All posts by Francella Fiallos

Unsightly property: what does that even mean?

DigiAssignmentFour
Share

The Halifax Regional Municipality receives around 450,000 calls on average per year.

Calls and complaints about public transit, snow removal, and illegally parked cars were among the most popular.

However, there is one category of phone call that some people find contentious.

There were 2442 calls made to the city about unsightly properties. Some people whose homes have been the subject of these calls view the complaint-driven process as a system based on “snitching” and “tattle tales.”

But what exactly constitutes as unsightly property? What does the complaint process look like?

This quick video will explain it all to you.

Calls about unsightly property promote a ‘tattle tale mentality’

InvestigativeAssignmentFour
Share

Halifax Regional Municipality received over 2000 calls in 2015 complaining about properties with unkempt lawns and overflowing garbage, but one resident feels that the complaint process is built on a system of “snitching.”

According to records previously released under freedom of information legislation, residents called the city 415,290 times in 2015.

Jim Creelman was the subject of one of those calls.

The reason? His house on Montague Road in Loon Lake.

Creelman’s home was one of the 2442 complaints Haligonians had about unsightly properties last year.

Unsightly property is defined as any building, usually a house, that is partly destroyed, decayed, or deteriorated. The building in question clashes with the character of a neighbourhood or the wellbeing of nearby residents, said Halifax Regional Municipality public affairs officer Adam Richardson.

Watch the video below for an explainer on unsightly property and how the complaint-process works.

The information to make this data visualization was from previously released records under the freedom of information laws. As you can see, the number of calls have mostly been consistent. 

‘Snitch mentality’ at the heart of complaint-driven process

A self-admitted hoarder and owner of a small snow removal business, Creelman says he “collects stuff” and can’t always get around to cleaning it up.

Still, that doesn’t justify the whole process of making a complaint on his home, he says.

First, he says “a rookie officer” who wasn’t flexible with the rules came by to inspect his property. Then, the officer’s supervisor was too involved with his case, something that Creelman says is “not normal.”

Creelman managed to get an extension on clean-up time from the city council committee responsible for granting appeals.

But when he spoke to the committee in September 2015, Creelman did not shy away from discussing his true feelings on calls made about unsightly properties.

“It promotes a snitch mentality,” he said.

Past action, results in the future?

Nancy Lewis, who lives in the North End of Halifax, couldn’t agree more.

In 2009-2010, Lewis started a petition to change the complaint-driven system for inspecting unsightly properties.

She said that her house on North Street has been the subject of calls in the past, but not anymore.

Even though she admits her house needed a paint job, it was still “much better looking” than the rest of the homes on her street that weren’t the subject of complaints at all.

She suspects the calls came from contractors who were painting nearby houses.

Creelman, on the other hand, isn’t sure who made the call since all complaints are anonymous. However, his lawyer suggested he make a freedom of information request to find out.

Lewis thinks it’s a waste of time for bylaw officers to inspect every single complaint that comes their way, especially since they’re mostly frivolous.

She points to the latest issue faced by one of her neighbours as an example.

“She puts one extra garbage bag out and the city is running back and forth,” she said.

Her petition wasn’t much of a success outside her neighbourhood, but it managed to catch the attention of Brenden Sommerhalder, who is running to represent the north end in the upcoming municipal election.

The former director of marketing for the Downtown Business Commission says that complaints about properties can be used as a “civic weapon” by feuding neighbours.

If elected, he says he would like to investigate the issue seriously and assess whether there are suitable alternatives to the complaint-driven process.

For Creelman, the best alternative would be if neighbours simply talked to each other about their concerns instead of going to the city.

That way, he would “feel less harassed.”

But for now, he says he is going to clean up his act — literally.

“I’m out of step with (the city)” he said. “I don’t blame them.”

