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Pharmaceutical watchdog continues tenuous relationship with B.C. government

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Jim Wright has had March 31, 2016 circled on his calendar for a long time. That’s the date that Therapeutics Initiative (TI), an independent watchdog that evaluates prescription drugs, will see its contract with the B.C. government expire, according to records released under the B.C. freedom-of-information law.

Though Wright, TI’s co-managing director, says that a new contract has been agreed on, he won’t be completely comfortable until he sees it in writing.

Therapeutics Initiative is run out of the University of British Columbia and is a globally recognized institution that keeps pharmaceutical companies and government officials in line. Wright has been with the company since 1994, and in that time has overseen a sometimes tumultuous relationship with the Liberal government that has been in place since 2001.

In the aforementioned records released by the B.C. Ministry of Health, the government calls research done by the TI and other pharmaceutical research groups “ an inherent and important contributor…to operate a sustainable, evidence-informed, efficiently-managed, drug program that improves the health of British Columbians.”

The government has not always felt that way. In 2007, the government set up a task force to evaluate TI. The nine-member group – five of whom were associated with the drug industry – recommended   shutting down TI.

“We were doing extremely well and were sort of considered one of the few really effective groups in the world up to 2007,” recalls Wright. “So it was a big surprise, a big shock. Because you’re doing really well, and you’re recognized internationally and then they set up a task force. So everything has gone down hill since that time. But we haven’t been gotten rid of completely. We’ve just been struggling since that time.”

Therapeutics Initiative survived the task force’s advice, but was suspended for a period in 2012. When the contract was renewed later in 2013, the government grant had been cut almost in half, moving from a million dollars a year to the current amount of $550,000.

That’s the amount that has been agreed upon in principle for the next contract. “We tried to negotiate a higher amount, but it wasn’t successful,” says Wright. “Every time something like this comes up we have some uncertainty. It’s not a situation where we say ‘Oh yeah, for sure it’ll be renewed.’”

The government’s treatment of TI hasn’t gone unnoticed by the opposition party. “They don’t have continual, stable year to year funding. So they have to continually, each year, make the case for projects they want to undertake,” says B.C NDP health critic Judy Darcy. “When we really believe that we need an ongoing, independent drug watchdog, and that their funding ought to be increased in order to play that role.”

In a process called ‘budget estimates,’ each time a new budget is adopted by a respective ministry, the spokesperson for the opposition gets to question the minister. “I get to question the minister for anywhere from four to six days,” Darcy says, excitedly. “And believe me, the TI is an issue that we have pursued over and over and over again, and I will be again.”

The B.C. Ministry of Health did not respond to a request for comment.

2 Pages of Health Records

Completed ATIP Request

 

Arbutus Corridor FOI

BC FOI – Intake

FOI BC Request BC FOI – Original Request

Federal Request – Parks Canada

Animals Run Wild in Rideau area of Ottawa

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On average, more than one phone call per hour was made to complain about animals in the city of Ottawa in 2015, according to an analysis of data used to track complaints in the city.

Animal calls were of particular concern in the Rideau area. The wards of Rideau-Vanier and Rideau-Rockcliffe combined for more than 1500 calls. No other ward had over 600.

One explanation for this is the lack of park space in the urban Rideau wards. “It’s all related to green space and the amount of parks that we have in the community, it’s very limited,” said Rideau-Vanier councillor Mathieu Fleury. “We’re an urban ward, there are a lot of mixed-income neighbourhoods and there’s limited green space.”

Rideau-Rockcliffe councillor Tobi Nussbaum sees a similar situation happening in his ward. “I suspect it’s a factor of living in a part of the city that’s fairly urbanized and where there’s a certain amount of scarcity of green space,” said Nussbaum. “That space needs to satisfy the needs of all users.”

 

 

Animal Complaints in Ottawa by Ward
Animal Complaints in Ottawa by Ward. Source: http://data.ottawa.ca/dataset/2015-311-monthly-service-request-submissions

Nussbaum notes that the most common complaints come from disputes over the use of the limited space: “The ones that I can think of include dog owners who are interested in whether additional off-leash parks can be established. And of course we also hear form residents who are unhappy when dogs are off leash in parks that aren’t off-leash areas.”

