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BUSINESS EDGE
News Magazine
Vo lum e 1 4 , Issu e 2
Crane chief hoists
business to success
Tom Keyser
Business Edge
A
lthough he acquired
his work ethic under
the influence of his
industrious father, Edmonton’s
Scott Dodds owes his greatest
inspiration to British statesman
Sir Winston Churchill.
Churchill’s advice to “never,
ever give up” helped Dodds
to beat back the inevitable
headwinds encountered by
every struggling entrepreneur.
Churchill’s stubborn wisdom
gave Dodds the courage and
tenacity to weather every storm,
including a flirtation with
near-bankruptcy. By sticking to
his plan and refusing to get discouraged, he was able to build
a tiny equipment-rental agency
into a booming $9-million
infrastructure player. Today, the
company specializes in power
lines, oil and gas and commercial construction projects.
As the company has grown,
Dodds has learned to appreciate the effective development
of partnerships, as well as the
importance of quality control,
reliability and safety.
1. All successful entrepreneurs
seem to have a well-developed
work ethic. Where did yours
come from?
My father owned a truck stop
in Fort St. John, B.C.. As a kid,
I worked there as a gas jockey
from about the time I was 13.
After school, we’d come in and
we’d sweep the parking lot or
clean the bathrooms, help out
in the restaurant or do whatever
else needed to be done.
2. Can you talk a bit more
about your dad’s influence?
He essentially taught me how
to work. In our family, we had to
work. My experience at my dad’s
truck stop taught me a lot about
getting right down to business
and doing what had to be done,
whether it meant changing
somebody’s tire or grabbing a
broom or a shovel. I’m very close
to my dad, whose name is Earl.
As a matter of fact, he works for
me now, as general manager of
High Mark.
See ‘Construction’
Page 8
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20 Questions with Scott Dodds
Title: President/CEO, High Mark Crane & Rigging
Born/raised: Fort St. John, B.C.
Family: Married to Lori, father of four daughters
Education: Crane and hoisting apprenticeship program from
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT).
Achievements: Founding and developing High Mark Crane &
Rigging from the ground up.
Co-ordinates: www.hhcrane.ca 780.668-7660
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 2
Index
What the frack?!
Guest columnist Gwyn Morgan,
former CEO of Encana, takes
on the “irrational opposition
to scientific advancement” in
the anti-fracking and GMO
campaigns.
Complacency abounds
An Ipsos Reid study indicates
that far too many Canadian
businesses are not taking
appropriate security measures
to ensure the protection of
sensitive data.
Page 4
Celebrating innovation
What do transport wheel locking
devices, distance services for
families in need, anti-shock
hearing-aid technology and
an E.-coli-fighting cinnamon
compound have in common?
All were honoured at the recent
Ernest C. Manning Innovation
Awards gala.
Page 6
Out of the Norm
Alberta enterprise and German
advanced education merge to
fund local small and medium
businesses.
Page 10
$17B down the tube
Western Canadian heavy crude
can’t get to lucrative markets
due to a pipeline bottleneck in
the Midwestern United States
- and it’s costing the Canadian
economy $47 million a day,
totaling $17 billion annually.
Page 20
Lava life – dateline
HONOLULU
Our dedicated tech columnist
Dr. Tom Keenan overcame the
extreme conditions of an active
volcanic range to give Business
Edge readers the latest on the
future of telecommunications.
Indeed, in order to break
through the crust of the issue,
he refused to crater, arising
from the ashes to give us his
igneous insights.
Page 28
The Lighter Side
Sultan of Sarcasm Cassius King
postulates that society would
be better served to ditch Google
Glass and devise a contraption
that allows us to see ourselves as
the world sees us. Mirror, mirror
on my head, who is the dude
who looks half-dead?
Page 30
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Page 16
Worker mobility bill
Industry leaders are making
a case for Bill C-201, which
proposes a tax credit to help
construction workers cover their
costs when relocating to take on
short-term jobs.
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Page 18
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BUSINESS EDGE
Page 3
HRI offers hope with new hair transplant technology
T
hose who suffer from
premature hair loss endure
a special brand of psychic
pain. It’s not simple vanity, but it
can certainly be a source of serious angst, almost akin to a loss of
self. That face staring out of the
mirror just isn’t the same any more
and that hurts.
That kind of interior, emotional pain is bad enough on its
own. But, add it to the discomfort, inconvenience and physical
pain that’s generally associated
with traditional methods of hair
transplantation, and you’ve got
a compound issue. Fortunately,
newer techniques have emerged
that minimize the painfully invasive
nature of traditional strategies.
And you’re going to love the way
you look!
In Western Canada, that
means the NeoGraft system of
hair transplantation, now available
in Southern Alberta at the Hair
Rejuvenation Institute (HRI)
of Calgary.
“NeoGraft is a process that
helps us harvest hair while
preventing scarring.
It’s essentially a tool that allows us
to separate hair, harvest hair and
to preserve hair,” says HRI physician Dr. Bobby Sreenivasan. “We
believe it’s preferable to the more
traditional approach, which we call
the strip method. When the strip
method is used, the result is a
large, long linear scar on the back
of the patient’s head.”
NeoGraft enables such
Sreenivasan to harvest individual
grafts of hair from the back
of the head – but without scarring. Therefore, those who opt
for Neograft, which has quickly
established itself as a global
leader in hair restoration treatments, are able to wear their
hair short, if they so choose.
That’s rarely possible for those
who submit to traditional transplantation methods.
“With NeoGraft, you’re going
the results of your procedure,”
Dr. Sreenivasan continues. “No
unsightly plugs, no scarring and
not as much down time overall.
Post-restoration, your hair will
look absolutely natural and you’ll
of course, it’s perfectly safe.”
Several men – and women
– who have gone through the
procedure have been happy to
share their experience. “Other
than some minor swelling a
few days after the procedure,
I felt no discomfort,” wrote
Graft procedure . . .”
As Dr. Sreenivasan says,
it’s time to allow up-to-theminute technology to work its
remarkable magic.
“The more you handle or traumatize hair, the more damage you
do. So, under traditional transplantation processes, you cut off a
big strip of hair and then cut it into
a bunch of little pieces and then
transfer those individual pieces
onto a person’s scalp. There are
so many steps in the process
that a lot of things can go wrong,”
he explains.
The precision machine used
in the NeoGraft process at HRI
eliminates that margin for error.
of hair transplantation.
The NeoGraft system of follicle unit extraction (FUE) was
eliminate that margin of error, to
standardize the procedure.
It all adds up to a much
shorter period of down time, an
absence of scarring and a much
Sreenivasan asks, “Why wouldn’t
you want the best possible result
for your procedure?”
Featured on CNN, NBC and
ABC News, NeoGraft attracts
people from all walks of life,
including the corporate world.
It also works well for burn
victims and sufferers from
medical conditions, male
and female alike.
For more information, consult
the informative HRI website at
www.neograft-calgary.com,
stop by the clinic at 8730
Country Hills Boulevard NW
in Calgary, place a call to book
a complimentary consultation
at 403.262.7424, or email
[email protected].
Page 4
BUSINESS EDGE
Support the environment: back shale gas and GMOs
Gwyn Morgan
Guest Columnist
W
hat does 10-yearold Victoria student
Maya Fisher’s
campaign to have genetically
modified organisms removed
from Girl Guides cookies have
in common with the nativeled anti-fracking protests in
New Brunswick? The answer:
both are based upon activist
propaganda having no scientific
foundation.
Fisher told reporters, “Now,
we want the Girl Guides of
Canada to live up to their own
motto by removing GMOs
and making cookies safe and
environmentally friendly.”
Her anti-GMO (or GM)
beliefs seem to be shared by a
majority of North Americans
and Europeans. Yet virtually all
result of the consumption of GM
of the scientific evidence shows
foods . . .”
they are wrong.
So how have so many people
The American Association
become convinced that GM
for the Advancement of Science
is “dangerous”?
states “. . .
The answer to that
biotechnology
question came last
is safe.”
January in a shocking
The French
speech by Mark Lynas,
Academy of
founder of the antiScience agrees:
GM movement.
“All criticism
“We employed a
against GMOs
lot of imagery about
can largely be
scientists in their labs
rejected on
cackling demonically
strictly scientific
as they tinkered with
criteria.”
Gwyn Morgan
the very building
The national
blocks of life. Hence
science
the Frankenstein food (which
academies of Germany, Brazil,
became Franken-Food) tag –
India, China as well as Britain’s
this absolutely was about deepRoyal Society share the same
seated fears of scientific powers
view. And the World Health
being used secretly for unnatural
Organization (WHO) states:
ends. These fears spread like
“No effects of human health
wildfire . . . This has been the
problems have been shown as a
most successful campaign I have
ever been involved with.”
