All posts by Jean Niyitanga

B.C.: Minimum prices of alcohol expected to stop increase in drinking

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The B.C. government expect to offset an increase in drinking caused by the implementation of the 2013 liquor policy review by introducing minimum prices starting May, 1.

The review called for more convenience and accessibility of alcohol. The government will allow the sale of alcohol in grocery stores and allow people to order alcohol from home. There is also the introduction of more happy hours and more wine tasting venues.

To counterbalance the effects of these recommendations, B.C. government will introduce minimum price in order to ensure that liquor with very low wholesale costs is not sold at prices that may encourage the abuse or overconsumption of alcohol.

“The impact of availability [of alcohol] on the population health should be offset by the implementation of recommended and accepted pricing measures,” according to a briefing note from the ministry of health obtained through access to information request.

From May 1, bars or restaurants will not be allowed to sell a 1 oz. of spirit, 5 oz. a glass of wine or 12 oz. sleeve of beer under three dollars.

Nicole Beneteau, Public Affairs Officer at the B.C. Ministry of Health, said the three dollars minimum price is consistent with levels recommended by health advocates and it is a middle ground between what alcohol industry groups recommended during the consultations on this change.

“As government modernizes liquor laws in B.C., it aims for a balance between increasing convenience and continuing to protect health and safety,” she said.

The government is also considering programs to help young people make informed choices about drinking. Alcohol Sense is a comprehensive suite of online resources aimed at providing parents with tools to guide and educate their children to make healthy decisions about alcohol through critical thinking and conversation.

There is also Healthy Minds/Healthy Campuses; a program that connects B.C.’s post-secondary campuses, with the goals of collaboratively promoting good mental health, reducing harmful substance use and improving supports for those who experience problems.

Despite these initiatives, some health advocates worry that when alcohol becomes more physically available; there is a high risk of over consumption.

Scott Macdonald, Assistant Director for Centre for Addictions Research at the University of  Victoria, said that from the last 15 years when B.C. government started to grant wholesale licences to private businesses and extending hours of operations, there was an increase in drinking alcohol.

B.C. Alcohol and other Drugs Project reported 188,000 hospital admissions due to alcohol between 2002 and 2011. Of these admissions, approximately 12,000 were children and teens.

“Price is the most important factor in terms of drinking. But we also know that other forms of accessibility to alcohol is related to increased drinking overall,” Macdonald said.

Alcohol generates about $ 1 billion in annual revenue for the B.C. government but its use also puts a significant burden on society and the economy through direct costs associated with the healthcare and criminal justice systems, according to the Ministry of Justice.

The research commissioned by the Ministry of Health showed that in 2002 the costs of alcohol-related harms exceeded the direct revenue by $ 65 million.

Gerald Thomas, director of alcohol policy at the ministry of health, said the province face the challenge of fulfilling two conflicts mandates.

“There is a conflict of interest between maintaining income from alcohol sale and at the same time having to address the public health and safety concerns,” he said. “It’s not a very strong policy but at least, we have it now.”

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List of documents associated with this assignment:

Briefing note to the minister of health regarding implementation of BC Liquor Review Policy
This is a briefing note to the minister of health indicating expected harms by the increased availability of alcohol recommended by the 2013 liquor policy review; and measures to offset them. Paragraph 5 on page 2 served as a starting point for my story. Without this document, I wouldn’t know how the BC government will deal with an increase in drinking caused by the easy accessibility of alcohol.

BC liquor policy review implementation table
This document retrieved from the website of the Ministry of Justice shows the progress in implementing the recommendations of the liquor policy review. Recommendation 17 assured me that I am not working on an old issue. Setting the minimum price is not yet finished.

Access to Information Request Ottawa
This ATI request was sent to the City of Ottawa by mail on March 14, 2016. I haven’t heard from them since then.

Access to Information Request Ontario
This ATI request was submitted to the ONTARIO Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing on March 14, 2016. The request was sent by mail and I haven’t heard from them since then.

Message confirming reception of ATI request to the federal level
This is a computer generated message I received after submitting my online request to the department of Employment and Social Development Canada asking for briefing notes to Minister Duclos, from November 04, 2015 to the present, regarding the implementation of the guaranteed income for all proposed by the Liberal Party during the campaign.

Correspondence regarding ATI request to the federal level
Three days after submitting my request to the Employment and Social Development Canada asking for briefing notes to Minister Duclos regarding the implementation of the guaranteed income policy, I received an email asking for clarification of my request. I responded immediately and I am still waiting to hear from them.

