CANADA’S EVOLVING CANNABIS LANDSCAPE
Mike McKee is CFO and director of real estate for Muse
New BC Housing project surprises small businesses
LOCAL | South Granville shop owners
BY JOHN KURUCZ NEWS@BIV.COM
Here’s what business owners in South Granville know.
The pace of change brought on by the Broadway Plan borders on dizzying, rents are often too high and increasing crime is becoming an everyday problem. What they don’t know?
That a 100-plus person supportive housing project for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness will soon open in the area.
“If this shelter comes in, I’m not staying—I’m absolutely going to move,” says Anila Frroku , who co-owns the Italian fashion outlet Motrati. “Nobody seems to care if a small business will survive or how something like this will affect your business.”
Located at 1450 West 12th Ave., Chalmers Lodge was purchased by BC Housing in April 2023 and will provide supportive housing to more than 100 low-income seniors, Indigenous people, women and other equity-denied groups. It was slated for opening in the spring but a change in contractor and unanticipated renovation work has moved that timeframe into “the coming weeks,” according to a statement issued by BC Housing.
A webpage outlining the project has been established by the Crown corporation, but no formal notification has gone out to nearby businesses or residents—and therein lies the rub.
“Of course we are frustrated— we pay huge rent and taxes every month and yet we know nothing,” said Eyes for You co-owner Brigitte Reymond-Peter. “Why are we finding out about this from a journalist?”
BIV spoke to roughly 40 businesses spanning 10 th to 14th avenues along Granville Street and none had received any communication from the province or city. Two-thirds of the businesses knew nothing of Chalmers Lodge, while those who did found out from customers or through the media.
BC Housing told BIV that any
say they weren’t told about the 114-unit supportive housing plan
community engagement is a municipal responsibility. The city, meanwhile, provided this statement: “BC Housing has obtained a combined development and building permit to complete exterior and interior renovations in the building,” the statement says. “They have advised the city that their planned operations will continue to align with the institutional use classification, meaning a separate development permit application and resident notification were not required.”
The South Granville Business Improvement Association declined comment.
“It’s perplexing that they would put an SRO (single-room occupancy) in a neighbourhood where there are no facilities to support any issues that may arise,” said Lynda Barr, operations manager at Diane’s Lingerie. Monica Egea manages Diva Lingerie & Swimwear and has worked in South Granville for 21 years. Her staff is solely female and there’s typically only one employee running the business
on any given day. They’ve seen an increase in theft and threats this year.
Like others who spoke to BIV, Egea says a move elsewhere in Vancouver would be lateral at best.
“If we move to another place, it’s going to be the same. Downtown—who wants to go there?” Egea says. “I’ve learned my lesson. I just lock the doors because it’s the only way to manage these dangerous situations.”
A native of Mexico City, Egea said she believes governments and police are “too soft” in their approach to chronic, repeat offenders.
“I’m from a country that is dangerous and right now, there is no control in Mexico—but it started like this,” Egea says. “These problems will grow and grow fast.”
Most employees were hesitant to go on the record due to the sensitivity of the topic but offered common, recurring themes: Theft is up, excessive loitering is a problem and some employees feel unsafe at work. Perhaps the
most unifying sentiment is that something drastically changed after COVID-19—that the binners who traditionally kept to themselves were replaced by a more aggressive group often in highly agitated states.
The manager of a high-end fashion brand said the project’s presence will impact whether the company will renew its lease or move; two of the store’s employees who live in the immediate neighbourhood feel unsafe walking to and from work at times.
A newly opened deli has experienced consistent theft.
Earlier this year a man in an aggressive state of impairment threatened Egea with sexual assault when she tried to prevent him from shoplifting. Frroku had a similar experience this year as well. Both women were alone in their shops at the time.
Only four store employees who spoke to BIV supported the building’s presence in the community, but all are uniformly disappointed in the lack of communication.
“Low-income seniors would be OK, but if drug addicts move into that building, that would be a disaster,” says Eyes for You co-owner Othmar Brunner
The supportive housing project is coming into the area at a time when business groups across B.C. are ramping up pressure on all provincial parties to address street disorder, homelessness and chronic, repeat offenders.
A Research Co. poll released Sept. 24 suggested 67 per cent of retail respondents have noted an increase in shoplifting over the last three years. Reports of violence against employees are up 45 per cent, and consumer-facing employees leaving positions because they fear for their safety has risen by 44 per cent.
A Business Improvement Areas of BC poll issued Sept. 9 canvassed 500-plus small and medium-sized businesses across B.C. Close to 60 per cent of respondents reported increased violence and aggression since the decriminalization of certain illicit drugs in 2023.
Vancouver Police Department (VPD) crime statistics show that the Fairview neighbourhood,
which South Granville is a part of, experienced 69 thefts under or over $5,000 in August. It’s the fifth-highest total of the 24 neighbourhoods in the city.
However, longer-term VPD stats spanning 2019 to 2023 show that pre-COVID-19 numbers far exceed the most recent annual totals: Thefts fell from 918 to 796, auto thefts decreased from 851 to 291 and incidences of breaking and entering dropped from 317 to 204.
The supporting housing project has been top of mind for some of the homeless people Walter Wells sees on a weekly basis. A Dunbar realtor, Wells helped establish the Three Links Foundation last year to provide a Sunday breakfast program out of the Oddfellows Hall near Granville and Broadway. It’s one of the few privately run outreach services for the homeless anywhere on the West Side.
The first breakfast happened in July 2023 and had two attendees. That number rose to more than 100 by early September.