Lynas’s redemption came
when he finally decided to look
at the science. He learned that
GMOs require less fertilizer,
thereby reducing nutrient-rich
runoff that causes fish-killing
oxygen starvation in weed
choked rivers and streams.
He learned that pest resistant
seeds reduce insecticide use
and that drought-resistant
plants lessen the unsustainable
depletion of water aquifers. And
contrary to his own FrankenFood label, he found out that
GMO research is actually
safer and more precise than
traditional plant genetics that
“mucks about with the entire
genome in a trial and error way.”
When it comes to irrational
opposition to scientific
See ‘Anti-Fracking’
Page 5
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 5
From Page 4
Anti-fracking and GMO campaigns have no scientific foundation
advancements, shale gas has
much in common with GM
foods.
Environmental groups
portray hydraulic fracturing as
a scary new technology that
contaminates water supplies
and poses a threat to public
safety. Yet so-called “fracking”
is neither new nor scary. In
the United States, after some
1.2 million wells have been
hydraulically fractured over the
past 60 years, both the Bureau
of Land Management and the
Environmental Protection
Agency have not found any
supportable evidence of
fracturing induced ground
water contamination.
Some 174,000 wells have
been “fracked” in Alberta,
together with thousands
more in B.C. In 1975 as a
young engineer, I directed
the fracturing of the first well
drilled by the company that
grew into Encana Corporation.
Over the ensuing decades,
Encana safely fractured tens of
thousands of wells on its way
to becoming North America’s
largest natural gas producer.
Burgeoning shale gas
supplies are creating both an
environmental and economic
renaissance across North
America. Natural gas has
displaced coal as the fuel of
choice for new power plants
and diesel trucks, buses, even
railway locomotives and interisland ferries are gradually
being re-fitted with cleanerburning natural gas engines.
But the biggest winners are
consumers. Natural gas prices
have dropped dramatically,
reducing the cost of both space
heating and manufacturing
processes. And since natural
gas comprises 80 per cent of
the cost of nitrogen fertilizer,
farmers are also major
beneficiaries.
Finally, shale gas
development is creating
jobs and tax revenues, and
rejuvenating economically-
LNG ships.
Given these economic and
environmental benefits, it
would be irresponsible for the
“So-called ‘fracking’ is neither new nor scary.”
depressed rural communities
across North America. Here in
Canada, B.C.’s huge shale gas
potential is spawning tens of
billions of dollars in projects
aimed at piping gas to tidewater
for transport to Asia via
- Gwyn Morgan
government of economicallychallenged New Brunswick
to shun industry’s efforts to
assess the province’s shale gas
potential.
Sadly, “warrior” protests
show that environmentalist
propaganda has convinced some
natives that hydraulic fracturing
is a technology to be feared.
Hopefully, respected First
Nations leaders who are willing
to examine the facts will emerge.
Failure to move forward will
destroy an opportunity to
build a better future for all New
Brunswickers, including natives.
Gwyn Morgan is a retired
Canadian business leader who
has been a director of five global
corporations (Troy Media
www.troymedia.com).
Page 6
BUSINESS EDGE
Manning Awards Gala honours top innovators
Business Edge
M
ore than 700
Canadian leaders
from business,
academia and government
gathered in Calgary recently
to celebrate some of Canada’s
brightest innovators.
At its 32nd annual gala, the
Ernest C. Manning Awards
Foundation recognized 11
high-achieving innovators from
across the country and handed
out $161,000 in prize money.
“This foundation champions
Canadian innovators of all ages
from across Canada,” foundation
president Jennifer Diakiw said
of the 2013 winners. “These are
Canadians who inspire us with
their imagination to innovate
and the stamina to succeed.
We want to shine a national
spotlight on them as Canada
works to build our knowledgebased economy.”
The 2013 Ernest C. Manning
Innovation Award recipients:
Dr. Patricia Lingley-Pottie
and Dr. Patrick McGrath, Halifax
– co-recipients of the $100,000
Encana Principal Award for
creating a social innovation: The
Strongest Families Institute. The
not-for-profit institute provides
distance services to families
dealing with behaviour, anxiety
and bedwetting problems.
Services are delivered by highly
trained coaches who teach
families skills through 16
telephone sessions supported by
handbooks, videos and websites.
The convenient, family-centered
approach increases access for
families in need of help and is
a proven, evidence-based, costeffective solution for the health
system (www.strongestfamilies.
com).
Dr. Henry Luo, Kitchener –
$25,000 David E. Mitchell Award
of Distinction for developing
AntiShock™ Technology. Since
its creation in 2006 by Dr.
Luo in Unitron’s research
labs in Kitchener, AntiShock™
Technology has been integrated
in five million hearing aids sold
in 60 countries. The technology
instantly identifies and controls
sudden and harsh noises before
they are detected by the listener
while preserving a person’s
ability to hear speech clearly
(www.unitronhearing.com).
Ilfor “Taffy” Caine Davies,
Oakville – $10,000 Ernest C.
Manning Innovation Award for
developing Zafety Lug Lock®, a
transport wheel locking device
that cuffs wheel nuts to create
the required resistance to keep
Dr. Patricia Lingley-Pottie and Dr. Patrick McGrath, winners of
the 2013 Encana $100,000 Principal Award for their social
innovation Strongest Families Institute.
Young Canadian Award winners David Drouin,
Francis-Olivier Couture and Pierre Clapperton Richard.
wheel bolts secure. There are
now about one million Zafety
Lug Lock® devices on public and
commercial vehicles
(www.zafetyluglock.com).
Dan Eisenhardt and Hamid
Abdollahi, Vancouver – $10,000
Ernest C. Manning Innovation
Award for developing Headsup Display (HUD) technology,
which integrates state-ofthe-art micro-computers into
goggles and athletic sunglasses.
Their technology is being
incorporated into eyewear by
the world’s leading goggle and
sunglass manufacturers
(www.reconinstruments.com).
The five Young Canadian
award winners, two now in
University and three in high
school, created inspiring
innovations that were
showcased last year at the 2013
Canada-Wide Science Fair. The
2013 Young Canadian award
winners:
David Drouin, 19, Quebec
City – $4,000 Young Canadian
Award for his project that
illustrated the potential of a
relatively simple compound
found in cinnamon, called
cinnemaldehyde, in fighting
off dangerous strains of E. coli
bacteria.
Meagan Fabel, 17, Windsor
– $4,000 Young Canadian Award
for her project that showed how
to enhance the low-cost
electrical energy output of the
Gratzel solar cell.
Adam Noble, 19, Lakefield,
Ont. – $4,000 Young Canadian
Award for his project
demonstrating the benefits of
using silver nano-particle
therapy as a potential cure for
cancer. Adam’s findings are
being researched as part of a
Drug Discovery Program at
Trent University.
Pierre Clapperton Richard
and Francis-Olivier Couture, 17,
Saguenay, QC – co-recipients of
$4,000 Young Canadian Award
for their project, EffiClasse, an
iPad application that allows full
management of “tablet-classes”.
The application allows teachers
to create a group and then
control the information and
view the group users’ tablets
(www.efficlasse.com).
Ernest C. Manning
Innovation Award winners are
selected by an independent
committee consisting of
established leaders and
authorities from various
disciplines. They are supported
in the selection process by
experts in fields including
medicine, genetics, engineering,
industrial processes and social
entrepreneurship.
The Young Canadian Award
winners were selected by a team
of judges at the 2013 CanadaWide Science Fair in May.
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 7
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Page 8
BUSINESS EDGE
From Page 1
Construction: ‘I started framing buildings down in the U.S.’
3. After your time at the truckstop, you were able to gain
some valuable sales experience while still a youngster,
weren’t you?
When I was just out of high
school, I got a pretty good job
with Petro-Canada, working
out of their office in Burnaby,
B.C. My role was to go out and
attract commercial accounts,
selling fuel oil and lubricants.
Our customers included bus and
truck fleets, who bought in bulk
from Petro-Canada. I worked
with them for about eight
months and, after that, I moved
to Victoria, where I installed
gas lines on Vancouver Island. I
moved up fairly quickly and was
promoted to foreman, in charge
of a four-man crew. Through that
company, I learned how to weld
and fuse, while learning quite a
bit about how to manage people.
I was about 20 or 21 at that time.
4. Was it about that time
your dad’s truckstop ran
into trouble?
Yeah, he went through some
bad times, so I went back to Fort
St. John to try and help. I stayed
there for two years but, unfortunately, we weren’t able to save
the business. Had I known then
the things I know now about
running a business, we might
have had a different result.
5. You were kind of at loose
ends, what happened next?
I wound up in Calgary,
working for McSweeney’s
Snacks. I became sales manager
for the company and helped
to set up a sales distribution
network from Winnipeg through
Saskatchewan, Alberta and
B.C. When the company was
bought out, I stuck around with
the new owners for a couple
of more years. For me, it was
another step in the direction
of a sales career.