Message confirming reception of ATI request to the federal level (information already disclosed)
Confirmation of the access to information request addressed to the department of Employment and Social Development Canada asking for a list of all briefing notes to Minister Duclos for November 2015. The similar request had been made before under the request number A-2015-00945. On March 18, I received a mail containing a list of briefing notes but without the content of those briefing notes. I called the phone number on the letter to ask for the content of the briefing notes but none answered. I left a voicemail.

 

 

Ottawa: About 2,000 wrong parking tickets issued in two years

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If you feel you’ve been a constant victim of  wrong parking tickets, you’re not alone. About 2,000 people have complained about the same issue; according to the data of complaints received by the city of Ottawa in the last two years.

Aaron King is one of those victims. He was wrongly ticketed three times in space of fewer than two years. But by paying attention to the details on the tickets, he saved $55 by complaining to the city of Ottawa and getting the tickets waived.

In one of the incidents, he parked in front of his parents’ house in Orleans on Sunday afternoon. The sign there says no parking Sundays between 8:30 and 1:30 pm so he made sure that he parked after that time. However, he was surprised to find that he was ticketed just three minutes after parking.

“Generally, it was just very frustrating because I knew they were not valid, and then I had to find time in my busy week to go get them waived because of the negligence of the parking officers,” King said.

Most complaints about wrong parking tickets came from wards close to downtown. The top five wards are Somerset, Rideau-Vanier, Capital, Kitchissipi and College. The city of Ottawa says there are no other particular reasons behind except that those wards have more volume of traffic due to a big number of businesses and offices.

Source: City of Ottawa Open Data.

In another case, Aaron was driving his handicapped friend who had a parking permit for handicaps. He was ticketed for exceeding allowed time in a one hour zone downtown despite a handicap permit that allows parking whenever for four hours. Again, he was able to have his ticket waived after complaining to the city of Ottawa.

Very few people go to court to contest parking tickets because they are usually a small amount of money. Defence lawyer John Allan says he hasn’t received anyone seeking legal services related to parking tickets in about 1o years of his career.

The city of Ottawa recognizes the problem of wrong tickets and says usually officers indicate wrong infraction, wrong plate number or a wrong street. There are also rare cases where people complain because someone got a ticket and put it one someone else’s car.

However, the city of Ottawa doesn’t see this as a big problem and there are no special measures being considered to address the issue.

Beware of parking fines. (p. 1)
The city of Ottawa website shows parking infractions and associated fines. Follow the following link to view them all: http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/transportation-and-parking/parking/parking-infractions-and-associated-fines#P657_13239
View entire document on DocumentCloud
Beware of parking fines. (p. 1)
The city of Ottawa website shows parking infractions and associated fines. Follow the following link to view them all: http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/transportation-and-parking/parking/parking-infractions-and-associated-fines#P657_13239
View entire document on DocumentCloud

Troy Leeson, deputy chief of bylaw services in charge pf parking at the city of Ottawa says  wrong tickets issues in two years are relatively few compared to an overall number of about 1.2 million tickets issued in the same period. He advises people to approach the city whenever there they have good explanations to why they shouldn’t be ticketed.

“It’s a process that can weed out the ticket of an error was made, at the same time it gives an opportunity to somebody to exercise their rights to contest the charge they don’t agree with,” Troy said.

The 1991 Gulf War: The beginning of gender integration in the Canadian Forces

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Canada is a world leader in terms of the proportion of women in its military. With a 15 per cent rate, the Canadian Forces have more women in uniform compared to other NATO countries where the average rate is 10 percent, according to the National Defense.

This achievement can be traced back to the role women played during the 1991 gulf war when Canada joined the international coalition led by the US to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

Richard Gimblett who served as combat officer of the supply ship recalls the Jan. 02, 1991, when nearly a quarter of the company of his ship sailing in the Persian Gulf was women. “We were about to become the first Canadian Forces unit to have women in combat”, he said.

Retired navy Pte. Sylivia Vickers was on board of the supply ship, HMCS Protecteur. She thanks the government for allowing women to go on front line because they were able to prove that they can do the job despite being called on short notice.

“We didn’t know what would be our role over there but we had really good military leaders who put us right in the front line. My main concern was representing women well,” she said.

Chief Warrant Officer Dianne Maidment who had spent ten years in the military at that time remembers receiving a call in the middle of the night saying that she had been deployed to a country she had never been before.

“For me it was a fantastic experience. Honestly, when they said we were the first women it kind of registered. Oh really? I didn’t realize we were the first women to deploy into an active zone,” She said.

“There were a lot of emotions; there was a lot of anxiety and excitement to go with it. But honestly, I was happy to be part of what was happening because something good was going to come out if this,” Chief Warrant Officer Maidment said.

