many medications- known as ART, or Antiretroviral Therapy- that is used to treat the infection.

Like its antiretroviral predecessor, ART functions by reducing the amount of HIV in the body, giving an HIV positive body the same chance as a healthy body to fight infections. It is the recommended treatment for all people today with HIV, regardless of how long they have had the virus or how severe their symptoms.

But the side effects of today’s ART, compared to that of Didanosine when it was first used 25 years ago, are drastically different.

Taking your drugs now is much less disruptive, said Cobb. “I haven’t thrown up from medication in almost a decade.”

He said it is hard to remember to take the medication because he doesn’t feel ill and the drugs don’t make him ill.

“I have to remember the cocktails are what’s keeping me alive!”

And as for a cure?  Cobb is certain there will not be one in his lifetime.  According to Cobb, pharmaceutical companies are making too much money from medication for them to make an HIV cure a priority.

Cobb said there are four thousand people living with HIV in Ottawa, and each one of them pays approximately three thousand dollars a month for medication.

“They are not in a hurry to find a cure,” he said.

But Cobb added if people are diagnosed early, their life expectancy “is the same, if not just a bit less,” than before they were diagnosed. He credits that to the medication and research of Didanosine.

“I wasn’t expected to make it to thirty-seven,” said Cobb.

“Didanosine, it changed the world we were living in.”

“We were living.”

Click here for a timeline of the HIV virus: http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/ss/slideshow-aids-retrospective   

 

 

 

Documentation information for Jim:

  • The link below is a timeline – in pictures- of the HIV virus that I got from webmd. It helped me contextualize the virus and gave me key facts and important dates that I did not know of beforeI started working on this story.

 

http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/ss/slideshow-aids-retrospective

 

  • This link is from an article that was recently written by CTV about a new HIV treatment drug. Although this article isn’t directly related to Didanosine, it furthered what people were telling me about the evolution of HIV treatment since 1991 and the approval of DDI.

 

http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/recently-approved-hiv-treatment-in-canada-offers-new-hope-for-patients-1.1109416

 

Canada’s largest telecommunications company reinvesting in their cable sector

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By Brea Elford

Rogers Communications is reinvesting in its cable sector, according to their most recent financial statement.
Rogers Communications is reinvesting in its cable sector, according to their most recent financial statement.

Despite losing four per cent of their television subscribers from 2014 to 2015, Canada’s largest telecommunications company saw an increase in their cable sector, according to their third quarter financial statement.

Echoing a national trend in technology, in the cable sector, the television and telephone networks are slowing while the wireless network shows an increase in profit. Yet Rogers Communications is continuing to put resources into their television stream, which begs the question: are they pouring good money after bad?

Pier Morgan, a senior financial analyst, said because Rogers has since increased their Free Cash Flow- that is, the money they have left to spend after paying off their expenditures- by 20 per cent, they are well positioned as an organisation and “can run very easily.”

 

 

He said since “they won’t go broke any time soon,” Rogers can afford to take more risks in terms of where they put their resources. With a larger cash flow, they can reinvest back into their company and produce opportunities that will in turn increase the shareholder value.

A reinvestment 

One of the ways Rogers is using some of their cash flow in 2016 is with the launch of the new Rogers 4K TV Plan, the highest quality streaming service currently available to viewers. Simply put, it is a high definition streaming service with a slightly higher pixel rate, which, according to Rogers, will increase the image quality and improve the viewers’ watching experience.

But Morgan says that television and home phones are a dying breed, being propped up by cell phones and the internet. He adds that although the company has increased its revenue over the last quarter from its TV advertising, “less people are using Rogers TV, so how long can that continue to be the case?”

Indeed, since this time last year, Rogers has lost six per cent of their television subscribers and four per cent of their telephone users.

Dave Barnard, an accountant and portfolio manager with RBC Dominion Securities Inc., said since Rogers has been around for a long time, there are “lots of things making money for them, and a lot of big things they can sell.”

But he questions whether or not they have made the right decision.

“They are not always going to get it right,” he says.

Is it sustainable?

Barnard likens the current Rogers business plan to eating out at a restaurant. “You want a high value for your meal, but a 30, 40, 50 dollar plate means more profit for the restaurant,” he says.

A large company like Rogers, he adds, is in a better position to absorb some of the initial consumer costs that go along with a launching a program, which helps in ensuring its long term success rate.


Rogers Communications Inc. Toronto Stock Exchange by breaelford on TradingView.com

 

Jack Carr is an economics professor at the University of Toronto who said even though things are more uncertain in this economy, Rogers will likely be fine.

“It’s hard to live in the city and not use some of their services,” he says.

Rogers currently operates more than 50 radio stations, publishes over 40 well-known magazines, and owns the Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club and Rogers Centre, among many other significant holdings.

“There are lots of things making money for them,” Carr said. “A lot of big things they can sell.”

Although they were unable to be reached for comment, in a recent media release, Rogers said they are hoping to strengthen their cable proposition and “re-accelerate growth in a sustainable way.”

The fourth quarter numbers will be released early next month.