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Archive for December, 2016
Keep on top of conflicts before they are an issue
Thursday, December 8th, 2016Council members have specific limitations imposed by act
Tony Gioventu
The Province
Dear Tony:
Our strata corporation is over 100 units and we are about to start some major construction.
Two of our council members have construction backgrounds and both have ongoing working relationships with the consultants, potential contractors and suppliers we might eventually end up using. The issue of conflict of interest has been raised by a number of owners in the strata because of these relationships, but these council members feel they have no conflicts because they are owners like everyone else and were elected by the owners knowing they work in the industry.
How do we resolve this issue and maintain a level of goodwill with these council members that will be important to our projects?
John G., president of council
Dear John:
In addition to the possible conflicts you have identified, it is crucial strata councils, strata managers, consultants and contractors understand they have a duty to disclose and manage potential conflicts before they are a problem. This is not the time where you want to live by the motto “it’s only cheating if you get caught.”
All my red flags go up when a person or contractor insists there is no conflict of interest. The potential for conflict exists in almost any business relationship; the key is how it is managed.
As volunteers, strata council members have specific limitations imposed by the Strata Property Act, the bylaws of the strata corporation and common law. The act requires that whenever a council member has a direct or indirect interest in a contract or transaction with the strata corporation or a matter that is or is to be the subject of a decision of council if the decision could result in the creation of a duty or interest that materially conflicts with that council member’s duty or interest as a council member, that council member must disclose the conflict, abstain from voting on the matter and leave the council meeting while the matter is discussed and voted on.
In simple language, if the council member somehow gains or potentially gains from a personal benefit or interest in a decision, they cannot be a part of that decision-making process. For the protection of the council member and to ensure full disclosure of the potential conflicts, the direct or indirect interest of the council member should be disclosed to the strata council and minuted. And when a decision is required on this matter, the council member is required to leave the meeting and the minutes should show when the council member has left the meeting and they did not participate in the decision.
This doesn’t mean council members or their family members who own companies cannot bid on construction contracts or services, but they do have to ensure they are not part of the decision-making process. Even though owners’ voting rights due to conflict are affected as council members, they are not affected at annual or special general meetings.
© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Vancouver considers larger tax hit to help fight growing fentanyl crisis
Thursday, December 8th, 2016MATT ROBINSON AND NICK EAGLAND
The Vancouver Sun
The fentanyl crisis could soon hit the pocketbooks of every homeowner in Vancouver.
City councillors are poised to consider using a 0.5-per-cent, property-tax increase to create a $3.5-million contingency fund intended to combat the growing crisis. That’s in addition to the city’s previously reported 3.4-per-cent, property-tax increase, which will be voted on next week.
While Vision Vancouver councillors and those on the front lines of the fight against fentanyl said the increased funding was muchneeded, Non-Partisan Association councillors attacked it as a calculated distraction from rising taxes.
City staff don’t yet know where the extra money raised by the tax increase will be spent, according to a memo to councillors from Patrice Impey, the city’s general manager of finance, risk and supply-chain management.
“As it is difficult to anticipate the future needs for 2017 as the crisis may continue, increase or moderate, it would be prudent to give flexibility to staff and council in determining opportunities as they arise … ” Impey wrote in the memo.
Listed among the areas that could receive funding are mental-health support for front-line workers (up to $130,000), educational programs for youth ($200,000), additional outreach workers ($65,000 per position), a community policing station ($200,000 a year) and an additional three-person Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services medic unit ($1.8 million for 24/7 coverage).
Also listed was $50,000 for increased street sweeping and flushing, and $250,000 for low-barrier work cleaning up discarded needles. That spending is in addition to $3.8 million in new public cleanliness initiatives already included in the broader budget.
The incoming cash would boost council’s contingency funds from $4 million to $7.5 million.
Non-Partisan Association councillors criticized the last-minute increase, stating that cash could have been found elsewhere in the $1.3-billion budget, noting that it’s not just a municipal issue, and questioning the timing of the news. Coun. George Affleck charged that the new funding — which didn’t appear in the draft 2017 budget released last month — was intended to draw attention away from the city’s rising taxes and fees.
During the first 10 months of 2016, 622 people died from an overdose, and, in about 60 per cent of those cases, fentanyl was detected.
Robert Weeks, president of the Vancouver Firefighters Association, urged council to fund an additional medic unit, noting that call volumes had doubled since last year.
“A third medic unit … will have a direct impact on saving lives,” Weeks said.
Fire hall No. 2 in the Downtown Eastside responded to 1,255 calls in November, more than 700 of which were in response to overdoses, Weeks said. Crews are on pace for 1,600 runs this month.
“That puts us at the busiest fire hall in Canada by a significant amount,” he said.
“This is the new normal. We don’t look at this as a spike anymore. This trend has grown from last year and it looks to only get worse.
“With the low cost, availability, of this drug, we expect these overdoses to continue.”
Without additional resources, firefighters’ training, community outreach and response times will suffer, Weeks said.
Sarah Blyth of the Overdose Prevention Society, which runs an unsanctioned supervised injection site in the DTES, welcomed additional funds to combat the overdose crisis.
She said it’s prudent that more front-line staff are trained to use the overdose-reversing drug Naloxone and respond appropriately to overdoses in general.
“All of the front-line staff are really pushed to their absolute limits,” she said.
© 2010-2017 Postmedia Network Inc
Insiders blame ICBC financial woes on costly medical reports
Thursday, December 8th, 2016Some doctors charging corporation thousands to examine claimants
PETE MCMARTIN
The Vancouver Sun
I’ve come to the conclusion that the question is no longer, “What’s wrong with ICBC?”
