Innovating before innovating was cool: Morning File, Wednesday, April 6, 2016

News
Views
Government
On campus
Noticed
In the harbour
Footnotes

News

1. Military police: officer on HMCS Charlottetown mishandled classified information

According to a search warrant application processed last week, Peter O’Hagan, the Marine Systems Engineering Officer on the HMCS Charlottetown, is suspected of illegally storing a classified file on a computer system he had access to.

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2. Rainbow Farms

“Of the $12.6 million in write-offs for 2015-16 announced by the province Tuesday, almost a third is related to an investment in one company,” reports Michael Gorman for Local Xpress:

In 2010 the provincial government loaned Rainbow Farms $4 million via the Industrial Expansion Fund, which became known as the Jobs Fund. In 2013, the company went into receivership and, according to the Business Department, “there were no proceeds to apply to the balance of the outstanding loan,” which stood at $3.7 million.

The Upper Rawdon farm, which was the second-largest blueberry business in the province after Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd. and operated for more than 40 years, collapsed under a mountain of debt totally about $17 million.

Back in 1999, the Nova Scotia Assembly passed Resolution 2797:

HON. EDWARD LORRAINE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution: 

Whereas the Department of Economic Development and Tourism has bestowed an award for Innovation in Exporting upon Rainbow Farms of Rawdon, Nova Scotia; and 

Whereas that award is in recognition of a technique developed by Rainbow Farms to quick-freeze blueberries and in turn extend the window of opportunity for exporting from six weeks to eight months; and 

Whereas Mr. Ronald Weatherhead of Rainbow Farms is present here today, or at least was; 

Therefore be it resolved that this House recognize the contribution of Mr. Weatherhead and Rainbow Farms to Nova Scotia’s growing agricultural export industry.

Rainbow Farms was innovating before innovating was cool. And we’ve been paying for it ever since.

Besides the money owed to the Industrial Expansion Fund, when Rainbow Farms went bankrupt in 2013, other creditors included Farm Credit Canada ($9 million), the Bank of Montreal ($6.3 million), and the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board ($1 million).

3. More newspaper consolidation

In January, Transcontinental Media announced that its papers in the south of the province — the Yarmouth Vanguard, the Digby Courier, and the Shelburne Coast Guard — are being merged into one paper to be called the Tri-County Vanguard.

Today, the company is announcing a similar merging of its Annapolis Valley papers. Specifically, the Kings County Advertiser will merge with the Hants Journal to become the Valley Journal-Advertiser, and the Kings County Register and the Annapolis County Spectator will merge to become the Annapolis Valley Register.

The Hants Journal was first published 1867 as the Saturday Mail, and changed its name to the Hants Journal in 1870.

Views

1. Development boom

John Demont writes about the development boom in Halifax with an “on the one hand… but on the other hand…” attitude.

One important point he’s missing, however, is that as much as local politicians want to pat themselves on the back and proclaim that all the construction cranes are evidence of “progress” and their own wise economic stewardship, Halifax is hardly a unique example of the explosion in urban development. Nearly every city in Canada is likewise dotted with construction cranes, as is much of the rest of the globe. China has so much new urban development that there’s an entire geography of empty “ghost cities” capable of holding tens of millions of people.

But, as Demont writes, “everywhere you turn, some landmark of the past is gone and condos and apartments are going up — though no one is quite sure why, economically speaking.”

That is, I suggest, a subject worthy of journalistic pursuit.

Like it or not, our city and other cities across the planet are being torn down and rebuilt at a rate and to a degree never before seen. Massive, unprecedented urban development is the defining characteristic of modern cities and the modern economy. And yet no one much is writing about it, and there’s little in the way of actual research into it. There are huge questions to be asked: Who’s building and why? What’s the financing for the new construction? Where does the investment money come from? What is the quality and long-term prospects for the new construction? What are the social impacts of the construction boom? The impact on local governments? Who’s buying all this new construction? Are the economics of the construction boom sustainable? Is this a good thing or not?

My guess is that the urban development boom is a reflection of the increasing economic inequality in developed economies. Put simply, with low returns on old-fashioned manufacturing or providing services that actually benefit people, there are not many other places for the rich to dump their money, and so they chase various bubbles — high-end art and urban development are about it. I think a thorough investigation of the urban construction boom — there’s been some work done on this in London — will show that much of it is financed by money laundered through tax shelters and shell corporations. Think about it: you just made a few million dollars arranging an oil deal between ISIS and the Syrian government, or you’ve got a bundle of cash from the narco trade or selling arms to a rebel army — what do you do with it? There will be, I think, a connection between the Panama Papers and the urban construction boom.

In this global economy, Halifax is a bit player, almost irrelevant, but there is no doubt evidence of the money laundering right here. Someone should look for it.

2. Cranky letter of the day

To Kings County News:

The recent case of a small, diversified Annapolis Valley farm versus the regulating organization of the Egg Farmers of Nova Scotia (EFNS) brings an ongoing dilemma to a head.

At present, a regulation of the EFNS allows small farmers a limit of 200 hens before they must begin to buy a “quota” at a cost of $200 per bird. This protects the large producer (at present we have 23 registered, licensed poultry businesses in NS an average of which houses 25,000 birds) at the expense of small producers who cannot afford such fees. The small egg producer, if forced to comply with the regulation and limit his/her number of birds, would soon be out of business. 

