All posts by Spencer Van Dyk

Conservation Officer calls six destroyed bears “a drop in the bucket” in B.C.

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Spencer Van Dyk

In central Canada, leaving garbage out could result in an unwanted fine, but in British Columbia, it could attract unwanted guests, like black bears.

Documents obtained through an access to information request stated there were six bears destroyed in the Williams Lake area of British Columbia between June and October of 2015. However, according to Mike Badry of the province’s Ministry of Environment, and Len Butler of the Conservation Officer Service, six killed bears represents a minute fraction of the wildlife conflict cases in the region.

In the summer of 2015, six bears were destroyed, one grizzly and the rest black, one by a resident of the area, and the rest by conservation officers. There are a few reasons a conservation officer could have to kill a bear: if there is a risk to public safety, if the bear is preying on livestock or entering homes, or if it is ill or injured. In the Williams Lake cases from last summer, the small community experienced a brown bear killing a calf, a grizzly in truck beds, and and a black bear attempting to enter someone’s house, all within five months.  

According to Badry, a wildlife conflicts manager, black bears are abundant in the province. His department receives approximately 30,000 calls a year regarding wildlife conflict, 20,000 of which are caused by black bears.

“To remove six bears over the course of a season in that area is not unusual,” he said.

In fact, according to Butler, an inspector in charge of the Thompson-Cariboo region for the Conservation Officer Service, the province euthanizes approximately 500–600 bears a year. The issue is that bears are seldom relocated, because the process further stretches the resources of the Conservation Officer Service, it is distressing to the bear, and it upsets the natural order.

Under the B.C. Wildlife Act, landowners can destroy an animal if it is killing livestock, but they have to report it. However, the Conservation Officer Service must investigate that it was a lawful kill, as was the case in Williams Lake last year when a farmer destroyed a brown bear for killing a calf.

Douglas Neasloss, the chief councilor in his indigenous community, and member of the Spirit Bear Research Foundation, has been operating in his area and studying bears for 16 years. He said that if a conservation officer is called, it usually results in the bear being killed.

“I don’t think they have any other mechanisms,” he said, adding that they are understaffed and underfunded.

Bears have a hierarchical social structure, so if a large bear is removed from its habitat, smaller bears could take over to fill the void. Dominant bears need to manage the rivers, he said.

Butler said there are seven officers to cover a territory that could take six hours to cross.

“The areas are monstrous,” he said. “We cover some incredible distances here, and there aren’t many of us. We can only handle the more serious complaints, and public safety is most important.”

The most significant thing the province can do is to educate the population about managing the things on their property that could attract bears, Butler said. Habits like managing garbage and maintaining fruit trees go a long way in preventing bears from entering communities.

“I know people think we just enjoy killing things, but we don’t,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

Butler said there is concern that this year’s early spring will cause problems down the road. He said if drought conditions occur, it could drive the bears into town in greater numbers in the fall.

(598 words)

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2772542-Response-Package-MOE-2015-53812-Bears/pages/3.html

In this document, pages three and six were particularly helpful, and provided the most thorough information in the entire document. Both are from the British Columbia Ministry of Environment. Page three details the calls and complaints about bears received by the Conservation Office Service, and page six details the office’s responses and action taken. They were helpful, because they provided more detail as to the specific cases of destroyed bears in the Williams Lake area, as opposed to simply the statistics. They shed light on how the office responds such calls.

 

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Rideau-Vanier by far loudest ward in Ottawa

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Spencer Van Dyk

All neighbourhoods are not created equal when it comes to noise complaints.

Data from the City of Ottawa shows that Rideau-Vanier received a significantly higher number of noise complaints in 2015 than any other ward. It received 2,468 complaints last year, compared to the 1,675 received in Somerset, the city’s second noisiest area.

“I represent a very dense area, one of Ottawa’s downtown neighborhoods,” said Mathieu Fleury, the city councilor for Ward 12, Rideau-Vanier. “It includes the university campus, which is the fifth biggest university across Canada, and the ByWard Market, which also, beyond being a historic draw, is also an entertainment district.”

He added that the area also has the highest instances of graffiti and property standards complaints.

“You can go across and really see that we have most calls for service for a lot of those elements,” he said. “It’s not something I take proudly, it’s reality. It’s from before I was here, and it will continue.”