“It’s all been very organic. We don’t have any expertise in this, we are just learning as we go,” Well said. “It’s a really warming, welcoming place for the homeless, which we find they value as much as the food because they are shunned all week.”
Broken homes, childhood trauma, drug abuse and a crippling lack of affordability are common themes in the stories Well hears. He’s received some pushback from neighbours but added that “99 per cent of the guests are very respectful and grateful.”
Wells isn’t particularly surprised when told that nearby businesses are resistant to the project and offers this to the broader community.
“I don’t think there’s going to be any more danger of people hanging around South Granville than is the case now,” Wells says. “They’re just trying to make it from one day to the next. If you treat them with basic respect and kindness, they really appreciate it. There is nothing to fear.”■
South Granville dress shop owner Anila Frroku suddenly became aware of the building behind her being turned into supportive housing for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness | ROB KRUYT
Six years since legalization, Canada’s
RETAIL |
A swathe of new regulations is expected soon,
BY GLEN KORSTROM GKORSTROM@BIV.COM
No one expected Canada’s cannabis laws to be perfect from the get-go.
When Canada legalized cannabis for adult use six years ago this week, politicians built in a timeline that ensured that it would be a work in progress.
Edibles and drinks were not made legal until late 2019, and then took a while to find their way to shelves due to regulatory hurdles.
Baby-step changes for things such as online ordering and delivery were walked out provincially with no advance warnings.
Federal laws and regulations were supposed to be re-examined five years later, in 2023.
Health Canada is now finally getting around to changing dozens of regulations governing the sector. It halted consultation on these changes in July, and bureaucrats are readying to “gazette” the new regulations, which is the final process for changing regulations, given that there is no need for Parliament to pass a bill.
The department has estimated that its changes will provide the industry $41 million in administrative and compliance cost savings.
Industry insiders told BIV that
BY NELSON BENNETT NBENNETT@BIV.COM
Gasoline prices in Vancouver jumped roughly $0.11 per litre last week—well above the national average, according to GasBuddy—to reach $1.77 per litre. That price was $0.24 above the cost per litre in Calgary, but $0.05 per litre lower than they were on the same day one year ago, GasBuddy noted.
While an escalating conflict between Israel and Iran and its proxies in the Middle East explains the recent surge in oil prices, which in
they tend to like the changes, though in some cases they said that they would have liked bigger thinking, and a more substantial overhaul.
They doubt that the changes will be done in time for the sixth anniversary of legalization, on October 17. Instead, they estimate the tweaks are likely to occur within the next six months—barring a snap federal election.
When Canada legalized cannabis for non-medical use in 2018, its plan was to tightly regulate the sector and to tax it heavily.
That dual burden was enough to dash many entrepreneurs’ dreams, and force countless closures and bankruptcies as companies entered creditor protection.
Plenty of investors saw their capital go up in smoke.
Days before legalization, units in the Global X Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF (TSX:HMMJ) closed at what would have been $104.20, adjusted for future consolidation. The fund traded earlier this month for less than $10 per unit.
The good news is that many business executives in the sector remain positive and have told BIV that their ventures are profitable.
One wild card that gets many people excited is the chance of the U.S. legalizing cannabis countrywide.
B.C. cannabis producers would be poised to capitalize on that prospect, and U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris said on September 30 that she supports nationwide legalization.
“I just think we have come to a point where we have to understand that we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behaviour,” she said on the sports podcast “All The Smoke.”
Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested that he supports reforming cannabis laws but has been less clear on exactly how.
Big changes down south could mean B.C. producers would at least be able to export cannabis to the U.S. for medical use. Right now, cannabis can only be exported to the U.S. for research purposes, ASDA Consultancy Services principal Deepak Anand told BIV.
Medical cannabis may soon be dispensed at stores
One of the biggest planned changes to cannabis regulations, and one that Anand likes, would allow pharmacists to dispense medical cannabis to consumers at stores.
Shoppers Drug Mart has long been an advocate for this change.
The regulatory obstacle to this so far has been that cannabis has no drug identification number
(DIN), and therefore pharmacists are unable to enter product orders into their systems.
Shoppers Drug Mart has operated as though it is a licensed producer, in that it has been able to accept patients’ authorizations from medical professionals to provide cannabis, but it has then been required to ship those orders to patients via mail, Anand explained.
“Pharmacies are expected to be able to work with the provinces to issue something called a pseudo-DIN, which is awarded to products that are unlicensed or that are not necessarily prescription drugs, but act in the same way as prescription drugs,” he said.
A bigger change that Anand would like to see is the removal of the goods and services tax (GST) and provincial sales taxes (PST) from medical cannabis.
If the federal government declares a substance as a pharmaceutical product, PST is automatically removed, he explained.
“That is not in the proposed regulatory changes, but it is something I would like to see,” he said.
The biggest tax change that the industry has been clamouring for is for the federal government to change its excise tax formula—a change not included in the proposed regulatory changes.
The excise tax formula was put in place to be either $1 per gram, or 10 per cent of the price of the cannabis sold, whichever is higher. The formula assumed a gram would sell for about $10.
Cannabis retailers, such as Muse Cannabis CFO and director of real estate Mike McKee, have told BIV that the wholesale price of legal cannabis has plunged in Canada because of over-supply. That has meant that McKee could be paying $1 per gram in excise tax on a $4 price for a wholesale gram, or a rate of 25 per cent.
Another industry gripe is that Ottawa levies a 2.3-per-cent regulatory fee on cannabis, which is something that it does not do on alcohol. Health Canada does not yet have a plan to change the regulatory fees.