6. But you were still working
for other people. You hadn’t
yet caught the entrepreneurial
bug. Your next job was kind
HighMark Crane president and CEO Scott Dodds with a couple
crane-mounted trucks at his Edmonton headquarters.
of a radical shift in direction,
wasn’t it?
I guess you could say that.
I started framing buildings
down in the U.S. for a construction company. I worked across
the country, from Oregon to
Columbia, S.C. We’d work in
one town for a few months
and then they’d move us to
another place. That was around
1995. The following year, I got
married and we wound up
in Texas, working for the
same company. I was framing,
putting roofs on and putting
floors down. Towards the
end of this period, I started
to think I’d like to start something on my own, so we
came back to Canada. My
brother-in-law and I started
an importing company.
7. What type of goods did
you import?
Well, my brother-in-law had
an uncle living in China, so we
had a connection over there.
We imported iron fittings for
gas lines. Eventually, we added
other products. We were buying
directly from China, selling directly to wholesalers and doing
some distribution on our own.
See ‘Contract’
Page 24
BUSINESS EDGE
Keeping pace: increasing
population means Alberta
businesses must expand
be optimistic about, however.
According to the survey, Alberta
oining Canada’s 4 million
SMEs are the second most
population
optimistic in Canada
club has its
SMALL BUSINESS with 87 per cent
privileges, but
feeling positive
SPECIAL REPORT about the province’s
along with
opportunity
economy, reflecting
come
a 10-per-cent jump
challenges, and Alberta’s small
from last quarter.
and medium businesses
(SMEs)
Oil & gas service
are among the first to
feel those growing pains.
Alberta grew by 42,000
leads by 300%
residents in the second
ompanies in the oil and gas
quarter of 2013, bringing the
service sector are reporting
record returns on investment
province’s population to more
thanks to Calgary-based FP
than four million for the first
iMarketing’s innovative approach
to lead generation.
time. At 1.08 per cent, Alberta’s
One of their control and
population growth rate is three
instrumentation clients, also headtimes the national average. As
quartered in Calgary, is one of the
growing number of oil-patch supply
a result, many Alberta SMEs
are planning to expand their
iMarketing’s unique formula for success. Responding to the customer’s
businesses to keep up.
A survey in Business Beat,
website, FP iMarketing implemented
an ATB Financial quarterly,
its unique three-step process utilizing
a cleverly designed website, potent
discovered three-quarters of
SEO (search engine optimization)
Alberta SMEs are trying to
program and FP’s signature lead
generation software.
grow their business, while a
The result? The client saw its
further 12 per cent say they are
sales leads rise by 300 per cent in
growing despite themselves.
For companies targeting sales
“It’s pretty simple,” said
in the oil and gas sector, capturing
Wellington Holbrook, ATB’s
critical importance. Airdrie-based
executive vice president,
United Safety saw almost identical
Business & Agriculture. “More
results with FP iMarketing’s threestep process.
residents mean more demand
FP iMarketing, under the guidfor products and services. In
ance of software entrepreneur Fred
many cases, Alberta businesses
Yee, has earned many awards over
the last decade. More importantly,
have no choice but to grow.
the company has established itself
While that’s exciting, it’s
as a reputable online lead-generation
company specializing in helping
also a challenge, especially
those in the B2B realm, particularly in
considering the shortage
the oil and gas and industrial sectors,
of skilled labour in Alberta,
achieve superior marketing results
that translate directly to a healthier
which is still a major concern
bottom line.
for SMEs.”
To be FP iMarketing’s next sales
A larger population along
from FP’s proven Active Conversion
with strong energy prices
software and mobile marketing tool,
and increased retail spending
visit
or call
.
give Alberta’s SMEs plenty to
Business Edge
J
C
Page 9
Page 10
BUSINESS EDGE
Tech Tidbits
Alberta, Germany team up on technology projects
Business Edge
T
he new Alberta- German
Collaboration Fund for
Product Development
and Commercialization recently
announced three
Alberta small to
medium businesses will receive
financial support.
According to a
media release,
the money will be
used to support
commercializing
innovative products
and services
across Alberta.
The collaboration fund is “a partnership
between Alberta Enterprise and
Advanced Education and the
German-Canadian Centre for
Innovation and Research (GCCIR) aimed at supporting joint
research and commercialization
activities between companies in
Alberta and Germany in strategic
areas of technology.” The GCCIR
supports collaboration between
industry and academic research
organizations to enhance knowledge and technology transfer.
The program was designed
to allow Alberta companies to
access high-tech resources and
European markets through a formal relationship with Germany.
Further, it is hoped the program
will lead to new models of collaboration between Alberta and
Germany to accelerate technology commercialization.
The first projects, selected by
an independent committee are:
r Alberta company Boreal Laser
will collaborate with Nanoplus
of Germany to develop new
atmospheric pollution monitoring technology using quantum
cascade lasers (QCLs).
r Calgary Scientific Inc. and
Germany’s Visus Technology
Transfer GmbH are undertaking
a project to enable physicianto-physician collaboration in
medical-imaging analysis for
cardiovascular disease.
r Frac Rite Environmental Ltd.
of Calgary will
team up with
German environmental solutions
provider HPC
AG, to provide
demonstrations of
Canadian fracturing technology
for environmental
remediation at two
sites in Germany.
GCCIR is planning a second
symposium in Germany for the
late fall of 2013 and a second call
for proposals shortly after.
Ontario centres invest 200K in
‘smart’ coating technology
The Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) recently announced
it is investing $200,000 in a
Queen’s University innovation
that “could soon make smudgey
tablet and smartphone touchscreens a thing of the past.”
According to OCE, its investment will help Queen’s and its
industry partner, Lorama Inc.,
accelerate commercialization
of a “smart” coating technology
discovered by Queen’s chemists
Dr. Guojun Liu and Dean Xiong.
“We’re excited to partner with
Queen’s and Lorama to support
this fantastic product,” said OCE
president and CEO Dr. Tom
Corr. “With literally hundreds of
millions of touchscreen devices
being used daily, breakthrough
technology that would make for
a cleaner screen presents a huge
business opportunity and would
be an incredible showcase of a
made-in-Ontario innovation that
will create jobs and boost the
local economy.”
This is the second investment
OCE has made in the coating
technology. The fund previously
invested $25,000 in the project
through its technical problem
solving program.
In tests, the coating repels
undesired water- and oil-based
deposits from a wide range of
surfaces, including glass, metals,
wood, ceramics, plastics, fabrics,
fibres and paper.
“Ontario is home to some
of the best researchers in the
world. The work that they are
doing today will bring the jobs
of tomorrow,” said Reza Moridi,
Ontario minister of research
and innovation. “I’m proud
that through OCE we are able
to bridge the commercialization gap and connect them with
industry to turn their research
into game-changing products
like this smart coating.”
Norman Leach is a
business consultant, speaker
and writer. He can be reached
at [email protected].
MULTI-FAMILY INVESTING
SECRETS REVEALED!
IS INVESTING IN
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BUILDINGS THE
ANSWER?
Insider scoop from Canada’s leading expert in investing
in multi-family properties!
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from Canada’s leading expert in
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BUSINESS EDGE
Page 11
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 12
Porter takes helm at Scotiabank
Business Edge
S
cotiabank (TSX:BNS) has
announced that Brian
Porter has succeeded Rick
Waugh in the role of president
and CEO. Scotiabank also appointed Barbara Mason and
James O’Sullivan to the executive
team as chief human resources
officer and executive vice president, Global Asset Management,
respectively.
CropLife Canada has appointed former Member of
Parliament Ted Menzies to the
position of president and CEO
starting Jan. 1. CropLife Canada
represents the companies that
develop, manufacture and
distribute pest-control products
and plant biotechnology and
is also a member of CropLife
International.
Paul Bennett has retired from
his position as president, CEO
and board member of PetroFrontier Corp. (TSXV:PFC) and
will consult for the company
through June 30. PetroFrontier
Corp. is a Calgary-based oil and
gas company exploring for conventional and unconventional
onshore petroleum and natural
gas in Australia.
Samuel Duboc has been
appointed chair of the board of
directors of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).
Duboc is completing his term
as the Clifford Clark Visiting
Economist at the Department
of Finance Canada. He is the
founder, president and managing partner of EdgeStone Capital
Partners. The BDC, owned by the
Government of Canada, is dedicated to serving entrepreneurs.
SCL Security Services brings
businesses peace of mind
C
anadian businesses seeking to protect their most
critical assets and mitigate risk
on various levels need not look
any further.
SCL Security Services
provides up-to-the minute
research, training and consulting on security and strategic
issues to security providers
Services include everything
from event security to risk assessment to executive protection services.