However, the spike is significant. Ward 17, Capital, had the third highest number of complaints, and is also considered downtown, but Rideau-Vanier had more than three times the number of issues.

Anyone can make a complaint by calling 311. According to Eric Boivin, a supervisor for the 12 noise bylaw officers in Ottawa, complaints between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. merit an automatic ticket, or the officer must write a report stating why one was not issued. If the complaint is made during the day, between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., the officer must use a sound meter to check the sound level. Anything above 55 decibels, the equivalent of light traffic or conversational speech, is considered a violation.

He said that although the officers do get complaints about construction, they are typically in the early morning, and would not account for the large number of violations that occur in the early afternoon.

Those incidents, Fleury said, are likely caused by people starting parties early on the weekends if there is a football or hockey game playing. Due to the density in the area, even a small gathering with music playing and open windows could earn someone a complaint.

Ottawa handles its noise complaints differently than other cities, according to Boivin, because they are dealt with municipally as opposed to by the police force. He said municipalities are looking to the nation’s capital for guidance on how to handle these types of complaints.

“Small communities will have bylaw enforcements like we do but they won’t work the hours that we work,” he said. “We’re not 24 hours, but we’re about a 20-hour operation.”

What that means is that despite that Rideau-Vanier receives the highest number of calls, resources to deal with violations are a city-wide issue. Fleury said that he receives plenty of support from City Hall, but the ultimate goal is always to get the number of complaints down.

“For the city’s response, there is equality in the process that doesn’t discriminate as to where the complaint comes in,” Fleury said. “There’s an equal service. Where there is less noise, councilors may not see the benefit of increasing the bylaw to 24/7, or adding more restrictions to noise, and that’s where urban neighbourhoods sometimes struggle.”

Understandably, Fleury said, different times of year yield more calls to bylaw, like Canada Day and 101 Week at the University of Ottawa.

“I’d love to see that number drop more significantly, but we are a very eclectic neighbourhood, and that’s also want people want, so we have to find that balance between being fun, but also having quality of life,” he said.

 

Between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., any sound level above 55 decibels with a sound meter can be considered disruptive if a neighbour complains. (p. 3)
View entire document on DocumentCloud

 

Rape shield law re-write could use an update, experts say

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Spencer Van Dyk

Sexual assault defendants cannot to question complainants about their sexual history in an attempt to discredit them, according to the rape shield law, but the Jian Ghomeshi is an example of the law needing an update, according to experts.

Ghomeshi’s case calls into question the need to adapt the current law to current societal norms and practices.

The rape shield law has changed several times since its inception. The first law was enacted in 1976, and the second in 1983, when it underwent several changes. Among them, the crime of “rape” was replaced with “sexual assault.” Also, the sexual assault charges were no longer off limits within a marital relationship, the law was no longer gender-specific, and complainants were no longer restricted by “recent complaint,” which meant they no longer had to make an accusation within a certain timeframe.

The law was struck down in 1991 in a Supreme Court decision. It then underwent more changes, leading to an overhaul in 1992. The way current sexual assault cases are handled has changed along with it.

Former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi is charged with four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking. During his trial, the complainants were asked about emails exchanged between themselves and Ghomeshi after their alleged assaults.

“The one time where the new rape shield law was clearly being evoked was when the defence wanted to question complainant three about her subsequent hand job,” said Carissima Mathen, a constitutional lawyer and University of Ottawa professor.

Otherwise, she added, the rape shield law was not violated, because it accounts for sexual activity, which is typically considered sexual contact. Sexual activity through electronic communication is not accounted for in the law, likely because it was written so long ago, she said.

“Either you could get parliament to amend the code and provide a definition,” she said, “or you’ll get a court interpreting what that means and maybe using the context of the world in which we live, and maybe sexual activity would be defined more broadly than it was in 1992.”

In 1991, there was a blanket provision that sexual assault complainants could not be questioned about their sexual history in a trial, but the Supreme Court struck down the law, saying it violated the rights of defendants to a fair trial.

Richard Peck is a Vancouver lawyer who was appointed to the Queen’s Counsel in 1987. He spoke publicly about the changes in 1991, and said of the time that there was a “measured response” by the public, leading to a re-enactment in 1992.