Anand said that he believes the black market for cannabis remains strong in Canada because of the extra taxes that legal producers and retailers must bundle into their sale prices.
“We have probably shifted 50 per cent from the black market in six years, which is pretty good,” he said. “There could be more of a shift.”
Many smaller regulatory changes on the way Other regulatory changes are likely to include how cannabis
Wholesale gas prices have fallen after
RESOURCES
| Meanwhile, the volume of refined fuels on the
turn affect gasoline prices, an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline may explain why gasoline prices in Vancouver last week were five cents lower than one year ago. With pipeline capacity expanded from to 890,000 barrels per day from 350,000, Trans Mountain’s mainline is no longer over-subscribed.
In May, following the commissioning of the newly twinned pipeline, Trans Mountain Corp. announced zero apportionment on the pipeline for the first time in years, and at a presentation in Vancouver last week, Kent
Fellows , an economist with the University of Calgary and a fellowin-residence at the C.D. Howe Institute, explained what the means for gasoline prices in B.C.
In the last week of April 2024, before the new pipeline twin was commissioned, Vancouver’s rack (wholesale) prices averaged $0.45 per litre more than Edmonton’s, he said. In the last week of August 2024, Vancouver’s wholesale price was just $0.17 per litre more—a $0.28-per-litre change.
“As far as I can tell, the only thing driving that is the Trans Mountain expansion,” Fellows said.
The price paid at the pump is affected by numerous factors, including crude oil prices, which surged last week.
Gas prices are also affected by taxes, transportation costs and refining capacity. Taxes in Vancouver are disproportionately higher than almost every other city in Canada, but they alone never fully explained why Vancouver’s prices have been consistently higher for several years.
In 2019, the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) was tasked with explaining why this was the case, and concluded there was an
average “unexplained” difference of about $0.13 per litre between rack prices in Vancouver and Seattle, and similar disparities between Vancouver and Edmonton. It also found industry to be opaque, so the province passed the Fuels Transparency Act. Since, the BCUC has noted a narrowing in the unexplained difference in gasoline prices. In December 2023, it reported that, between 2019 and 2022, the unexplained price difference in retail gas prices between B.C. and the rest of Western Canada had shrunk from nine cents to 3.5 cents
cannabis laws continue evolving
although industry insiders say bigger reforms are needed products can be packaged, and that has some retailers excited. At presents, products must have opaque packaging.
“Being able to have a clear window on cannabis packaging will go a long way from a sales perspective,” said Jaclynn Pehota , executive director at the Licensed Retail Cannabis Council of B.C. Changes would allow customers to see the product they’re buying.
“Right now, you’re buying blind until you get home and open the bag up,” she said.
A second expected change is that Ottawa could allow producers to package multiple products together if the package contents remain under a 30-gram limit.
This means producers would be able to sell more edibles in one outer package, Pehota said.
“Let’s say you have a pack of three pre-rolls,” she said. “Right now, they all must be the same flavour. With this change, the producer will be able to create a true variety pack of pre-rolls so there are multiple different cultivars in one package. That will be exciting.”
Strict packaging limitations that restrict imagery and celebrity endorsements are expected to remain. Producers will, however, likely be allowed to put on packaging QR codes that link to websites with more information.
The good news for micro-producers is that the federal government is also likely to allow them to farm bigger plots and grow products in spaces up to 800 metres—up from the current 200-metre limit, Anand said.
B.C. micro-producers still have beefs with fees.
The provincial government in 2022 started allowing craft or micro-producers to sell directly to customers, but the program has had little up-take because of high fees.
In addition to refundable fees for allowing bureaucrats to assess paperwork, licensing fees and ongoing renewal fees, the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch (BCLDB) charges micro-producers a 15-per-cent fee on products sold directly to customers, and has a 15-per-cent warehousing fee.
It is the same cost, therefore, for the micro-producer to sell directly to the customer as it would be for it to sell the product through the BCLDB and have the BCLDB incur some warehousing and other costs.
Industry has had upheaval
Bankruptcies, insolvencies and creditor protection applications have defined the legalization landscape, as regulatory and cost challenges dashed the big dreams
of entrepreneurs.
Take B.C.’s Dan Sutton for example.
After founding licensed producer Tantalus Labs in 2012 to sell cannabis to medical patients, he took the company to the brink of profitability in early 2023, he told BIV at the time.
His venture in mid-2023 entered bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings, and in August had Newfoundland’s Atlantic Cultivation buy its assets for an undisclosed amount.
Ottawa’s excise tax structure was largely what killed the venture, he said.
Sutton has since left the cannabis sector, and is CEO at Synergetic, which claims to be leading the global transition from fossil fuels to synthetic ones.
He told BIV last year that he was looking for a job that involved “anything but” cannabis work. Retail ventures have also struggled.
The Donnelly Group ’s cannabis arm Lightbox Enterprises Ltd. went into creditor protection in late 2022, when it had eight Dutch Love stores in B.C., as well as about a dozen stores in Ontario and several in Alberta, the company’s chief growth officer Harrison Stoker told BIV.
Regulatory hurdles, he said, were the cause of the downfall.
The B.C. government enjoyed a 34-month monopoly on cannabis delivery within the province after legalization.
The only place that B.C. customers during that time could order legal cannabis online and get home delivery was from the government’s online store.
Illicit cannabis sellers flourished online, and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth told BIV at the time that there could be police stings.
The B.C. government in March 2020 then took the step of allowing private legal cannabis retailers to conduct sales transactions online, but it required customers to go to stores to complete payments, show identification and pick up purchases.