Recently, two would-be
vandals entered an SCLprotected building, then under
construction.
“As soon as they crossed
onto the property, our cameras
picked them up and sent an
alarm to the monitoring station,
myself and the site manager,”
said Maritza Leach, SCL’s VP
Operations. “Police were dispatched and I watched things
evolve – live – on
my cellphone.”
Racing to the scene, Leach
was there in time to assist the
“We had sent a colour
photo of the suspects to each
were looking for,” said Leach.
“The suspects were spotted in
the crowd watching the search
and were arrested.
“It is a great feeling to know
that our planning, design and
security teams stopped damage – or worse – to a client’s
business.”
SCL protects high-value,
hard-to-secure properties.
“We are a true systems
integrator,” added Leach. “We
are not beholden to any one
supplier or technology. We use
whatever is best for the client
including alarms, cameras,
guards and physical barriers.”
SCL Security Services
(www.sclsecurity.com) provides security consulting, planning and services
across Canada.
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 13
Small business owners satisfied despite flat economy
Business Edge
and are taking less vacation than
they were five years ago.
anadian small business
The survey also found that
owners are generally
the majority of small business
satisfied with their boss,
owners overestimate the
but many are working longer
number of new jobs created by
hours and taking less vacation,
small businesses.
according to a recent survey
While one-third of those
conducted by Angus Reid Public
surveyed said they believe
Opinion on behalf of Sage North
the Canadian economy has
America.
worsened in the
The study
past 12 months,
SMALL BUSINESS 90 per cent of
focused on how
SPECIAL REPORT small business
Canadian small
business owners
owners reported
have changed
satisfaction with
working habits over the last
being a business owner.
five years and assessed their
The need for a flexible
knowledge of the impact small
personal schedule and the
businesses have on the Canadian opportunity for financial
economy.
prosperity were reported as the
The study indicated that the
main reasons they own their
vast majority of small business
own businesses (39 per cent
owners are satisfied with owning and 38 per cent, respectively).
a business, but many put in more Seventy-two per cent of those
hours, often into the weekend,
surveyed are satisfied with their
C
ability to do business in Canada.
Thirteen per cent of small
business owners reported
having seriously considering
leaving their business to work
for someone else. Reasons for
the consideration included
underestimating the amount
of effort and time required and
dissatisfaction with the progress
of the business.
Sixteen per cent of small
business owners said it was
likely that they will pass along
the business to their children.
The survey found that 27 per
cent of small business owners
are working more hours per
week compared to five years
ago, 62 per cent of whom are
working both longer days and on
weekends.
Other report findings:
r8PNFOXIPPXOCVTJOFTTFT
reported working more hours
than men who own businesses.
Those who are dissatisfied with
being a business owner are more
likely working less than they
were five years ago.
r0OFJOGPVSTNBMMCVTJOFTT
owners are taking less vacation
time.
rîPTFXIPSFQPSU
dissatisfaction with being a
business owner are more likely
to report taking less vacation (61
per cent).
r5XPUIJSETPGTNBMMCVTJOFTT
owners overestimate small
business contributions to
Canada’s GDP; the same
proportion is likely to
underestimate the number of
small businesses in Canada.
r)BMGPGTNBMMCVTJOFTTPXOFST
underestimate the number of
Canadians that small businesses
employ, but two-thirds
overestimate the percentage of
all new jobs created by small
business.
Page 14
BUSINESS EDGE
BUSINESS EDGE
Authorized Provider of
Page 15
Page 16
BUSINESS EDGE
Oil pipeline bottlenecks costing Canadian economy billions
Business Edge
C
anada’s economy loses
tens of millions of dollars
daily because pipeline
bottlenecks choke access to
more lucrative markets for
Western Canadian conventional
heavy crude oil and oil sands
bitumen, concludes a new
study published by the Fraser
Institute.
Most Western crude sells
at a discount in the United
States midcontinent region,
where oil pipelines are generally
operating at or close to full
capacity. Similar heavy oils
fetch higher prices at refineries
in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico
region and in the U.S. northeast
according to the study.
Even the proposed Keystone
XL pipeline won’t resolve the
problem because Canadian
producers would still have to
compete for capacity in the
line with surging U.S. shale oil
production from North Dakota
and a number of other states.
“The perception that only
Alberta benefits from the oil
sands is incorrect. The
prosperity of a broad swath
of Canadians is dependent
on the growth of Canada’s oil
production,” said Kenneth P.
Green, Fraser Institute Senior
Director of Natural Resource
Studies and co-author of the
study.
“Capacity must be put
in place to allow Western
Canadian crude oil to reach
tidewater on Canada’s western
and eastern coasts - if Canada
is to get its oil to markets where
higher prices can be realized.”
From 2011 through May
2013 Western Canadian Select
heavy crude oil sold in the
mid-continent region at an
average $36 US below the price
for North Sea sweet light crude,
a world benchmark. By contrast
Mexican Mayan crude oil which
is similar to Western Canadian
conventional heavy crude,
sold in the U.S. Gulf region at a
“modest discount” to the world
price.
The discount to North Sea
light crude, as captured by the
Brent price marker, was only
$14 US a barrel during the
2008-2010 period. Since then,
Western Canadian Select has
not increased in price at the
same pace as Brent.
The study describes a “huge
ongoing and increasing loss of
revenue.” In the fourth quarter
of 2012 Canada exported
conventional heavy crude and
bitumen blends at a combined
production rate of 1.27 million
barrels a day. At that rate, with
an average $37 (U.S.) per barrel
discount to the Brent price,
Canada was losing $47 million a
day on average, totalling
$17 billion a year.
“Canada’s oil does not
command the price that it could
on a world market because it’s
bottled up in the Midwestern
United States, where it causes a
glut, and can’t get out to the
refiners on the Gulf Coast and
offshore refiners and
destinations where it can
command a higher price,”
Green said.
The discount is an urgent
problem for all Canadians,
according to Green. A lower
price means economic and
financial losses for petroleum
companies and their
shareholders, less royalty and
other revenue which provincial
and territorial governments
can redirect to health care and
education, and less revenue
for pension funds such as the
Canada Pension Plan which
hold shares of oil producing
companies.
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BUSINESS EDGE
Page 17
Real Estate Investment Opportunity
Palisades Shopping Plaza
12804 137th Ave., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Loca on, Loca on, Loca on
Well established retail plaza—built in 1995 and 2007
54,514 square feet, on 5.14 Acres free hold land
Excellent mix of interna onal, na onal, and local tenants
Major tenants include: CIBC Bank, Ci Financial, Safeway Wine
& Spirits, Outback, Signature Orthodon cs
Shadow Anchor: Safeway Food & Drugs
Highlights
Fully leased
Current leases are below market values
Regional occupancy rates are over 97%
Retail demand for this area con nues to grow along with the
surrounding community and economy
Triple net leases apply—costs covered by tenants
Prominent loca on along two of the busiest roads in
Northwest Edmonton—137th Ave. and 127th St.
Located in the heart of Edmonton’s Northwest retail
corridor
Surrounded by residen al communi es with higher
than average disposable income
High daily tra c count of 93,300 vehicles per day
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PALISADES SHOPPING PLAZA, INCLUDING THE APPLICABLE
OFFERING MEMORANDUM, PLEASE CONTACT US TOLL FREE AT 1 866 668 7344 OR EMAIL
US AT [email protected] OR [email protected].
Page 18
BUSINESS EDGE
Industry leaders call for worker mobility legislation
Business Edge
P
arliament recently
opened debate on Bill
C-201, which proposes
a tax credit that would help
construction workers cover
their travel costs when
relocating temporarily to take
on short-term construction jobs.
In an open letter published
in The Globe and Mail, the
National Post and the Hill
Times, leaders of Canada’s
construction industry made
a case for the tax credit,
outlining the human resources
challenges facing the industry
and how the credit could
help meet them. The authors
suggested that the legislation
will create new opportunities
for under-employed Canadian
tradespeople and help to keep
them working.
The industry is facing skills
shortages due to a large cohort
of its skilled workforce aging
into retirement, a fragmented
training system producing
uneven results, and not enough
recruits to make up the shortfall.
To meet the projected economic
demand, more than 250,000 new
workers will be needed by the
end of the decade according to
the letter’s authors.
Current Government
of Canada initiatives are,
according to the letter’s authors,
unlikely to meet the need for
construction workers or grow
the workforce in a tangible
way. The resource and major
institutional construction
sectors in some regions are
already experiencing skilled
labour shortages, and the
situation is expected to worsen.
Resource projects are often
located in remote areas with
small populations. They rely
on skilled workers willing to
relocate to distant sites for short
terms. According to figures
compiled on behalf of Canada’s
Building Trades Union, travel
and temporary costs are $3,500
provision for the majority of
construction workers who travel
to obtain work. For example,
“The resource and major institutional construction sectors in some
regions are already experiencing skilled labour shortages, and the
situation is expected to worsen.”
on average, which is prohibitive
for many tradespeople.