‘Things are starting to recover:’ For residents, Digby, NS is a different town than what 2011 census suggested

DigiAssignmentThree
Share
Digby Harbour, credit: Wikipedia Commons
Digby Harbour, credit: Wikipedia Commons

The Chief Administrative Officer for Digby, Nova Scotia Tom Ossinger has seen his home town through it all.

From its heyday as a major producer of scallops to the lull in the fishing industry during the late 2000s to now, in what he hopes is the start of a new beginning for Digby.

“Things are starting to recover,” he said. “I think there are going to be more jobs for the fishing industry.”

As one of the major counties in the Annapolis Basin, Digby, Nova Scotia has a median income of $19,814, according to the 2011 national household survey.

The national median total income is $28,018.

During the time of the survey, Ossinger said, the economic force of the town ground to a halt after two fishing plants closed down.

Ossinger said that he saw a lot of people taking advantage of food banks and thrift stores.

Residents, including Corinne Warner, kept their heads up and even began to look forward to afternoons spent at Frenchy’s thrift store.

“I shop there because it’s a fun place to go,” she said. “So if anyone in the area tells you they shop there, it is not because they are poor.”

The rest of the Annapolis Basin fares better than Digby in terms of median total income. Neighbouring Clare, for example, has a median total income of $23,623 while Yarmouth right below it is at $21,421.

This map illustrates the median total income of the different subdivisions in Nova Scotia. The white areas of the map are either very low median total incomes or areas in which there was a gap in the data. The majority of Nova Scotian subdivisions are in the third tier of $20,047 to $26,730. Digby is in the second tier and has the lowest median total income in the Annapolis Basin. Zoom in to see Digby in the map. 

Even if there were hardships in Digby, nobody ever talked about it, Ossinger said.

“We’re just trying to do the best we can.”

Part of the reason for Digby’s low income is the amount of seniors that live in the area who rely on fixed incomes such as retirement funds and pension.

Digby’s elderly residents make up approximately 20 per cent of the town’s population, compared to the national percentage of 15 per cent, according to the 2011 national household survey.

Young people also leave Digby to pursue other opportunities outside the fishing industry and retail work.

In Digby, there are only 575 people aged 20 to 29. That’s a little less than half the population of residents in their 60s, which is 1190.

In order to help the poorest residents make ends meet, the town offers low-income rebates to people over 18 years old.

Around 2010-2011, Ossinger said council voted to increase the rebate from $225 to $250 in order to “relive the stress on property taxes” which used to swallow the $225 whole, leaving residents without money to pay for groceries.

As for the rest of the population, the chief administrative officer for Digby said he began to notice an alarming trend when it came to looking for work in the service industry.

“They’re very selective of the jobs out there,” he said. “They think the job is beneath them.”

Ossinger recounted one story he heard a little while ago about a single mother who would rather live on social assistance than work because most of her wages would go toward paying for babysitters while she was on the job.

The 2011 national household survey was conducted during a lull in the fishing industry in Digby, NS. As Tom Ossinger suggests, the high senior population of Digby is one of the factors of the low median total income for individuals. 

 

 

But things are different now. Things are starting to look up.

“You’re going to see that median income rise, there are a lot of people applying for work,” Ossinger said.

Two fishing plants, NeoFisheries and Nautical Seafoods, have announced funding into Digby’s scallop production facilities in February 2016.

Investment in scallop production has a ripple effect on other industries in the town, such as tourism and retail, given its importance to Digby’s local character. However, young people may still find it tough to stay in Digby.

“Friends of my children are having trouble finding a steady job,” Warner said. “But I know of many places that are hiring.”

Folks who live in Digby have seen their share of ups and downs, but the general attitude of the residents has unwavered since Warner arrived in the area 30 years ago from Ontario.

“The attitudes of the people I know are that you have to make your own success,” she said. “No one is responsible for that except yourself.”

Former Harmony House worker still haunted by debt a year after arbitrator’s ruling

InvestigativeAssignmentTwo
Share

Even though she has worked all her life, Dawn Doyle now visits the food bank twice a month.