Five months later, in August 2020, the B.C. government started to allow licensed private cannabis retailers to sell products and collect payments online, but it still required customers to pick up their purchases at bricks-and-mortar stores.
It took until July 2021 for the B.C. government to allow legal private cannabis sellers to deliver products directly to consumers.
Even then, onerous restrictions—such as that the retailers had to own the vehicles that they were using to deliver the cannabis, and that staff had to undergo police screening and provincial
Trans Mountain pipeline expansion
Trans Mountain pipeline has increased by 25 per cent since May per litre.
But there has been an even more stark wholesale price change since May. And coincidentally, Trans Mountain has had no apportionments since then.
Apportionment is the request for space shippers place on a pipeline in excess of its available capacity. For the past several years, it was routine for Trans Mountain to announce pipeline apportionments of 10 to 20 per cent, meaning shippers were getting 10 to 20 per cent less in volume allocations than they asked for.
There has been zero
apportionment on the pipeline since May, and the pipeline has been running at about 80 per cent capacity, said Jason Balasch, vice-president of business development and commercial services for Trans Mountain Corp. Shippers have been getting all the volume they have asked for. Refined fuel volumes (gasoline and diesel) on the pipeline have increased from 20,000 to 35,000 barrels per day pre-expansion, to 43,000 to 44,000 barrels per day post-expansion—a 25-per-cent increase, Balasch said.
As for crude oil, exports via
tanker have increased from two to three per month pre-expansion to 21 per month (90 between May and September), said Balasch.
In 2008, shippers’ requests for capacity on the pipeline (nominations) began exceeding capacity. The National Energy Board (NEB) started rationing space, which led to shippers gaming the system with strategic over-nominations, Fellows said, in attempts to secure space.
By 2015, the NEB adopted a new apportionment process, which ended up favouring crude oil shippers at the expense of
licensing—existed. Those requirements have since been dropped.
Given the cost of insuring vehicles for cannabis delivery, many stores do not offer that service.
B.C. cannabis retailers can use Canada Post to deliver cannabis, McKee said. But customers must go to Canada Post offices to pick up the mailed product. “You don’t want to wait for that type of delivery,” he said of cannabis.
“You want it delivered within the hour, or very shortly after. Mailing it and having to pick up the purchase is not the way consumers want to order the products.”
McKee said his five cannabis stores are profitable and that he is positive about the future. He said he is scouting for strong locations to expand with new stores.
Gary Karbar is another optimistic cannabis retailer.
He bought four Dutch Love stores out of creditor protection, and he said he plans to keep the name of the chain.
“We’ve owned pharmacies,” he said to explain why he thought he had the expertise to be able to turn around the businesses.
“We already have a really good understanding of retail, and how to deal with sensitive products. We are profitable.”■
refined fuel ones. The percentage of refined fuels on the pipeline began to shrink.
Before 2015, the wholesale price difference between Vancouver and Edmonton—adjusting for toll charges—was less than $0.10 per litre, Fellows noted in a recent C.D. Howe report. By 2023, it was $0.23 to $0.35 per litre. Following the pipeline expansion, Fellows said it has dropped from to $0.17 per litre.
Fellows said the recent narrowing of the price differential between Vancouver and Edmonton for rack prices is because of additional pipeline capacity.
“We’re not back to the pre-2015 levels yet,” he said. “We’ve got pretty dramatic evidence that that additional pipeline capacity has allowed for more refined product shipments.”
BCUC commissioner Mark Jaccard said he invited Fellows to speak to the BCUC’s fuel transparency team about his findings.
“I think it’s fascinating what he’s exploring, and I think we’re going to get a nice test of that over the next couple of years,” Jaccard said.
“At the same time, it doesn’t look like it can be the only explainer.”
FINANCE
Region enters near-buyers’ market as housing inventory increases
DATA POINTS
BRYAN YU
Housing market activity in the Lower Mainland sputtered again in September, even as affordability conditions started to improve for homebuyers. Despite lower mortgage rates, many prospective homebuyers are opting to stay patient, confident of further rate reductions and increased supply of resale inventory.
Home sales in the region spanning the Metro Vancouver,
Abbotsford-Mission and Seato-Sky areas reached just 2,783 units in September, down 5.7 per cent year over year. On a seasonally adjusted basis this was consistent with August levels and in line with the low levels observed during the post2022 rate-hike cycle. September sales were 23 per cent below the same-month average from 2010-2019. When adjusted for population growth, sales reflect levels typically seen during a recession. Year to date, sales have declined six per cent. While underlying drivers of housing demand remain strong, the challenging sales environment coincided with more listing volume as sellers tested the strength of demand. New listings remained elevated, up 14 per cent from last year, with seasonally adjusted listings
up four per cent from August. Low sales and increase in new listings drove inventory above 22,000 units for the first time since 2019. The imbalance between sales and inventory has triggered a near-buyers’ market, though we expect this to be temporary. Still, prices are slipping, with the average price down 2.4 per cent year over year to $1.18 million, including a pronounced 2.7-per-cent drop on a monthly basis. The benchmark value fell 2.3 per cent year over year led by townhome and apartment values.