While off-leash issues make up for a large portion of the complaints, they aren’t the only ones that get filed about dogs. Fleury mentions a hill that children slide on during the winter at MacDonald Gardens Park. “It’s also a dog park and there’s an interaction where the younger kids have eaten yellow snow.”

In 2014, an effort to reduce the number of calls sparked a change in dog signage. Signs clearly outlining whether dogs were allowed in the park were erected in Rideau-Vanier. They haven’t helped, as 2015 saw an increase of more than a hundred calls for the ward. “It remains a challenge. There’s no perfect situation,” said Fleury. “As soon as you speak of dogs in parks, you have the ‘thank yous’ and you have the ‘what are you doings?’ And that’s tough because in the end it is a community choice, not a political one.”

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The complaints are grouped into three priorities, with the off-leash calls and other minor disturbances being labeled as having the least amount of significance. Calls that are considered ‘Priority 1’ involve incidents where people or animals are in danger.

There’s been at least one situation in which city officials weren’t sure what to do. “The strangest call we’ve had is one where a deer was reported walking through a neighbourhood in our ward,” recalled Nussbaum. “And it was one where we realized that there was actually very little one could do in that situation. As long as the animal is not posing a danger to residents, you just hope that the animal finds its way back into the wild. Which is what happened in this case.”

A list of Vanier parks that are currently designated for animal use.

A list of Rockcliffe parks that are currently designated for animal use.

Rock n’ Regrets fuel The Grapes of Wrath

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The guitars might need some tuning, and the drums are probably a bit dusty. The voices will still croon like they used to, though.

On Saturday, the Grapes of Wrath will play a show at the Deerfoot Inn & Casino in Calgary. It’s the only concert the band has scheduled for 2016, and it’s their first since they played the Shell Theatre in Fort Saskatchewan in September of last year. The fact that they’re still playing is a minor miracle, yet one wonders what could have been.

In Canada in 1991, The Grapes of Wrath was no longer just the name of a John Steinbeck novel. No, it was the name of an alternative rock band from Kelowna, B.C. The band had just recorded their fourth full-length album, These Days, and two of the record’s singles charted higher than any song the band had previously had. They were signed to a major label and had sold out Toronto’s Massey Hall. The next year, the band split up. The original members wouldn’t record another album until 2013.

Vocalist Kevin Kane, and brothers Tom (vocals/guitar) and Chris Hooper (drums) were spent. “I think in general terms, we’d just been going, going, going and the band was getting more and more successful,” says Kane over the phone from Toronto. “But, people kind of prey on that.”

“That was a good year for us, 91-92, everything just kept getting better for us,” agrees Chris Hooper. “More radio play, kept playing bigger places, did a lot of touring, toured Europe again. But it was sort of falling apart at that time too, it was just too many tensions and I think it was definitely inevitable.”

The official story is that Kane left the band and the brothers Hooper added other members and continued recording material as Ginger. While Kane disputes that story – “we’ll leave that as the official story, but things are more complicated than that.” Kane himself went on to record two solo albums and recorded an album with Tom Hooper in 2000. However those albums didn’t come close to achieving the peaks that These Days registered.

Neither did 2013’s High Road, the record that marked the band’s reunion. “It was sort of awkward at the start, just sort of initiating it,” says Chris Hooper when asked about the process of getting back together. “We got an offer to do a show and they wanted the whole band back. We booked a rehearsal space and we all just went in and just started playing the songs and they weren’t any different than when we stopped. It was exactly the same actually.”

The sound may remain the same, but the fandom isn’t. Radio host Terry David Mulligan, who was producing MuchMusic West in 1991 remembers the peak of the Grapes’ success well. “Oh god, yeah, they were huge,” says Mulligan. “They were perfect for MuchMusic and for video, because they were good looking boys. One of the best videos ever done was ‘All the Things I Wasn’t.’”

Mulligan also remembers when the band broke up: “It was a severe disappointment. They had earned the respect of the business and they literally pissed it away.”

While the band is content with their current lives, it’s clear that they would welcome a return to the era of These Days.

“I’d go back and just enjoy the moment more,” says Hooper. “I think part of our problem is that we got so wrapped up with the business of the band.”

Kane would also do things a bit differently: “I’d be way more chill and I would have quit drinking way sooner.”