She says 2015 was a devastating year for her.

“We have nothing,” she said on her sister’s phone. Her own phone has since been disconnected after failing to pay the bills.

Doyle was one of six employees for Harmony House for Girls, a home for troubled youth in Hilden, NS.

She worked there for ten years before it shut down in 2014.

But she isn’t sad to see it go.

During her time at Harmony House, Doyle and her five coworkers were members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, local 4782. Harmony House and its owner, Rorie Digault, did not pay retroactive wages and RRSP contributions to the employees from 2009 to 2011.

The workers filed grievances in 2013 and a hearing was held in July 2015.

After an agonizing wait, Doyle and her co-workers won the decision and were awarded over $212,000 in back pay, severance packages, RRSP contributions, and aggravated damages while the union were awarded their dues.

This pie chart below illustrates a breakdown of the claims made by the six employees and the union.

Still, winning a decision and getting paid are two different things, according to lawyer Derek Brett who was not involved in the case.

“The process doesn’t always work out,” he said.

One year later, Doyle is living proof of that.

‘This is a matter between the employees…and their employer,” said Department of Community Services

The provincial government funded Harmony House while Doyle was still an employee.

From 2009 to 2011, the government had even given Harmony House a surplus of funds in order to compensate for the retroactive pay to the employees.

But when the province took a closer look into the home’s finances only to find malfeasance, it immediately stopped funding in 2014.

Click the timeline to see how the case unfolded throughout the years, from suspicions in 2009 to the present day. Since then, the Department of Community Services, which oversaw Harmony House, stated that the government has no role in this dispute anymore.

“This is a matter between the employees, the union, and their employer, which is Harmony House, not the Department of Community Services,” said media relations advisor for Department of Community Services Heather Fairbairn in an email statement.

In the 2015 decision, arbitrator George Filliter recommended the government investigate  Harmony House’s finances.

However, this has not happened yet.

“No one (from the government) has spoken to us about the wrongdoing that has been done,” said union representative Grant Dart.

Doyle equally blames the government over what has happened to her over the past year.

“I’m down-hearted because no one is stepping forward,” she said.

This is why, despite her financial troubles, she refuses to take welfare. The government already owes her money, so there is no sense in asking for some, she said.

The next step

More than anything, Doyle would like to see a lawyer so that the province can hold her former employer accountable.

“We would like to see the government prosecute (Digault).” Contact information for Digault could not be found for this story.

Instead of battling this out in court, Brett believes that it may be more effective to use the ballot.  

“If the (government) is not being responsive, then you go to the elected,” he said.

Dart says that the union has tried to pressure MLAs and MPs to do something.

Right now, the only option is just to wait.

Hear more about what Dart has to say about the future of this case by clicking on this Soundcloud link. “It’s our hope that we try to make some right in this process,” he said.

Doyle is tired of people telling her how wrong this whole situation was.

She wants action, but the spectre of her debts and the unfairness of their cause still hang over her day after day.

“There is no way I’m ever going to recover from this.”

Read the decision made by the arbitrator granting the award to the employees and union. 

The saga at Darlington nuclear plant: a timeline

DigiAssignmentTwo
Share

The Environmental Law Association says it may take the Canadian government to federal court once again due to the content of an anonymous letter sent to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The letter, which was also sent to Greenpeace Canada and the Environmental Law Association weeks ago, expresses concern that nuclear safety commissioners “do not receive sufficient information to make balanced judgments” when granting licenses to create nuclear plants.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is supposed to act as a watchdog on the nuclear power industry.

But after the Harper government replaced then-president Linda Keen with Michael Binder in 2008, critics say that the commission is more like a lapdog, hastily approving licenses without thorough environmental assessments for the sake of bolstering nuclear power.

The letter highlighted Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Bowmanville, Ont., whose construction license has been at the centre of many disputes between environmental groups and the government.