The path forward for the housing market will largely depend on the trajectory of interest and mortgage rate declines. We expect the Bank of Canada to cut reduce the rate from the current 4.25 per cent to 2.75 per cent mid-2025, with the pace of
cuts guided by the economy and inflation trends. While this will directly cut variable borrowing costs, the decline in fixed rates is expected to be more modest, as current rates have increasingly priced in future rate cuts. As interest rates decline and policy changes come into effect, more buyers are likely to re-enter the market. Key changes include a higher property value cap for insured mortgages which will be helpful in highpriced markets like Vancouver, and the expansion of 30-year amortization eligibility that will further increase borrowing capacity. That said, the rebound in sales will still be constrained. The elevated existing supply is expected to be curbed by higher sales, while declining construction points to further supply constraints over the medium to
long term. The risk for prices is to the upside in 2025-26. The results from the latest Survey of Employers, Payroll and Hours showed a net decline in positions held in B.C. in July. Total payroll counts in the province fell by 0.2 per cent following a flat June. This decline translated to a loss of 5,923 positions, pushing down total payroll employment to 2.56 million positions. Goods-producing industries 0.7 per cent fewer positions while services-producing industry payrolls led the overall decline, down 0.2 per cent. The job vacancy rate remained at 3.6 per cent in July. The job vacancy rate has remained low since the second half of 2023, highlighting reduced job openings due to economic uncertainties.■
Bryan Yu is chief economist at Central 1.
Shoplifting, employee theft nip at retail bottom lines
RETAIL | High-profile employee theft incidents
BY GLEN KORSTROM GKORSTROM@BIV.COM
Downtown Vancouver retailers say shoplifting has become rampant.
Employee theft is also on the rise, according to industry insiders. While street crime, property theft and lawlessness have become election issues in B.C.—particularly in the Vancouver Yaletown riding—data and anecdotal reports hold that retail theft is rising across the country.
There are many explanations for this rise, and the higher cost of living is one of the most cited. Pandemic-era spending and supply-chain glitches helped push inflation in Canada in recent years to decades-high levels while workers’ wages often did not rise in tandem.
Another explanation for more shoplifting is that some would-be thieves believe that they will not experience consequences if they get caught.
Vancouver Police Department Chief Const. Adam Palmer has lamented what he has called a “revolving door” justice system that exists even when it comes to repeat and violent offenders. His department has conducted sting operations that found organized crime recruiting vulnerable people in the Downtown Eastside to steal goods that can then be resold.
“Organized crime will play a much broader role when they know they can resell products, and when people are desperate— not just people, but restaurant owners,” Dalhousie University professor and agri-food analytics lab senior director Sylvain Charlebois told BIV. “There is a black market.”
A third explanation for increased shoplifting is a belief that self-checkout technology makes theft easier.
This has prompted some supermarkets, such as the H-Mart at the corner of Robson and Seymour streets, to have self-checkout kiosks where cameras project images of the shopper’s face onto small screens that are clearly visible to the shoppers. Signs make clear to the shoppers that they are
“embarrassing”
as shoplifting generally rises in B.C.
on camera.
“There has been an unsustainable increase in external theft or shoplifting over the last five years,” said London Drugs’ general manager of loss prevention, Tony Hunt “In 2023, across Canada, there were 2.5 million shoplifting or theft incidents reported to police, however 26 per cent of those were cleared of any charges.”
He estimated that retailers might only report about 15 per cent of theft incidents to the police, “in some cases not wanting to burden police, or simply [because of] a lack of confidence in the justice system.”
Statistics Canada data shows that shoplifting thefts valued at more than $5,000 in B.C. have been on the rise, jumping to 201 reported incidents in 2023 from 161 in 2022, 126 in 2021 and 92 in 2020.
RCMP on Vancouver Island in September arrested two men involved in a recent shoplifting spree where police allege they took an estimated $10,000 worth of merchandise from businesses in the Greater Victoria area in one afternoon.
One of the men lived in a New Westminster home that police searched and found a trove of evidence pointing to potential illegal activity, including what they said was $30,000 worth of stolen merchandise, including tools and electronics, and about $20,000 worth of stolen high-end clothing with tags still attached.
Go back a decade and many Metro Vancouver grocery stores would not have had security
guards at entrances.
Almost all do now, and that has meant an added expense for grocers, which is passed onto customers, Charlebois said.
He added that the number of security personnel in stores wearing civilian clothes has also increased. London Drugs president Clint Mahlman last year estimated that prices at his retail chain were up about three per cent more than they would be otherwise to compensate for shoplifting and vandalism, he told BIV.
Employee theft is also on the rise
Cannabis stores in B.C. operate under strict regulations that keep products out of customers’ reach.
“The only loss that we experience as cannabis retailers is shrinkage due to employee theft,” said Jaclynn Pehota, executive director at the Licensed Retail Cannabis Council of BC.
“What we end up with in cannabis retail is people pocketing cash transactions. Somebody comes in and buys a product with cash instead of a card, and then the money ends up in the employee’s pocket.”
Companies that own up to the maximum of eight cannabis stores in B.C. often have a system where employees count cash and sometimes products at the end of each shift, and that total is matched with transaction records.
Sometimes transactions are not rung in, Pehota said. Other times, the stores are independent outlets where owners try to foster a family atmosphere and do not require cash counts or product counts.
Employees may also pilfer merchandise or cash on a grander scale.
BC Provincial Court Judge Nancy Phillips in July sentenced 34-yearold Carlos Cenon Santos to two years in prison and ordered him to pay $750,000 for stealing $2 million worth of laptops from London Drugs ’ Richmond distribution centre.
She said that he snuck the laptops under his shirt to take to a back room, where he would put them in his knapsack. He took advantage of London Drugs not inspecting knapsacks when employees left the building, she added.
BIV asked Hunt what London Drugs has done since to prevent such thefts, but he said in an email that he cannot speak to that specific case.