Grapes of Wrath Background

Corus Entertainment acquires Shaw Media after another lacklustre quarter

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Corus Entertainment’s first quarterly report of 2016, announced on January 13th, reported an income of almost 20 per cent less than that of the same quarter in 2015. It was the second year in a row that the first quarter showed losses. Corus owns multiple television networks in Canada, with brands like YTV and HBO Canada chief among its assets. The company also owns 39 Canadian radio stations.

It was the same day that the company announced that it was purchasing Shaw Media, a division of Shaw, another entertainment corporation, for $2.65 billion. As media companies struggle to adapt to the changing industry landscape, Corus is no exception, even as it’s purchasing of Shaw would seem to indicate otherwise.

In the report, the company trumpeted the deal with Shaw while acknowledging that revenues were up one per cent compared to the first quarterly of 2015. The actual financial gain made by Corus’s shareholders, however, fell 13 cents per share.

Corus Entertainment Fiscal 2016 Results

Link: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2701293-Corus2016.html#document/p1/a274345





Source: Corus Entertainment

Jordan Whelan, president of Toronto-based Big Smoke Media, a media buying company, attributes Corus’s fall to the change in the way people consume entertainment. “I have noticed that a lot of the ad offerings of these media companies are stale and archaic. Many of these companies are getting eclipsed by the web and failed to evolve fast enough,” writes Whelan in an email. “Why would a major corporation continue to buy commercials, which can be skipped over by those who record shows?”

Whelan’s statement rings true, as Corus lost almost five per cent in advertising revenue compared to the same quarter in 2015. The other main source of revenue for the company, subscriber fees, held relatively steady. That could also be about to drop, however. As Canada’s broadcasting regulations change and people are free to pick and choose which channels they wish to subscribe to rather than being forced to pick certain bundles.

“I think they’re in a place where they’re in danger of bleeding subscribers and losing some revenue that way,” says James Bradshaw, media reporter for The Globe and Mail, in a phone call. “There are a lot of digital options out there and people are wondering how many channels they want to be paying for and are starting to gear up for the regulatory changes that are coming that are going to allow people, if they want to, to start picking their channels one by one.”

Corus Entertainment May 2015-Jan 2016 by Nathan Caddell



Corus Entertainment May- Jan by ncaddell on TradingView.com

Source: TradingView

It is important to note that while the company has seen a drop in income, it is still, in its current state, profitable. “When we say they had a bad year last year, we mean that they saw declines in their revenue overall and they were in a lot of cases kind of below what Bay Street and Wall St had expected of them,” says Bradshaw. “It’s just below what they had been making before so it’s a step in the wrong direction, even though they’re still making money.”

As for whether the acquisition of Shaw will help the company increase its current profits, Whelan, for one isn’t sure. He does think that this deal will harm the general public, however: “Despite the strong PR campaigns, it is important to realize that this is not good for consumers both in terms of choice, pricing and potential job losses.”

“Was it right the move?” asks Bradshaw. “It’s a little early for me to be saying that.”

Corus Entertainment director of communications Sally Tindal declined to comment.

Cycling not an easy ride in Ottawa

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The amount of people who listed bicycle as their primary mode of transportation in Ottawa
The amount of people who listed bicycle as their primary mode of transportation in Ottawa

The only difference between predicting political moves and cold weather fronts is that you can see evidence for the former earlier in advance. In the aftermath of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals handily winning the federal election, a strong emphasis was put on preserving the environment. First, there was the appointing of Catherine McKenna as minister of climate change and the environment. Then came the first minsters’ meeting that revolved around climate change. Finally, there is the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, in which Canada allegedly has been pushing for incredibly high emission reduction goals.

In Ottawa, the pressure for a revamped policy on the environment has been evident. The aforementioned McKenna is the Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, while thousands of Ottawans participated in a climate march that coincided with the Paris conference. It’s no secret that there is a push for Ottawa to become a ‘greener’ city. Vancouver, lauded in Canada for the way it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions and revamped transit, is an obvious example.

One of the hallmarks of Vancouver’s status as a green city has been the proliferation of its bike lanes, and it’s easy to see how similar infrastructure could be foisted on Ottawa. That claim could even be supported by data, as, in the 2011 National Household Survey, only 2045 fewer people said that they used the bicycle as their primary mode of transport in Ottawa as their Vancouver counterparts.