“The cases are very specific,” said executive director of the Environmental Law Association Theresa McClenaghan. “The letter could only be from someone who is familiar with everything.”

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is now conducting an investigation into the allegations made in the letter.

“As an independent agency, it is up to (the commission) to create specific plans to analyze the recommendations in this letter and take action,” said Department of Natural Resources media relations officer Tania Carreira Pereira.

But the Environmental Law Association could take it one step further by asking the federal court to revoke the construction license for the Darlington nuclear power plant.

Darlington and court challenges: a timeline

Click through the timeline below to see the story of Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, one of the cases highlighted in the letter, and the legal disputes between environmental groups and the government.

Taking immediate action

In the meantime, the commission will hold a public hearing on Aug. 17-18 in Ottawa about the nuclear safety assessments conducted in 2015.

Greenpeace will be there to present its comments on the annual oversight report prepared by the commission. Senior Energy Analyst with Greenpeace Canada Shawn-Patrick Stensil also provided the letter as an annex to the oversight report to make sure that everyone gets a look.

“I did this because the (oversight) report has been provided to Binder — and management,” he said in an email interview. “But not the independent commissioners.”

Commission members develop regulations under the direction of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act as well as function as a quasi-judicial administrative body for licensing decisions.

Greenpeace, the Environmental Law Association, and other groups wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in March urging for a review of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act “in light of the lack of institutional independence of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.”

The letter may hopefully hasten this process, Stensil said.

“The government originally brushed us off but it seems there was a crack.”

Quebec-based pharmaceutical company facing uncertain future

InvestigativeAssignmentOne
Share

A subsidiary pharmaceutical company based in Laval, Que. may not be able to continue operating if spending on research outpaces its assets, according to interim financial statements released July 11.

Acasti Pharma Inc., specializes in developing and selling krill-based products, such as medical food and over-the-counter drugs, to treat cardiovascular disease.

The company acquired an intellectual property license to study and conduct clinical trials in 2008 by its parent company, Neptune Technologies and Bioressources.

As a subsidiary, Acasti is supposed to take on the heavy lifting when it comes to research and development.

But it may be taking on more than it can carry.

“It’s a pretty hard slog,” said associate professor at University of Toronto pharmacy school Dr. Paul Grootendorst. “They could be facing some setbacks.”

In its 2015 statements, Acasti stated that the corporation’s “expected level of expenses in the research and development phase of its drug candidate significantly exceed current assets.”

Signs of trouble found in 2015

The reason for the increase in research is due to trials and re-trials for a new drug candidate supposed to help treat plaque buildups in the arteries.

Acasti also re-categorized expenses into research that were previously under general and administrative expenses.

Acasti did this to “reflect more appropriately the way in which economic benefits are derived from these expenses,” according to its 2016 interim statements.

Of course, it’s common for subsidiaries to spend significantly for research and development. 

“There is an increasing division of labour (between parent and subsidiary),” Grootendorst said. “You partner with a small company, and you acquire the assets.”

Part of Acasti’s problems is that it’s not taking in enough revenue and negative cash flow.

There was an 85 per cent decrease in revenue of sales from 2014 to 2015. Now in 2016, there was a 78 per cent decrease over the span of three months – from $5,154 in February to $2,888 in May.

As for its cash flow, the company itself says in its 2015 statements that it has “incurred significant operating losses and negative cash flows from operations since its inception.”

And even 2013

Acasti’s stocks took a huge plunge in 2013 around the time the company and its parent announced it would end agreements with many US pharmaceutical firms that also specialize in krill-based products.

Watch Acasti’s stock ticker in real time.

Acasti’s stocks by francellafiallos on TradingView.com

Source: tradingview.com

Watch the video below to learn how subsidiary pharmaceutical companies work. Looking ahead

Still, the company has hopes that it will find the money it needs to remain in business.

“(Acasti) will establish strategic alliances and raise the necessary capital and make sales,” according to the 2016 statements.