Santos pleaded guilty to one count of theft worth more than $5,000 even though his thefts took place during a five-year period, starting in 2017, one year after he was hired, according to the judgment.
Court filings show other large B.C. retailers claim to have been victims of significant employee thefts.
Jim Pattison Ltd., which is affiliated with the Jim Pattison Group, alleged in a Sept. 17 notice of civil claim filed in BC Supreme Court that Linda Elizabeth Nissen stole $216,392.93 between 2019 and 2022, when the company fired her from her job as a head cashier from a Vancouver Island Quality Foods store.
No data is available specifically for employee thefts but the number of all thefts where the amount taken was alleged to be more than $5,000 in B.C. has also risen in recent years: To 440,758 incidents in 2023, from 435,267 in 2022 and 433,994 in 2021.
Charlebois said retailers often do not speak out against employee theft because it is “embarrassing” and may inspire copycats. “Grocers are incredibly afraid of that,” he said.
Strategies to combat employee theft vary.
The modus operandi for decades at convenience stores, such as those from Surrey-based 7-Eleven Canada, has been for staff to count cash and cigarettes at the end of each shift alongside the employees coming on to start shifts.
No one from 7-Eleven Canada responded to BIV ’s request for an interview on how the chain combats employee theft.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. last month initiated a pilot program in Calgary, equipping employees with body cameras to beef up safety measures, as well as to potentially deter employee theft.
The move comes in response to a dramatic surge in violent encounters at retail locations across the country, the company said.
“This is a technology we have examined,” Hunt said. “As with any new security technology, we are reviewing the outcomes carefully, and would explore this technology if it is shown to enhance the safety and security of employees and customers.”■
A shopper checks her own groceries at a self-service check-out at H-Mart in Vancouver that has a small screen that alerts the shopper that she is on camera | GLEN KORSTROM
BC Provincial Court Judge Nancy Phillips in July found a former London Drugs employee guilty of stealing $2 million worth of laptops from this distribution centre | ROB KRUYT
FORINVESTINGIN THESUCCESSOF THENEX TGENERATION.
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Sustainable construction key to lowering emissions
CONSTRUCTION | Existing
BY JAMI MAKAN JMAKAN@BIV.COM
Walking through Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, one can see many character homes built before 1940 with heritage elements like hipped roofs, dormer windows and classical columns.
One of these homes, built in 1908, is particularly special. It’s being reconstructed to net-zero standards, and will become Canada’s first 115-year-old home to receive such extensive treatment that will enable it to produce as much energy as it consumes.
Owners Branden and Sylvie Kotyk decided to revitalize their house to provide a “national case study” that illuminates sustainable construction, based on Branden’s 18-year background in construction materials and his passion for sustainability.
The couple’s reconstruction project, dubbed “1908 to Net-Zero,” is being delivered by their company, Deep Green Developments , which aims to assist other homeowners with similar undertakings. They have also partnered with the Canadian Home Builders’ Association to produce a 10-part video series around the project for YouTube, with the first episode scheduled for Oct. 28.
Whether it’s adding solar panels, installing high-performance windows or selecting low-carbon concrete for a new foundation, the project aims to use best practices and educate other homeowners and industry participants.
“This project,” Branden Kotyk said, “was an opportunity to ‘put my money where my mouth is’ and develop a case study and technical education series sharing our lessons learned.”
Built environment has large carbon footprint
Most homeowners aren’t in a financial position to perform wholesale renovations like the Kotyks, but this doesn’t preclude more modest retrofits that can be implemented with help from an energy consultant or
building retrofits are necessary to meet broader net-zero goals, experts say
sustainability advisor and various public incentive programs.
The built environment in Canada has a significant carbon output. Buildings account for 18 per cent of Canada’s emissions when including electricity-related emissions, and are the third-largest emissions contributor in the country after the oil and gas sector and the transportation sector, according to the federal government.
Almost all buildings’ “operating” emissions come from space and water heating equipment that runs on fossil fuels, such as natural gas furnaces and boilers. Other emissions are “embodied” in the construction materials used in buildings, such as concrete, steel, aluminum and wood. This difference between “operational carbon” and “embodied carbon” is important to understand, said Megan Badri , research manager with the University of British Columbia’s Sustainability Hub.
“Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector have traditionally focused on operational emissions from fossil fuels,” she said. “However, there is a growing need to adopt a full-life-cycle approach that also considers embodied carbon.”
According to Badri, there are many things homeowners are doing to limit operational emissions, such as upgrading to energy-efficient appliances, installing LED lighting and electrifying their heating and cooling systems. Electrification in B.C. allows owners to tap into the province’s relatively clean, hydro-based grid.
However, she said there is very little policy when it comes to embodied carbon, which is harder to track and measure. While embodied carbon can be reduced in new projects by selecting eco-friendly materials like recycled timber or biobased insulation, governments at all levels seem more focused on affordability and may lack sufficient capacity to regulate embodied carbon.
“Currently, Canada lacks national regulations to assess these emissions, unlike several
European countries,” Badri said.
“While the 2030 Model National Building Code of Canada will introduce requirements for embodied carbon reductions, these changes won’t be implemented immediately.”
Even after 2030, provinces will need to follow suit and enforcement processes developed. Regulating the reuse of construction materials also presents complications related to product liability and insurance, she said.
Reducing embodied carbon through ‘circularity’
Despite the lack of government policy regarding embodied carbon, some organizations are proactively attempting to divert construction materials from landfills and recycle them, leading to less embodied carbon in new projects.