The practice also conflicts with consumers who insist on purchasing and consuming free-run, small-scale farm products. I have personally been involved with two Valley organizations dedicated to the preservation of farmland and local food security. The richest resources of the Valley lie in its land and the small, as well as large-scale, farmers who often work against fierce odds – e.g. internal quotas and external trade agreements – to earn a living and produce nutritious foods.

Herein lies the dilemma: Although the large-scale industry of poultry production in NS deserves protection, the present 200 bird limit (i.e., the non-quota number) allowed small farmers flies in the face of preferred practices favoured by citizens concerned with food security. As readers are aware, the public increasingly demands organic fruit and vegetables, and pasture-fed, free-range and free-run animal products. One escape from this impasse – protecting the poultry industry and serving the public – would be to relax the number of birds allowed the small farm.

Specifically, regarding egg production, the EFNS and the provincial government can begin to serve producers and consumers alike by devising and applying higher non-quota production levels. Small farm egg production, from 1,000 to 1,500 hens, housed under free-run conditions, would go a long way to boost income, help cash flow and ensure the economic survival of farms. Many people, looking to Europe for egg marketing standards, refuse to consume battery caged hens and mass-produced eggs. Moreover, as noted by media and evidenced increasingly in local stores, large farms are moving towards production practices more in line with animal (and human) environmentalism. We should not punish farmers who provide what everyone has a right to – produce from healthy farms and humanely treated animals.

Carol E. Harris, Wolfville

Government

For the next few weeks, the Government and On Campus sections will be compiled by the Examiner’s newest intern, Kathleen Munro.

City

North West Planning and Advisory Committee (7pm , 61 Gary Martin Drive) Booze is on the agenda. The committee plans to review Case 20290:

Application by WM Fares to amend existing DA to allow liquor sales within Sobeys Food Store at the Sackville Town Centre Shopping Mall, 80 First Lake Drive, Lower Sackville.

Province

Public Accounts (9am, Province House) Deputy Minister, Frank Dunn, will discuss the 2015 Report of the Auditor General on Forest Management and Protection. If you are a bit foggy on exactly what the report included, see below:

On Campus

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Seminar (4pm, Theatre A, Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building) — 2015 Patrick Prize Recipient, Dr. Courtney Stairs, will present “Hacking the electron transport chain to live with oxygen.”

CGEB-Sponsored Seminar (10:30am, Theatre B, Tupper Medical Building Link) — Dr. Ashley Shade will present “Tales of rarity and disturbance: the interplay of community structure and dynamics.”

With Love: Get REAL Dal (11am, Dalhousie Student Union, First Floor) — Students writing letters of support to those suffering from mental illness.

Get REAL Dal will be hosting a With Love letter writing party in partnership with Wear Your Label. With Love is an initiative to share stories of hope through handwritten letters. All of the customers of Wear Your Label are connected to mental illness in some way; whether personally, or through a family member or friend. They know, and we know how therapeutic something as simple as crafting a letter can be- and how meaningful it is to receive a handwritten postcard! Throughout the year, the letters will be distributed into the packages of orders sent out around the world! How amazing is that!

Noticed

El Jones alerts me to this wonderful story published by Tom Jackman in the Washington Post:

Reporter Hilde Kate Lysiak got the tip early Saturday afternoon that there was heavy police activity on Ninth Street. She hustled over with her pen and camera, as any good reporter would, and soon she posted something short online, beating all her competitors. Then, working the neighbors and the cops, she nailed down her scoop with a full-length story and this headline:

“EXCLUSIVE: MURDER ON NINTH STREET!”

The online story not only beat the local daily paper, but she also included a short video from the crime scene, assuring viewers that “I’m working hard on this investigation.”

Then Monday came and Hilde had to go back to third grade. She is 9.

Hilde is publisher of the Orange County News in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.

After Hilde published her murder scoop, continues Jackman:

[Hilde’s] reporting did not impress some of the good people of Selinsgrove, and they let Hilde have it on Facebook Saturday night.  “I think this is appalling that u would do a story like this when all the facts are not in yet,” wrote one commenter. Her parents were attacked too: “does no one realize that this is a 9 year old reporting this type of graphic information!” wrote a Facebook poster. “I mean, what parents are encouraging this type of behavior!”

One commenter said that “nine-year-old girls should be playing with dolls, not trying to be reporters”; another said she should be “having tea parties.” So Hilde made a YouTube video, reading her critics’ comments, and responding:

In the harbour

Oceanex Connaigra, ro-ro cargo, arrived at Pier 41 at 6am from St. John’s
Yantian Express, container ship, Cagliari, Italy to Fairview Cove at 11am, then sails to sea at 11pm
Zim Piraeus, container ship, New York to Pier 41 at 11am, then sails to sea at 2:30am tomorrow

Atlantic Star moves from the west end of Fairview Cove to the east end of Fairview Cove

Tiger sails from Autoport to sea at 8:30pm

Footnotes

I’ll be on The Sheldon MacLeod Show, News 95.7, today at 4pm.