In the gulf war, women served in the air, naval and at headquarters with no report of incident relating to gender-mixed environment. In the years following the success of the “Operation Friction” the Forces saw an increased in the recruitment of women.

From few hundreds female soldiers in 1990’s, Canadian Forces today has more than 14,200 women; making 15 percent of all Canadian soldiers, according to the National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces website.

The increase of women in the Canadian Forces led to changes within the military including the design of equipment. Today, equipment such as combat boots and helmets, flak jackets and rucksacks are designed to be suitable for both men and women especially in terms of protection and comfort.

Today, women in the Canadian Army contribute to its external mission success because of various roles they play in place of men; according to Stéfanie von Hlatky and Christian Leuprecht in their article Women as professional soldiers: Canadian values on the front line.

They give example of Kosovo and Afghanistan where having a man search a woman at a checkpoint would be an inconceivable contravention of cultural norms in these societies.

Even though there have been challenges like recent sexual misconduct, Maidment is happy that women have grown to occupy many leadership positions within the Canadian Forces.

“There is no one day in 35 years that I have been serving that I regretted my decision to join the military and I honor each day I get an opportunity to do so, ” Maidment said.

 




 



Metro owes more than it has

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The biggest share of the major food and pharmaceutical distribution company in Quebec is owned by creditors not its shareholders, an analysis of the recent financial report reveals.

Despite increase in revenue experienced during since last year, the company continues to see its equity reducing compared to its liabilities. At the end the first quarter of 2016, Metro’s liabilities (what the company owes to external actors) stand at $3,008.3 million compared to $ 2,616.0 million in equity (what belongs to the company and its shareholders).

Metro’s Equity is decreasing at the rate of 1.6 percent

(To read the entire document, please click on the embedded image below)




Source:Metro Inc.

To date, Metro’s liability represents 53.5 percent of its total assets. At the end of last year it represented 50.7 percent while in 2014 it was at 49.2 percent. To put it simply, this means that the biggest share of Metro is now owned by its creditors instead of shareholders.

The increase in liabilities is attributed to increase of bank loans that the company has to pay until 2027 and increasing unpaid taxes; according to the financial statement contained in the company’s most recent financial report.

Even though major corporations tend to have a share of liabilities, it’s not safe to have a negative capital structure (difference between what belongs to shareholders and what it owes to external people) because if business goes slow the probability of bankruptcy increases; according to Ildebrando Lucas, a business professor at Algonquin College.

Even though Metro has been able to make profit out of loans, Lucas warns that there isn’t always a grantee that a company will continue to make money especially when it has to pay a lot of interests on long term loans and market conditions may change.

“In Canada things are tight [referring to the economy] and people may not buy as much as they used to. If such thing happens it affects severely companies with significant higher share of debts than equity”, Lucas says.

Metro’s liabilities are increasing at a higher rate.




Source: Metro

Most of the bank loans were used in investing in new businesses and modernizing existing stores. When he was presenting the results of the first quarter of 2016, the CEO of Metro, Eric La Fleche, announced that Metro opened two new stores, 10 more were modeled and one store was closed.

“For the fiscal year 2016 we intend to invest $300 million in our network for ten new stores and 30 major renovations”, Metro CEO announced.

Metro also is focusing on expending its business by investing in other companies. According to the 2015 annual report, Metro acquired 75 percent of the net asset of Premiere Moisson, a premium bakery in Quebec. It also acquired 100 percent of the net assets including real estate of two food stores in Ontario. Both acquisitions were calculated at $101.6 million.

Increase of loans increased revenues

The increase in revenue observed since last year is attributed to the company’s financing from bank loans.

In the last quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, Metro made $131.7 million and $139.8 million respectively. This represents an increase of 6.2 percent. In the same period, bank loans increased from $ 1146.0 million to $1405.9 million. Metro’s total debt increased by 10.2 percent from $ 2,729.9 million to $3,008.3 million respectively.

“Major corporations tend to have a big share of liabilities because they are always growing their businesses. In reality it’s good to bring debt into the company as far as the shareholders are concerned because it increases their share price”, Lucas explains.

From the beginning of this year, Metro’s share price has gone up by 6 percent but the company still has an average rating of “Hold”, according to different equities research analysts.

The rating of “Hold” means that if you own a security you still shouldn’t sell, but you also should not buy the security if you don’t own it already (or do not buy more of it if you do). As of January 29, an average price target of Metro share was C$41.42.

Metro Inc. stock price


Metro’s share price by nijepi on TradingView.com


Source: TradingView