For example, a new program on Vancouver Island aims to decrease the amount of construction waste and divert surplus materials toward new uses and away from landfills. The new Building Material Exchange (BMEx) program seeks to create a “circular economy” where fewer virgin materials are used and one company’s waste is salvaged and used as inputs by other companies in the construction sector.
“A lot of material from the construction process and demolitions is going to landfills,” said Gil Yaron , managing director of circular innovation with Light House, a non-profit organization established in 2006 to advance sustainable building practices. “We want to try to change that practice by basically supporting the construction sector to find matches where one company’s waste can be a material input into another company’s operations.”
According to a 2022 study, materials from the construction and demolition sectors made up 22.7 per cent of the garbage arriving at one Vancouver Island landfill. Embodied carbon can also be contained by using buildings for longer, in addition to choosing the right materials. “If you can imagine a building that lasts for five years, you’re not going to spend much energy heating and
cooling compared to just building it,” said Terry Bergen, principal of RJC Engineers in Victoria.
“The longer the building lasts, the less intense the footprint of the embodied carbon is.”
According to the federal government, 20 per cent of all homes are more than 80 years old, and about half are more than 60 years old. Bergen said these older buildings are nowhere near as efficient as buildings built today, and retrofitting them can be a significant way to reduce carbon emissions from the built environment.
“The greenest building is the one you don’t knock down,” he said.
Setback for operational carbon measures in Vancouver
Efforts to limit operational carbon emissions were undercut in July, when Vancouver city council approved a directive for city staff to restore the option for new home construction to use natural gas for heating and hot water, reversing a previous bylaw.
Andréanne Doyon , associate professor with Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management, said this is chipping away at Vancouver’s reputation as a global leader in sustainability.
“Furnaces last for more than 20 years and ovens, same thing,” she said. “You have that shelf life or life cycle attaching that household to that system for decades to come. These are not short-term decisions. You are stuck with this infrastructure for 20-plus years.”
Other big-picture measures should include smaller buildings and co-living, Doyon said. Smaller homes are easier to heat and cool, and require less land and carbon-intensive materials.
“What we’re really thinking about is those two-person or three-person households. They don’t need to be in 2,000-plus square feet. It isn’t ‘small is better, period’ but rather ‘small is better and here are the reasons’ but with the caveat that it’s not going to make sense for everybody,” she said.
Co-living, meanwhile, is becoming more common. According to Statistics Canada , households composed of roommates were the fastest-growing household type between 2001 to 2021, increasing 54 per cent.
“More and more people are living with roommates later in life, when they are older,” Doyon said. “The idea of what we’re getting people to think about is, are there different ways of living that could not only have environmental but also social benefits?”
In B.C., progress has been made through the B.C. Energy Step Code and the new Zero Carbon Step Code, which has the objective to reach zero emissions from all new buildings by 2030.
As for existing structures, Canada has an estimated 10 million buildings, according to a 2021 report by Efficiency Canada and Carleton University. The report said that at current annual rates, it would take 142 years to retrofit all low-rise residential buildings and 71 years to retrofit all commercial floor area.
But climate change won’t wait that long. To keep global warming to no more than 1.5 C, as called for in the Paris Agreement, emissions need to be reduced by 45 per cent by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050, according to the United Nations.
With Ottawa saying more than 75 per cent of Canada’s building stock in 2030 will be composed of buildings already standing today, retrofitting is more important than ever. This will require creative solutions like establishing retrofit codes and offering lowcost financing for retrofits. It will also require changing the perception that sustainable construction is hard to do. “Today there are a variety of perceived challenges, that it’s complex, overly expensive or onerous,” said Branden Kotyk of the 1908 to Net-Zero project in Mount Pleasant.
“It need not be those things. It does need to be very well planned. Having high-performance building standards is great, but if they come with a huge upfront carbon cost, they can do more harm than good.” ■
Incentivizing off-site construction could expand housing supply
PODIUM
TREVOR KOOT
Homes for people, faster.
This is what the B.C. government’s Homes for People Action Plan promises. And the government has said it intends to fulfill this promise with changes to zoning requirements, permitting efficiencies, density initiatives, building more affordable housing and financial incentives. Some carrots, some sticks.
The plan largely focuses on densification and incentivizing more supply. What is noticeably absent is the streamlining of processes needed to actually create this supply.
Advocacy groups that support supply increases are all for removing red tape from the entire development and construction process. However, the conversation has typically been centred on traditional construction methods and legacy building practices. It’s time to update our thinking on how
this supply can be increased. Off-site, factory-built or modular construction methods are one such innovative approach that encounters roadblocks in the bureaucratic process because the square peg doesn’t fit the round hole. Off-site (as a term to capture all not-on-site construction) is not a new method of construction and has had varying levels of success in different areas of North America. From the creation of panels that are placed together to form a structure to more fully constructed units that come together like large LEGO blocks, off-site is a system in which most of a project’s construction is done in a centralized location and brought to the site complete.
The environmental, economic and efficiency benefits of off-site were originally quite obvious and measurable. That was, until they were put into practice. On the Canadian Prairies in the late 2000s and early 2010s, developers widely adopted this construction method in smaller communities and larger cities alike. Everything from 12-unit walkup apartment buildings to 100-plus-unit long-term care homes were being constructed
with this method.
Then bureaucracy entered the equation and removed any efficiency and economies of scale that were paired with offsite. On one site, an inspector arrived with a clipboard and checklist indicating he was required to see the components of the wall behind the drywall (such as the insulation, vapour barrier and electrical wiring). These aspects had already been inspected at the factory by a third-party inspector based on Canadian Standard Association requirements. This satisfies most provincial building codes, but the municipality had different requirements. The developer was required to remove all the freshly painted drywall just to check a box. What’s more, there is a stigma associated with off-site construction. It’s not traditional, and the construction sector struggles with and is often resistant to change. Scenarios like the one above do not help with encouraging broader adoption.