“It depends on who you were in society,” Peck said. “If you were a thoughtful criminal lawyer, you would say it was a good thing, because it was already restrictive, and it denied people the right to make full answer and defence. It went to the core of the presumption of innocence, it offended your fair trial rights, and so on. If you were someone who was deeply embedded in the other side of the question, you’d say ‘we don’t want those questions.’”

He went on to call the 1983 and 1991 changes to the Criminal Code a “period of enlightenment.”

“If you go back and look at the whole history of this, it’s really a hell of a lot deeper than just sex,” he said. “It goes to the way women were treated in society historically, in terms of expectations of women from childhood and what they could and couldn’t do.”

Whether or not the Criminal Code will be adapted to current societal norms remains to be seen.

 

 

This is an article from Vancouver Sun from 1991 discussing the rape shield law reform, and using Richard Peck as a source. I found it through LexisNexis once I decided on my topic. It was very helpful, because it gave me a sense of the sentiment at the time of the law change, and led me to Richard Peck as a source.

This is a New York Times article from 1991 discussing the rape shield law reform, and it was one of the first articles on the subject that I found, which led to my interest in the subject. I found it on LexisNexis. I found it very helpful, because it, again, gave me a sense of the sentiment at the time, as well as providing an unbiased opinion, because it was published in an American publication. It gave me a sense of Canada’s law reform being important not just here, but in the United States as well.

Diversification marks new chapter for Chapters

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Spencer Van Dyk

General merchandise revenue is creeping up to book sales, and online sales are increasing, as Chapters-Indigo is finally reaping the rewards of a diversification plan put in place years ago.

Although 65 per cent of the company’s revenue still comes from books, that number is decreasing. It is 2.6 per cent less than the same time last year. Meanwhile, general merchandise, like stationary, lifestyle items and home décor products, increased by 3.4 per cent from this time last year.



The plan to brand Chapters-Indigo as a lifestyle store was necessary for its survival, according to Alan Middleton, a professor of marketing at York University.

“People will probably go online for it and do a search, but there is still the pleasure, especially at certain times a year, of visiting a bricks and mortar store,” he said. “It’s what we call in marketing ‘shift to experience marketing.’ How do we make the experience of visiting a bricks and mortar place pleasurable?”

Middleton said that if the store can entice people to shop there in person by focusing on the shopping experience, the company can sell more products by encouraging impulse purchases.

The company’s chief executive office, Heather Reisman, agreed.

“I just think it’s that physical books are sustaining their position with the market, and we continue to invest in the experience for people,” she said in a call with the company’s investors.

But Chapters-Indigo is not relying solely on experience marketing; it invested in online shopping. What the company sells online now generates 11.7 per cent of its revenue, compared to 8.6 per cent in 2011.

“Online sales continued to experience growth in books and double-digit increases in general merchandise,” reads the company’s financial report.



But maintaining an online store is expensive, Middleton said.

“As soon as you move aggressively into online, you’ve got to have money to keep the technology up to date,” he said. “The need for constant investment and development of both the technology itself, but also the service related to that technology, that probably needs investment.”

What the company calls intangible assets, for example software, cost $2.4-million this quarter alone, up 33 per cent from the same time last year.

The push for online and the emphasis on the shopping experience are in response to struggles Chapters-Indigo faced a few years ago. In 2011, book sales were way down, and e-readers were sustaining the company. Between 2011 and 2012, the operating expenses related to e-readers more than doubled. According to Reisman, the company needed to adapt, so it would not have to rely on that revenue.

“Number one, all of this data shows that e-reading has levelled off and has sustained a level-off position,” Reisman said in the 2015 investor call. “In Canada, it’s actually dropped a couple of percent.”

E-reading is not going away, she continued, and Chapters-Indigo continues to participate in that market, but sales of those products are no longer enough to sustain the company. There are now more hybrid readers, people who read both physical books and electronic ones, and the challenge is to market to everyone.

According to Middleton, if the company can continue to provide services online, while drawing customers into the store for the shopping experience, it may be able to get back the losses they suffered in 2011 and 2012. Bookstores everywhere are struggling, he said, so successful ones need to understand human shopping behaviour. Being available online and marketing itself as a lifestyle company can and has increased revenue in every department, including books.



Indigo Books and Music Inc. by spencervandyk on TradingView.com

Indigo Books and Music Inc. by spencervandyk on TradingView.com