Existing tax exemptions
related to remote work sites
apply only to those workers who
are provided lodging at these
sites directly. There is no similar
a worker from New Brunswick
who moves temporarily to
Ontario to work at a large
construction site gets no
consideration under the tax
system and the individual must
bear the cost burden of travel
and lodging if not provided by
the employer.
“This initiative would
alleviate dependence on
expensive temporary HR
solutions by encouraging
Canadians to go where the work
is— even if it is for a relatively
short, finite period of time,” said
Robert Blakely, chief operating
officer of Canada’s Building
Trades Unions. “The credit
would go a long way toward
meeting a challenge our entire
industry is facing.”
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 19
Turgoen
Turgeon masters multi-family investments
W
hen you team up
with investment pro
Pierre-Paul Turgeon
of Matterhorn Real Estate
Investments Ltd., you’re
gaining access to the kind of
insight and insider knowledge
A well-known speaker and
educator, Turgeon is also one
of the country’s leading authorities on a lucrative niche
market: serial investment in
multi-family apartment buildings. In general, Turgeon
partners with high net-worth
professionals who have
absolute faith in the extent
of his knowhow, as well as
his integrity.
“These are passive,
armchair types of investments,” says Turgeon. “I
do all the heavy lifting. As
a rule, my partners and I
structure our relationships
according to standard jointventure agreements which
are usually based on the
Unanimous Shareholder
Agreement (USA).”
Based in Edmonton,
Turgeon concentrates on
the local market, for excellent reasons. Obviously, he
knows the turf like the back
of his hand. And, of course,
Edmonton represents one of
the country’s most dynamic
real estate markets.
“It’s really a booming
market in Edmonton, the
fundamentals are very
strong and getting stronger.
Most residents are enjoyincomes and people are
migrating to the city and
surrounding areas in increasing numbers,” he says.
Boiled down to its essentials, Turgeon’s strategy is
simple: to identify, evaluate
and ultimately purchase an
under-managed and undervalued apartment complex,
ideally for a bargain price.
Once the property is acquired, Turgeon installs his
own property management
Mortgage and Housing
Corp. (CMHC), where he
analyzed hundreds of deals
similar to the ones he now
puts together. It’s his years
of experience and his insider
knowledge that give Matterhorn its edge.
During his last four years
with CMHC, Turgeon served
as a supervisor of default
management, which gave
him invaluable insights into
the anatomy of a bad real
estate deal. In other words,
Pierre-Paul Turgeon, head of Matterhorn Real Estate Investments.
team to bring operations
With skilful management
and appropriate renovations
in place, rental increases
while nobody in the investment community is able to
offer iron-clad guarantees,
working with Turgeon and
his team enables investors
to share in the ownership
of a revenue-producing
apartment building that’s
as close to bulletproof as
it’s possible to be. ROIs can
vary, of course, but, in the
past, investors have reaped
rewards to the tune of eight
to 15 per cent a year.
multi-family apartment buildings as his preferred niche
for a number of reasons.
They offer improved economies of scale over singlefamily homes or duplexes,
for example. A vacancy in a
24-suite complex obviously
carries lesser impact than it
would in a duplex.
“But, the key thing is
this: the way to evaluate
an apartment building is by
its annual income (before
mortgage payments). And
every time you increase that
income, either by running
or by raising rents, you enjoy
immediate capital appreciation,” Turgeon explains.
“Over the long haul, you
make more money by owning
and operating multi-family,
residential apartment buildings than you can by owning
smaller properties.”
Under normal circumstances, Turgeon and his
investors will own and
operate the building for a
years, giving the investment
time to appreciate in value.
After that, the team will have
the property appraised and
decide on an appropriate
exit strategy.
Prior to founding Matterhorn, Turgeon enjoyed a
lengthy career with Canada
to avoid the pitfalls and mine
lems for neophyte investors.
It’s part of his strategy to
evaluate each investment
opportunity exactly the same
way he did while working as
a CMHC underwriter for so
many years. It’s all about risk
mitigation. Turgeon tends to
be very conservative in his
projections and his all-around
strategic approach.
To gain additional understanding of that approach,
you really should check out
Turgeon in person. He’s a
compelling coach, trainer
and speaker and his crossCanada discussions of
multi-family investment
opportunities are well worth
a listen.
Turgeon’s next two-day
training session, a handson crash course for those
interested in learning his
methods, is set for May
25-26 in Edmonton. Legal,
experts will also share their
expertise. He also plans to
line course for multi-family
investors, including real-time
analysis of risk factors, as
well as actual deals (launch
date January 31/13).
For contact info and
additional information,
please visit Matterhorn’s
two websites: www.multi
familyblueprint.com and
matterhorninvesting.com.
Page 20
BUSINESS EDGE
Businesses complacent about information security
While large businesses are
more aware of requirements,
ompanies exchange
more than half (57 per cent)
sensitive information
admit while they do have a proon a daily basis, but
tocol, not all employees
when it comes to protecting
are aware of it. Alarmingly,
data from falling into the
40 per cent of small businesses
wrong hands, many Canadian
admit to having no protocol at
businesses are taking a
all in place.
passive approach to their
A crucial first step for
information security.
practising effective information
A recent study conducted
security is awareness of policies,
by Ipsos Reid on behalf of
but businesses across the board
Shred-it demonstrates Canadian are not training staff regularly.
businesses lack not only awareOnly six per cent of small business about information security
nesses and 24 per cent of large
breaches – they
businesses train
also underestiSMALL BUSINESS staff on the commate a breach’s
SPECIAL REPORT pany’s information
potential,
security policies
making them
and procedures
vulnerable to data loss and postwice a year. One-third (33 per
sible financial and reputational
cent) of small businesses admit
damage.
to never training their staff at
The 2013 Shred-it Informaall, while nearly half (44 per
tion Security Tracker revealed
cent) of small
both large and small Canadian
businesses train only on an
businesses are not being
“as-needed” basis.
vigilant enough when it
“It may be tempting for
comes to their information
businesses to put information
security policies and protocols.
security on the back burner,
Combine this with a recent
particularly if they’ve never
survey from the Office of the
experienced a data breach,” says
Privacy Commissioner of
Bruce Andrew, vice-president,
Canada that reveals just
Shred-it. “By making informa13 per cent of Canadians
feel businesses take the
protection of their personal
information seriously and
consumers across the country
are looking to businesses to
take action and make information security a priority.
Industry regulations?
What regulations? Despite
this popular sentiment and
the very real consequences
of inaction, 22 per cent of
small businesses indicate
they are either not at all, or
not very aware of their industry’s legal requirements for storing or disposing of confidential
data, compared to just five
per cent of large businesses.
Business Edge
C
sensitive data a company-wide
practice potentially saving
themselves from both financial
and reputational damage.”
tion security an important part
of the organizational culture
and by actively and regularly
training all staff on the proper
policies and protocols, businesses can make the safeguarding of
See ‘Breach’
Page 21
Cut it in
half
Wireless Telecom Expense Management
www.hpci.ca/half
HPCI
1-888-244-0822
BUSINESS EDGE
From Page 20
Page 21
Breach: study demonstrates lack of awareness of consequences
The 2013 Security Tracker
also demonstrates an increase
in the number of large Canadian organizations who
report having nobody
responsible for managing
data-security issues (19 per
cent, up from six per cent in
2012), while small businesses
remain consistent year-overyear (45 per cent in 2013
compared to 47 per cent in
2012). Further, a considerable
amount of companies of any
size operating in the professional
services sector (46 per cent),
retail sector (45 per cent) and
the public
sector (42 per cent) report
they, too, do not have anyone
in charge of their company’s
information security.
Canadian businesses
also continue to be complacent about securing their
electronic media and hard
drives. These obsolete media
devices contain a wealth of
data and Canadian companies are generally unaware the
most effective way to prevent
retrieval of this information
is by fully destroying the device (18 per cent of large businesses do so, compared to 14
per cent of small businesses).
Nearly half of Canadian
companies both large and
small (44 per cent) mistakenly
believe wiping or degaussing
a hard drive will render the
data irretrievable, meaning
the majority of Canadian
businesses inadvertently put
themselves and their customers at risk of data being
recovered.
A data breach could damage any organization’s bottom
line, with the prospect of
losing revenue, reputation or
clients. The financial impact
for those businesses that
reported being victims of a
breach appears to be on the
rise, as 15 per cent of large
businesses who experienced
protect confidential data, the
information they have shared
with partners and vendors
may not be so secure,” says
Andrew. “All it takes is
one gap for a breach to
“It may be tempting for businesses to put information
occur
and a reputation
security on the back burner, particularly if they’ve never
to be damaged.”
experienced a data breach.”