Traditionally, raising more funds as a subsidiary would consist of more support from the parent company or funding from a venture capitalist.

Another larger company may take in the subsidiary and start dishing out milestone payments.

Milestone payments are paid by the parent company when the subsidiary reaches a critical goal in research.

The company also hopes to acquire approval for their products by the US Food and Drug Administration in addition to expanding to other markets.

Acasti and its parent Neptune formed a partnership with a US company in 2009 which ultimately resulted in a legal dispute over a patent that ended in Acasti and Neptune’s favour.

But internally, Acasti is trying to make some changes.

Two new members were elected to the board of directors at Acasti’s annual general meeting on July 15.

The new fiscal year will now end at the end of March instead of the end of February in order to be better aligned with industry standards.

Read the 2015 financial statements and the 2016 interim statements from Acasti below.



Cases of identity fraud expected to grow in 2015, 2016

DigiAssignmentOne
Share

Despite taking a dip in 2013-2014, incidents of identity fraud in Halifax and the rest of Nova Scotia may go up again due to a spate of government breaches.

However, figures from Statistics Canada show that cases of identity fraud are increasing across the country.

In 2010, there were 6,188 incidents of identity fraud. Four years later, there were 10,606 — a 71 per cent increase.

Identity fraud is the unauthorized use of personal information in order to open bank accounts and credit lines, potentially to fund more criminal activities. Identity theft refers to the preparatory work of acquiring someone else’s personal information without their consent.

To learn more about identity fraud, watch the video below.

Halifax and the rest of Nova Scotia are not following this national trend, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t reason for concern.

They both had a spike in cases in 2012 which can be linked to a similar increase in reporting identity fraud to the police. According to a Statistics Canada report in 2012, there was a five per cent increase from 2011 of reporting identity fraud cases to the authorities.

As for the decrease in 2013 and 2014, two high-profile cases as well as greater awareness campaigns from the Nova Scotia RCMP at the time may have made citizens more vigilant when it comes to protecting their personal information.

But what about 2015? Looking at data regarding government breaches may hold the answer.

This past year, there were 5,670 privacy breaches within the federal government, most of them coming from the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA).

Like identity fraud, the number of privacy breaches within the government is growing. There were 5,237 privacy breaches in 2014 and 3,763 breaches in 2013, according to figures provided to Parliament.

With sensitive financial information disclosed, people are then vulnerable to criminals looking to extort money.

“Everybody is vulnerable,” said senior fraud specialist with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre Daniel Williams. “There isn’t a database that can’t be hacked. Database breaches are being reported almost daily.”

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) is the central body that handles information related to mass marketing fraud for consumers, businesses, government, and law enforcement.

Specialists like Williams with CAFC will spend a significant amount of time and resources investigating the connection between privacy breaches and identity fraud. “Scamming, phishing emails will go out,” Williams said. “You get a refund from CRA but it’s going to the bad guys and what they really want is your credit card information.”

Phishing refers to using the likeness of a trustworthy institution to acquire personal information without authorization.

In Nova Scotia alone, there were likely around “10 significant privacy breaches in 2015 and possibly as many as 154 breaches in total,” according to the 2015 Annual Report from the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner.

While the Halifax Regional Police (HRP) could not provide numbers of identity fraud incidents in 2015-2016, it still tries its best to publicize incidents of identity fraud to keep citizens aware.

“We put out advisories to the public with respect to the different scams going on,” said Const. Dianne Woodworth. “Almost as soon as we hear about it, we put it out there.”

This involves using social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter to notify citizens as well as contacting the media as soon as possible.

Even though the annual report from CAFC has yet to be released, Williams said that the numbers for identity fraud for 2015 as well as 2016 are consistent with growth from years past. “We usually end up seeing the same type of numbers,” he said. “We may start to see more numbers come in.” 

Read the 2015 Annual Report by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Nova Scotia



OIPC-2015-2016-Annual-Report (Text)