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Page 1 of Report-North-America-Environment

Contributed to DocumentCloud by Nathan Caddell of David McKie's Research Methods • View page as text

Report-North-America-Environment (PDF)

This would be misleading, however, as only four municipal wards in Ottawa had more than a thousand people list cycling as their main way of transportation, and all four are in or near downtown Ottawa. “Ottawa is a big cycling town, and the Canal is a great route. But as soon as you start to hit the outskirts of the town, you don’t find anyone biking,” said Cody MacKay, a resident of Heron Gate, part of the Alta Vista ward, which had 745 people report as full-time cyclists. MacKay drives the commute everyday to Carleton University where he’s a student.

Even those who live in the Somerset or Capital wards have an obstacle facing them if they choose to cycle: the weather. While the weather in Vancouver barely gets into negative degrees even in the winter, the same can’t be said for Ottawa and many bikes are put into storage come October. “It’s an amazing place to cycle, but it’s so hard to do when winter hits, because there’s all this extra gear you need,” says Elaine Feldman, a former federal servant living in Old Ottawa East. Feldman still bikes whenever she can but admits to putting away her green town bike at the first sight of snow or freezing rain.

Some would like to see the government pursue more lanes and advocate for more cycling, even in the winter. Feldman’s husband Andrew is an avid, everyday cycler, no matter the weather. It’s about a four-kilometre trip from their house to the Lester B. Pearson building where he works as a senior policy advisor for the Department of Global Affairs. He pushes the notion that you’re only as good as the clothes you wear: “I always say there’s no such thing as bad weather, just under-dressed people. So yeah, when it’s really cold, I go out in my balaclava.” He can’t resist a shot at the outgoing Conservative government. “Some might call it a ‘barbaric cultural practice.’”

Lane, Lane, Go Away: Jack Purcell Lane a target for tickets

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JackPurcell2

Around 5 p.m. every weekday two Ottawa police cars park beside one another just off Elgin Street on a small street called Jack Purcell Lane, situated in front of Jack Purcell Community Centre. Then they wait, usually with coffees in hand. The building on the corner shields them from street viewers and the central location provides an ideal outpost to wait for calls from dispatch. The cops, however, are not behind most of the infractions that occur on Jack Purcell Lane.

JackPurcell1

In the first six months and six days of 2015, 368 parking tickets have been given out to cars sitting on Jack Purcell Lane. The lane, which is more of an alleyway, stretches less than half a city block and only covers just over 20 city-patrolled parking spots. Many people who use those spots work or go to the community centre on a daily basis, but others enjoy the dog park and playground area that surround the centre.

On one cold Tuesday evening in particular, a white Ottawa parking services vehicle rounded the corner of the lane just after six o’clock. After inspecting each car and finding an un-validated silver Honda, a parking attendant who requested not to be named, called out and asked if the car belonged to anyone in the dog park. It did, and the woman in question hurried into the community centre to validate her car.

“We always do that, we always give people a chance,” said the officer when asked why he had let her off the hook. However, it was the officer’s first day of work in the area.

An Ottawa ticket officer checks with park patrons before ticketing a car
An Ottawa ticket officer checks with park patrons before ticketing a car

The combination of the community centre, the public recreation areas and the close access to Elgin makes the strip of Jack Purcell Lane an ideal spot and when officers make the trip out, there’s usually more than one offender to speak for. There have been 16 days in which there was only one ticket issued on the lane. All other days on which a ticket was issued, there were multiple, often at different times of the day.

Jeffrey Russell knows this all too well. In trying to find a spot to park on a Saturday with his wife and preteen son, he bristled when the payment toll wouldn’t accept his card. Of course that was because it was a weekend, but Russell had been spurned in the area before. “They just prowl the street I swear. Godamn city,” he said with a laugh. “See? It’s even a Saturday and I’m worried about it.”

Of the spots allocated on Jack Purcell Lane, three are designated for vehicles with an Accessible Parking Permit (APP), while there are large spaces in front of the centre to accommodate Para Transpo vehicles. These are needed spaces, as Kelly Fox, a student working with the city of Ottawa in the special needs unit of the parks, recreation and culture division notes. “Jack Purcell is the only such facility in Ottawa that has extensive programs for seniors with disabilities, so as a result we send a large number of them there.”



While city rules require any parking spot with 20 or more spaces to have at least one parking spot for the disabled, the functions of Jack Purcell Community Centre result in more APP spots, culminating in a crowded parking area with more people willing to risk a ticket for a spot.