With that in mind,
- Bruce Andrew
Canadian
Shred-it vice-president
companies should consider re-evaluating the
risks associated with sharing
policies and protocols.
any size take proactive steps
data with members of their
“Businesses may not realto prevent data breaches;
supply chain. Do
ize that while they may have
however, organizations may
implemented a strict policy to these partners also demonbe leaving themselves, their
a breach indicated a loss of
more than $500,000 (up from
just three per cent in 2012).
It is crucial businesses of
clients or their customers at
risk if their business partners
or members of their supply
chain do not have similar
Page 22
BUSINESS EDGE
Apex offers superior massage and convenience!
I
f you’re looking for
complimentary glass of
should continue walking
through the Yellow Pages.
Apex Massage Therapy
is something else entirely, a
centre for the promotion of
health and physical
wellbeing, not a temple
devoted to the admittedly
Monday to Thursday after 10
a.m. In fact, founder-owner
Shelly MacGregor refers to
the therapeutic massage
business she has built from
Apex Massage Therapy founder and owner Shelly MacGregor refers to her business as “the
scratch as “the anti-spa.”
anti-spa” because they specialize in soft tissue massage.
“We’re a clinic like no
other in Calgary,” MacGregor our clientele. Our therapists
to avail themselves of
That’s part of what makes
says. “We’re not a multiwere the primary drivers
the services of all our
Apex Massage Therapy
disciplinary clinic. We
behind our decision to open
therapists,”
such a desirable destination
specialize in soft tissue
on Sundays,” MacGregor
MacGregor says.
massage therapy and only
explains.
Therapists help
Plus, of course, you don’t
massage therapy. If we
“They realized that
MacGregor’s clients by
have to wait to receive your
perceive that you’d be better
many of our clients wanted
relying on techniques such
treatment. As stated above,
off visiting a chiropractor
to come in on Sundays, so
you’re able to see your
or a phsyiotherapist, we’ll
they came to me and pushed up the kind of muscle
therapist on the very day
be happy to supply you with
for it. It seemed like an
adhesions that tend to
you make your appointment,
a referral.”
exceptionally good idea to
restrict a person’s range of
provided the call is made
That’s not to say
me, so I said, ‘Absolutely.’ ”
motion.
prior to 10 a.m. That’s the
MacGregor’s new, freeMacGregor’s sparkling
“We see a lot of people
Apex guarantee.
standing two-storey clinic in
new clinic features nine
with repetitive strains,
And there’s one more
Calgary’s Briar Hill district
fully equipped treatment
they’ve been sitting at their
important point to be made
(2012 12th Avenue NW)
rooms occupied by 15
desks, they’re on computers, about the Apex team:
isn’t a spotless, welcoming
registered massage
they have a lot of neck and
MacGregor’s 15 specialists
and comfortable place to
therapists, each of whom
shoulder pain that can result
know from personal
visit. It most certainly is and
from that repetitive motion
experience exactly how
the complimentary heated
hours to make sure most of
that people do all day.”
and why their clients suffer.
blankets are an especially
their therapeutic services
Several of the Apex
On some level, they’ve all
welcome feature, particularly are 100 per cent covered
therapists specialize in acute run into their own athletic
during these cold days of
conditions, including the
injuries or have struggled
winter.
insurance.
trauma created by motorwith range-of-motion issues.
Parking is free and the
And when a client walks
vehicle accidents. With this
They understand that you’re
through the door,
large group of well-educated
hurting and they’re pledged
everything in its power to
MacGregor’s personalized
therapists, management
to help you ease your pain.
provide same-day service,
therapy program swings
is better able than the
That’s another excellent
if you’re able to make your
into immediate action.
competition to match a
reason to visit the clinic’s
appointment prior to 10 a.m.
“We ask each one to
informative website (www.
It’s all part of Apex’s tried
apexmassage.com) and to
and true customer service
to sit down and discuss
“As a consumer, that’s
read the voluntary
model. For the convenience
their issues with us. That
a source of great comfort,”
testimonials supplied by
of clients, the clinic is open
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Page 24
BUSINESS EDGE
From Page 8
Contract: ‘I just had to make it through the first week’
8. How successful was
the company?
It wasn’t, actually. We didn’t
go broke, we just decided to
shut it down. We received
some bad product from our
Chinese suppliers and that
pretty much ended things.
Right about that time, we had
our first child and I decided I
needed a little bit more security.
That’s about the time I got into
the crane business.
9. So, you were no longer
working on your own?
I worked for a company
called H & H Crane Ltd. and
received my operator’s training
at NAIT at the same time. That
meant I could operate a boom
truck from 40 tonnes down to
five tonnes. So, in those days,
I was strictly a crane operator.
I was at the point where I was
tired of not making enough
money. So, we shut down our
distribution company.
10. Did you have any specific
goals relating to your latest
career change?
My purpose was to earn
$60,000 a year. And things
turned out pretty well for me. I
started with them in 1997 and
was able to move up through
the ranks. They had locations
in Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Red
Deer and Calgary, but there was
no office in Edmonton at that
time. So, I suggested they open
an office there. After all, it’s the
Gateway to the North. They
agreed but nobody wanted to do
it. So, they asked me to move to
Edmonton from Calgary.
11. What year did you make
the move to Edmonton?
That was in February, 2004.
By this time, I was anxious to
start my own crane business,
but I didn’t have access to the
necessary capital. I mean, how
do you do it? But by the time I
got to Edmonton, I had gained
a lot of important experience
and felt I was ready to stand on
my own two feet.
12. So, how were you able to
make it happen?
Within a year or so, I approached my bosses at H & H
and made a proposal. I told
them I would like to go on my
own. I asked them if they would
sell me two cranes and finance
the sale themselves. They said
yes. So, I became H & H Crane
(Edmonton) Ltd. They became
H & H Crane and Equipment
Ltd. This was great because
the company was already up
and running.
13. Can you talk about
the terms of the financing
arrangement?
I agreed to repay them
$50,000 within five years, which
I did. I still consider that a
great personal accomplishment. It taught me that once
you decide, once and for all, that
you’re going to do something,
making that decision can be
your greatest hurdle. Once I
made that decision, I was able
to make it happen. It didn’t
happen overnight, of course. It
took maybe a year to 18 months
to put everything in place but
things certainly worked out well.
14. So, it was smooth sailing
from that point on?
No, not exactly. I started
on my own in April 2005 and,
by March 2007, things weren’t
going so well. The economy
was starting to slow down and
I started to think the business
was about done. For a while,
I actually thought I was close
to bankruptcy.
15. Can you share a
few details?
I was kind of stuck. It
was kind of a turning point.
Around that time, another crane
company approached me and
offered to buy me out, but I
really didn’t think the deal was
very attractive. By this time, I
was mentally and emotionally
exhausted. But here’s the crazy
thing. Even though we were
under-capitalized and struggling, I had the strangest feeling
that something good was going
to happen.
16. And did it?
Well, yeah, it did. My brotherin-law was doing really well
about this time. He advised
me against accepting the offer
for my company and actually offered to kick in whatever
cash that I may have needed.
As it happened, I didn’t have
to borrow any cash for him.
Within six months, I wound up
getting a massive contract from
Balfour Beatty, which is a major
infrastructure player in the U.S.
They were up here to install
power lines but they had no
equipment. So, they came to me
for everything they needed to
complete the job.
17. Did you have enough
inventory to fill the requirements for such a big job?
Not even close. I got the
contract without really knowing how I was going to do it.
I got the purchase order around
Christmas. We had to start
in January, but I didn’t have
enough equipment. So, I rented
some of it from my old employers, H & H Crane and Equipment. I had four cranes of
my own at the time but I still
needed more gear.
18. How did you manage
to find it?
I approached the company
that had offered to buy me out
and they rented me enough
equipment to move forward.
When I made the deal with
Balfour Beatty, they agreed to
pay me on a weekly basis. So, I
just had to make it through the
first week. This job really turned
things around for me.
19. So, was it onward and upward for your company from
that point on?
I wouldn’t go so far as to
say that. We had our share of
ups and downs and ran into
a few more challenges but,
when I started to struggle, I
just refused to quit trying. My
mantra at that time was “never,
never give up,” which I got from
Winston Churchill. Eventually,
we were able to pay off quite
a bit of debt and the business
continued to grow. In 2010, we
picked up another big contract with a major power-line
company. Along the way, I was
developing relationships with
the managers of these big companies and that led to several
good things. And I was learning
the whole time. I learned how
to manage my cashflow, so
we were able to ride out the
dry spells.
20. When did you know in
your heart that your company
was here to stay?