All that said, off-site’s benefits speak for themselves. According to the Manufactured Housing Association of BC , offsite offers as much as a 43-percent reduction in carbon
dioxide emissions waste and between 50 and 70 per cent less construction site waste. Completing the bulk of construction in an environmentally controlled factory also helps to create products that will comply with the BC Energy Step Code’s increasingly rigorous energy efficiency expectations. There is less disruption in the neighbourhood overall because of the decreased building time. And finally, as noted in the British Columbia Real Estate Association’s economics team’s most recent market intelligence report, B.C. needs to both expand the size of its labour force and increase production efficiency to meet aggressive housing targets. Without a doubt, labour force management for off-site construction is far less complex than that of traditional building. Having most of the construction crew in a permanent, centralized location for most of the process allows for more streamlined recruiting, improves retention and minimizes the logistical challenges that come with an itinerant model. There are steps that need to be taken to allow the benefits of off-site to be realized, thus incentivizing its broader
adoption. By bringing together planners, inspectors, developers, builders, industry associations, regulatory groups and off-site experts, the province could identify the roadblocks and remove them.
For example, Technical Safety BC requires that factory-built and manufactured homes be certified to comply with electrical safety regulations. These certifications are complex and add barriers to both the initial sale and the resale of the unit for the lifetime of the home—and they’re completely unnecessary for many larger, permanent projects. The manufactured home registry is another regulatory hurdle that does not need to impact multiunit developments, which, once constructed, will not be moved.
It is a lot to expect three levels of government, a myriad of regulators and other stakeholders to be nimble. But to increase supply, we need to look beyond just the barriers of traditional construction methods and start creating paths that incentivize innovation. ■
Trevor Koot is CEO of the BC Real Estate Association.
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COURTS
TROUBLE
WHO’S GETTING SUED
These corporate claims were filed with the B.C. Supreme Court registry in Vancouver. Information is derived from notices of civil claim. Civil claims have not been tested or proven in court.
DEFENDANT
Imperial Fire & Safety Inc.
PLAINTIFF
Kerrisdale Lumber Co. Ltd.
CLAIM
$450,000 for negligence and breach of duty, or damages, for work on a sprinkler system that allegedly resulted in a water leak that affected 90 per cent of a warehouse.
DEFENDANTS
Sterling Immigration Services Inc. dba Overseas Immigration and Kuldeep Kumar Bansal
PLAINTIFF
Bandstra Transportation Systems Ltd.
CLAIM
$58,550 plus interest related to the plaintiff inadvertently transferring 35 payments to the wrong Toronto-Dominion Bank account due to a transcription error. TD was then able to reverse some but not all of the wrongful payments. The plaintiff was able to obtain evidence that the defendants own the bank account where the wrongful payments were made. The plaintiff has demanded in writing the return of the $58,550 but the defendant has allegedly neglected or refused to provide it.
DEFENDANTS
Whaleco Canada Inc. dba Temu and Whaleco Inc. dba TEMU and PDD Holdings Inc. formerly known as Pinduoduo Inc.
PLAINTIFF
Dawn Steeves CLAIM
An order certifying this action under the Class Proceedings Act and statutory damages. This relates to the Chinese e-commerce site having an in-app browser that has JavaScript that tracks the web use of users and is able to “secret-
ly and invasively accumulate massive amounts of highly private and sensitive personal information.”
DEFENDANT
New Polaris Gold Mines Ltd.
PLAINTIFF
ITL Diamond Drilling Ltd.
CLAIM
$599,509.83 plus interest and a declaration that the plaintiff is entitled to a lien in that amount. This relates to the plaintiff providing drilling work and not getting paid.
DEFENDANT
AGW Distributors Inc. dba Bella Turf
PLAINTIFF
Stable Harvest Farm CLAIM
Damages for breach of contract plus costs and interest. This relates to a dispute that involved the defendant, which was allegedly hired to install artificial turf.
DEFENDANTS
Jones & Co. Law Corp. and D. Shawn Jones
PLAINTIFFS
Ole Mau and Tammy Laminski CLAIM
General and special damages plus costs for alleged negligent legal work.
DEFENDANTS
The Owners, Strata Plan ESPS7121 c/o Remi Realty 20178 96th Avenue Holdings Ltd. and Richmond Elevator
PLAINTIFF
Thomas Nielsen
CLAIM
General and special damages for pain, suffering, loss of income and other consequences related to an alleged incident at a Langley strata property, where the plaintiff was in an elevator that lurched forward, allegedly causing him to get injured.
DEFENDANTS
Innascore Developments Inc. and Spyglass Holdings GP Ltd. and John Doe and ABC Co.
PLAINTIFF
FortisBC Inc.
In person,inprintandonline
CLAIM
$49,833.76 or general damages related to the defendants conducting work at a site and allegedly damaging a Fortis transformer. This was without calling BC One Call and complying with directions, and the result was a cost to the plaintiff.
DEFENDANTS
Blueridge Engineering Ltd. and Fred Walsh Ltd. and ABC Co. and DEF Co. and Individual #1 and Individual #2
PLAINTIFF
Blueshore Financial Credit Union CLAIM
General and special damages plus costs related to the plaintiff hiring the defendant to perform work on its HVAC system that was allegedly defective or improper.
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