I suppose it was 2011. We
had very good years in 2010
and 2011 and continued to
grow. But this year has really
been the best year. So far
in 2013, our revenues and
profits have tripled. We’re
projecting a bottom line of
$9 million this year and I have
continued to concentrate
on the power-line side of the
business. During the next
five years, we’re expecting an
expenditure of $16 billion for
upgraded power lines in both
Alberta and B.C. And we’ll be
doing our best to get as many
of those contracts as we can.
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 25
Widespread manufacturing benefits touted for Canada-EU trade agreement
Business Edge
I
n a meeting with industry leaders, James Moore,
minister of industry,
underscored how the CanadaEuropean Union (EU) Comprehensive Economic and Trade
Agreement (CETA) will benefit
manufacturers across the country. Moore was joined by Colin
Carrie, Member of Parliament
for Oshawa and parliamentary
secretary to the minister of the
environment.
“Canada’s robust manufacturing sector encompasses
aircraft, automobiles, medical
testing equipment, high-tech
devices, and numerous other
industries,” said Moore. “This
agreement will eliminate tariffs
on these high-quality products, creating the conditions
to increase sales and directly
benefiting Canadian businesses.
These businesses will be exposed to more than 500 million
consumers, which will lead to
new jobs, new opportunities
and growth.”
“This agreement represents a
tremendous opportunity for exporters in Oshawa and Canada,
particularly in the auto sector,”
stated Carrie. “It will open new
markets to some of the most
affluent consumers, which
means more jobs for Oshawa
and Canada.”
“We applaud Canada and the
EU for completing a high-standard comprehensive economic
and trade agreement that will
provide enhanced opportunities for growth in both regions,”
said Kevin Williams, president
and managing director, General
Motors of Canada. “We appreciate the hard work to improve
market access for Canadianproduced automobiles while
ensuring Canada continues
to benefit from the integrated
manufacturing sector.”
An agreement in principle
for this historic deal was announced by Prime Minister
Stephen Harper and European
Commission President Jose
Manuel Barroso in October
2013. When this agreement
comes into force, approximately
98 percent of EU tariff lines
will be duty-free for Canadian
industrial products. Seven years
later, 100 percent of these tariff
lines will be duty-free.
The EU is the world’s largest
integrated economy, with more
than 500 million consumers and
a GDP of $17 trillion.
Page 26
BUSINESS EDGE
Bigger is not better for tax systems, says CFIB report
Business Edge
Cruz. “The Index is meant to
give jurisdictions a sense of how
anada’s two most
small-business-friendly their tax
populous provinces
systems are.”
continue to lag behind
Alberta and Quebec, which
most of the country when
were best and worst by wide
it comes to small-businessmargins, were also at the top
friendly tax systems, according
and bottom of the index when
to an updated report by
CFIB last ranked the provinces
the Canadian Federation of
in 2009. Newfoundland and
Independent
Labrador and
Business (CFIB).
Prince Edward
SMALL BUSINESS
The report
Island showed
SPECIAL REPORT
examines how
the largest
the provinces
improvements
stack up against one another
over their 2009 rankings, each
by analysing 53 indicators in
moving up two
five major areas of tax policy:
positions, from sixth to fourth
premiums and payroll taxes;
and seventh to fifth, respectively.
sales and excise taxes; corporate British Columbia showed the
income taxes; personal income
largest drop, from fourth to
taxes; and property taxes.
seventh position.
“A complicated and costly
“Small business owners
tax system burdens small
consistently tell us that
business owners and is a barrier complicated, costly tax systems
to economic growth and job
are the biggest obstacle to
creation,” said report author,
growth,” added CFIB president
CFIB research analyst Marvin
Dan Kelly.
C
Province
2013 Rank
2013 Index
Score
2009 Rank
Alberta
1
8.53
1
Saskatchewan
2
7.01
3
New Brunswick
3
6.98
2
Newfoundland &
Labrador
4
6.17
6
PEI
5
5.90
7
Manitoba
6
5.67
5
British Columbia
7
5.65
4
Ontario
8
5.50
9
Nova Scotia
9
5.22
8
Quebec
10
3.97
10
Provincial scores on a scale from 1 to 10,
where 1 is the best and 10 is the worst.
)1-7;:117
Why advertise with 9LJ@E<JJ<;>< ? Because it works.
E<NJD8>8Q@E<
Call Rob at 403.769.9359 or email [email protected]
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 27
Canada’s environmental
sector posts substantial growth
Business Edge
C
anada’s environmental professionals have
increased ten-fold over
the past two decades, according
to the latest study by Environmental Careers Organization
Canada (ECO). In the past three
years the number of employees
has grown from 318,000 to over
460,000, demonstrating the
growing need for workers with
environmental skills.
An estimated 1,799,695 environmental employees currently
work in Canada, representing
over 10 per cent of the entire Canadian labour force. Since 1993,
Canada’s environmental workforce has grown by a factor of 10.
The number of environmental
employers in Canada has also
increased to over 450,000, representing almost one out of every
five Canadian employers.
“Over the past 20 years,
our research has shown the
steady growth of environmental employment,” said Grant
Trump, president and CEO,
ECO Canada. “This growth has
a direct impact on the Canadian
economy and produces many
benefits, including the creation
of new jobs, the reduction of
environmental costs, and the
development of innovative business opportunities.”
Although environmental
employees can be found across
all Canadian regions, the greatest number work in Ontario
(708,138), followed by Québec
(407,020), British Columbia
(234,563), and Alberta (219,287).
Canada’s environmental
workforce is slightly younger
than the overall Canadian
workforce, with 62 per cent aged
44 years or younger, in contrast
to 57.2 per cent of the Canadian
workforce. Over one-third of
environmental employees hold
at least a bachelor’s degree,
compared to 26.9 per cent of the
overall Canadian labour force.
“Our research suggests that
employees with environmental
skills can quickly advance in
their fields due to the relatively
young age of the sector and the
large proportion of workers in
senior level roles.” said Trump.
Additional findings of the
study show that environmental
work is becoming increasingly
specialized with more employees working in a select group of
industries. Over 25 per cent of
environmental employees work
in administrative and support,
waste management and remediation services. Over 22 percent
work in professional, scientific,
and technical services.
The study also predicts
continued short-term and longterm growth in the environmental sector. Nearly three-quarters
of Canadian environmental
employers are expecting to
hire new employees within the
next two years. Over the next
10 years, almost 20 per cent of
the environmental workforce is
expected to retire, representing
a total of 341,942 employees.
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Call Rob at 403.769.9359 or email [email protected]
Page 28
BUSINESS EDGE
Technology Edge
Smart people plan telecom future over mai tais
Tom Keenan
Business Edge
from Honolulu, Hawaii
E
ach year, over 1,600
top experts in telecommunications converge in
Honolulu, Hawaii, for the Pacific
Telecommunications Council’s
(PTC) annual conference. This year,
they came from
71 countries to
discuss everything
from the impact
of cloud computing to why people
are dumping their
cable TV to trends
in undersea
cables.
My favourite
part of the conference is getting
to meet the industry experts
and academics who are studying the future of telecommunications. This year, a lot of them
had their heads in the cloud
– literally. Cloud computing is
the current tech darling and
this conference had experts like
Peter Coffee, VP of U.S.-based
Salesforce.com, explaining
cloud solutions like his company’s are already producing huge
benefits – and they are.
But there may be a fly in the
ointment: too many clouds that
don’t connect properly. David
Bernstein has the impressive
title of VP, cloudscaling and,
senior scientist for the United
States Information Technology
Lab. For him, what we’re seeing
now with Google, Microsoft,
Facebook and Amazon all offering their own cloud platforms is
eerily familiar.
“It really is déjà vu,” he said,
showing a slide of the situation back in the nasty old days
when we could only send email
to people in our own company.
Remember when we had com-
peting Internet providers like
AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy
who tried to keep us isolated?
Bernstein cites one of the grand
old men of the Internet, Vint
Cerf, now VP and chief internet evangelist for Google, who
said, “I’m seeing a possibility of
inter-cloud problems mirroring the
Internet problems
we had 30, 40 years
ago.”
“It doesn’t take
a visionary to see
what’s going to
happen next,” Bernstein said. He predicts “we will see
profound federation again” as the
proprietary cloudstorage systems all
learn to play nice in what geeks
call “interoperable server side
protocols and formats.” For
mere mortals, this means if you
have your data in one of these
proprietary clouds, it will be a
snap for it to work together with
data in somebody else’s cloud,
all the while maintaining proper
security and access control.
Academics are a small but
important part of the PTC
program and this year the
conference was further energized by a new cohort of PhD
students who got a free trip to
the conference to share their
ideas. I was privileged to be on
the selection committee that
picked the lucky winners.
We had everything from a
study of how having a smartphone affects your TV habits to
how online gamers build their
friendship networks. Meeting
the young scholars at the conference brought their research
to life and many of them are
already moving on to careers in
business or academia.
Sometimes the interaction between academics and
telecom technology is not quite
so friendly. Recently, University
of Toronto professor Steve Joordens offered his students extra
credit for adding relevant content to Wikipedia. Wikipedia
bills itself as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” but
they weren’t expecting a tirade
of amateurish alterations to
their carefully crafted pages.
Joordens has defended the
project, saying very few of the
900 or so articles that were
touched by his students caused
problems. The real issue seems
to be resources. Since Wikipedia is maintained by a small
number of volunteer editors,
this flood of changes caused a
lot of extra work. The professor
has agreed to put limits on such
assignments in the future.
In a more troubling academic interaction with the Internet, George Mason University
history professor T. Mills Kelly
actually encouraged his students to create online hoaxes.
He wanted them to understand
the process of doing historical
research and also to appreciate
how easily bogus information
can spread online.
His students invented
Edward Owens, the “last
American pirate” who supposedly sailed the Chesapeake Bay
in the late 1800s. Mills explains
they had to do good historical research to create this fake
person, since they had to mix in
“true facts” with their fabrications. They succeeded, even
fooling some history teachers.
Other hoaxes by Kelly’s
students include the tale of
a New York woman who finds
clues that her great uncle Joe
may have been a serial killer.
“To pull this one off,” Mills
writes, “the students created
a fictitious person working
on the family history, gave her
a blog, created two Wikipedia
entries (both of which were
100 per cent true, thank you
very much) and tried to use
Reddit as the place to get the
hoax going.”
Mills believes Lying About
the Past was a success because
“the students all walked away
from the course with a firm
belief that research counts
and accepting whatever you
find online at first glance is a
bad policy.”
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 29
Accessibility and commute key workplace attributes – study
Business Edge
T
echnology may be closing
the time and distance
gap for some of today’s
workers, but the physical office
space remains an important
collaborative destination for
most Canadians. Reducing
commute time is so important
to Canadian employees that,
according to a recent study by
Oxford Properties and Environics Research Group, one third of
those surveyed said they would
be willing to work an extra three
hours per week for a reasonable
commute to the office.
Canadians surveyed identified accessibility and commuting as the most valued attributes in a workplace, with 76
per cent indicating they want
a reasonable commute to the
office. Commute time was the
number one factor for 50 per
cent of respondents when asked
to choose one employer over
another when other factors were
held constant.
Eighty two per cent of overall
respondents felt that a commute
time of less than 30 minutes
was the appropriate travel time
to work. Close to 40 per cent of
respondents also wanted their
workplace to be close to lifestyle amenities, such as shops,
restaurants and gyms to better
balance their work and personal
life priorities in a given day.
“Employees and job seekers are placing an even greater
emphasis on the value of their
time and the transit options of a
workplace,” says Andrew McAllan, senior vice president and
managing director, Real Estate,
Oxford Properties. “Optimizing office location and transit
accessibility in conjunction with
collaborative spatial design and
a wide variety of amenities, will
be crucial selling points for employers to attract and retain the
brightest, most loyal employees.”
Although commuting is becoming a greater consideration
for many employees and job
seekers, the office space itself is
far from obsolete as collaborative work cultures and environments are on the rise. In fact,
57 per cent of respondents said
they collaborate more than they
did five years ago.
Surprisingly, the more tech
and social media savvy Generation Y demographic - comprising one third of Canada’s
population and the next wave of
the country’s active labour force
- place a greater importance on
being physically in the office,
with 79 per cent defining collaboration as working together
in the same space in person. In
comparison, only 59 per cent of
boomers feel that collaboration
means working face-to-face.
“Organizational culture is
greatly influenced by direct
human and environmental
interaction, and there’s a great
deal of collaborative innovation
that happens within the four
walls of an office. To encourage talent to participate in this
physical space, smart organizations will recognize that finding
an optimal office location is not
only a job seeker’s choice, but
a strategic responsibility of the
employer to attract and retain
the most engaged employees,”
says McAllan.
Other highlights from the
study include:
rQFSDFOUPGSFTQPOEFOUT
value a workplace that is easily
accessible
r(FOFSBUJPO:JTNPSFMJLFMZ
than any other age group to
work three extra hours per week
for access to on-site or nearby
lifestyle amenities
r%FTQJUFHSFBUFSôFYJCMF
workplace options offered by
employers, working from home
is not the norm with the average
respondent working only 1.8
days from home per month
Page 30
BUSINESS EDGE
The Lighter Side
Here’s looking at me: the horrors of Google Glass
Cassius King
Business Edge
I
know that you, my Dear
Reader, without whom I
would not exist ( for which
fact you may be one day held accountable), must read my urbane
musings and picture
me as a chiselled, bronzed
sophisticate. Well, much as it
pains me, I’m honour-bound to
alleviate you of that sad delusion.
For, as my nearest and dearest
never tire of reminding me, I am
none of those things. The fiends.
While I cry myself to sleep,
I sometimes muse about how
simple life would be if only the
world had the good sense to see
me as I see myself, to feel with
deep empathy how keen are my
insights, how unfailing my recall
and how visionary my outlook.
Then, I wake up to sad reality and
realize that will never happen.
More to the point, I catch a
look at myself staring back
in the mirror and come the
realization that maybe the more
enlightened solution would be
to see ourselves as the rest of
the world sees us. Or, as Robbie Burns, patron saint of boozy
haggis dinners, proposed in “To
a Louse” (and no, it was not dedicated to yours truly, smart arse):
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie
us/To see oursels as ithers see
us!”
Brilliant! I thought to myself,
there must be some way to bring
moniker). This portable brainbox
Rabbie’s vision to life. Or, as the
will apparently do lots of neat
kids like to say (and by “kids”
stuff, most of which we can do
I mean 30-year-old software
developers living in their parents’ already, but in a much less Blade
Runner fashion. These will be
basements): there must be an
triggered by verbal commands,
app for that! After all, Apple’s
such as “Google Glass, check the
website assures me “with over
top of my head to
800,000 apps,
there’s an app Google Glass, which is see if that’s where
left my reading
for almost
essentially a wearable Iglasses.
”
anything.”
Word around
Now, when computer that is worn
it comes to
like a pair of glasses... the virtual water
cooler has it this
computational
will make computing “ubiquitechnologies, I’m hardly what’s
tous.”
known as an early adopter. I still
I admit, I snorted my mornapproach staplers with the wariing peppermint hot chocolate
ness of a cat towards a vacuum
through my nose when I read
cleaner (and don’t even get
that (thereby creating an intrame started on the black magic
sinus percolation that can only
witch-craftery that takes place
be described as excruciatingly
inside those big sucky boxes).
Christmassy). I mean, how much
But, I’m starting to warm to
more ubiquitous can computing
some of the newfangled digital
be?
doodads the kids are whipping
There are penguins in the
up these days. Google Maps, for
deepest recesses of Antarctica
instance, regularly guides me
watching Netflix (March of the
from the penthouse to the outhouse with nary a foot put astray. Penguins, one would assume,
if only to drive up their royalty
As a result, I’m all agog about
payments) and ordering warm
the next wave in this nevertuxedo t-shirts online as
ending and inescapable digital
we speak.
revolution (which is about as
And while I happen to think
much a revolution these days as
we are spawning our evenCastro’s regime in Havana).
tual usurpers in all these smart
Cunningly anticipating my
technologies, I take solace in the
needs (and exceeding my expecsurety Google Glass will spur the
tations), Google is developing
same sort of practical inventivesomething called Google Glass,
ness that has brought us Angry
which is essentially a wearable
Birds, Catapult Madness, Bubble
computer that is worn like a
Shooter and other civilizationpair of glasses (ergo the catchy
saving doodads.
So, the time appears to be
right for my Louse Vision app.
Let’s face it, most social media serves little purpose beyond sophomoric, narcissistic
preening (notwithstanding the
occasional Arab Spring or Idle
No More, but let’s not pick nits).
Wouldn’t it be more interesting
if there were actually an app
that flipped the lens around and
allowed us to see ourselves as the
world sees us?
Such an app would be enlightening and liberating in so many
ways. Imagine the domestic strife
that could be avoided if wives
could see for themselves the new
dress does not, indeed, make her
look fat (thereby sparing hubby
the necessity of answering the
unanswerable).
Think what nausea could be
spared if “gentlemen” could see
how thoroughly wretched those
tattered grey Y-fronts look, sentimental value or not. How many
pompous boors would be put in
their place if they realized how
the world saw them?
If nothing else, it would alleviate me of the gnawing question
of why women don’t treat me like
George Clooney, not to mention
lifting the burden of constantly
trying to live up to my own brilliance (the stress is killing me).
As Scotland’s favourite son
would say: It would from many a
blunder free us. Or, at least,
free me.
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 31
BUSINESS EDGE
Page 32
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