The question is, “Is there anything right?”
I wrote two previous columns on ICBC’s financial woes — one on a seniors discount that costs an estimated $100 million annually, another on the climbing cost of litigation. Those were but two contributors to the corporation’s financial woes. There are many strands that one can pull to explain ICBC’s unravelling.
Readers responded. Some, no surprise, were civilians complaining about what they felt were ICBC’s unfair tactics. But several were from insiders to the process — lawyers, doctors and claims adjusters. They identified a problem affecting ICBC’s bottom line the public never hears about.
The high cost of medical reports.
One senior ICBC injury adjuster, whose job is to settle lawyer-represented claims, wrote:
“Lawyers routinely hire experts (doctors) to produce reports to support how badly injured the individual is/was from the accident. It is quite common to have two to five different experts report on a single file. These experts charge between $4,000-$6,000 to examine the patient and write a report. ICBC will have to hire their own experts, typically one to two per file for the same costs as above.
“We often settle a claim, for example, between $50,000 to $100,000 and then pay on top of that between $30,000 and $40,000 for costs and disbursements. So not only are the lawyers making tidy sums, but the medical experts make a fair chunk off the litigation process as well.”
This system of costs and disbursements, which dictates ICBC must pay its legal costs as well as those of the injured party, was the subject of an email from Wes Mussio, a personal injury lawyer. Medical reports, he wrote, cause costs to skyrocket:
“Our good doctors have ‘jacked up’ the cost of medical legal reports exponentially over the last two decades. When I was a young lawyer, a medical report would cost somewhere in the range of $200 to $800, but now even a one- or two-page report is in the range of $1,500 to $5,000. Some doctors charge over $10,000 for a report on the basis that they are worth something in the range of $800 to $1,000 an hour. The end result is that the current system requires that ICBC pay these massive bills.
“There is a large number of medical professionals in B.C. that are making well in excess of $1 million per year from writing medical reports now. This money is coming from ICBC ratepayers … (and it) is a cost the ratepayers should not be required to pay. ICBC has to challenge doctors that are grossly overcharging ICBC for their services.”
An ICBC spokesman responded by stating the corporation pays “far more” in reimbursing plaintiffs’ counsels for expert reports than it pays for its own reports, which it obtains at negotiated rates, and it doesn’t have any control over the cost of reports ordered by a plaintiff’s lawyer.
As for ICBC’s need for medical reports, the spokesman said: “We don’t think anyone would reasonably suggest we should pay out on an injury claim based solely on someone’s self-reporting of the injury and subsequent financial loss, without any substantiating documentation.”
As if to triangulate this round of recriminations, a doctor offered his opinion of medical reports. Cost was not so much on his mind as the questionable need for them. He wrote:
“I occasionally have to fill out medical reports on (patients’) behalf for ICBC. The vast majority … are fender bender type of accidents with minor vehicle damage. The most common injuries are soft-tissue injuries and sprains, from which most people should recover uneventfully in days to weeks.
“In my experience, the biggest barrier to patients making a recovery from these minor injuries is the act of hiring a lawyer … Many times, they have hired a lawyer before they even make their initial ICBC claim! Whiplash is the most common injury and I always explain to patients that is a lawyer’s term, not a doctor’s. It is notoriously difficult to confirm objectively, and patients who hire a lawyer may complain of pain for many months.”
(Author’s note: A significant body of peer-reviewed literature exists that debates whiplash and the effect of minor vehicle crashes as a cause. One researcher sent me his study that concluded people were more likely to suffer the effects of whiplash in daily life than in minor car crashes.)
“(Whiplash) often miraculously resolves shortly after they get a financial settlement,” the doctor added. “In medicine we sometimes invoke the concept of ‘secondary gain,’ where a patient maintains illness behaviour in the absence o f any measurable illness, injury or disease, because they gain something else, whether it be sympathy, attention or financial award.”
There you have it. The lawyers are to blame. The doctors are to blame. ICBC is to blame. The public is to blame.
Glad I could help.
© 2010-2017 Postmedia Network Inc.
Patients vow to help West Van doctor fund upcoming retirement
Thursday, December 8th, 2016BETHANY LINDSAY
The Province
Patients of a West Vancouver doctor who sent out a plea for help paying for his retirement are defending their longtime general practitioner and say they’ll do what they can to make sure he has enough money in his golden years.
Dr. Myron MacDonald’s goodbye letter to his patients was brought to the attention of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. last week because of its closing paragraphs, which suggest donations of “perhaps $20-$30 a month on your credit card.” The college described the request as a breach of medical ethics and asked the doctor to make things right.
But Ilze Bebris, who has been MacDonald’s patient for 35 years, didn’t see anything wrong with the letter and sent a bit of cash his way.
“It’s just a donation — there’s no repercussions if you say no. I certainly don’t have a lot of discomfort with that,” she said. “He’s offered exceptional services and has gone above and beyond.”
She has been told to expect her money back, as well as a letter of apology from MacDonald.
MacDonald’s letter suggested he had no pension and little in the way of savings for his retirement, circumstances he attributed in part to spending too much time with each patient. That’s something Bebris confirmed and she doubts she’ll be able to find another family doctor so committed to holistic care.
“He’s very personable, he’s very professional and he’s very interested not just in the issue before him, but in his patients’ well-being overall,” she said. “He’s really an outstanding doctor on all fronts.”
Despite the college’s ethical concerns with MacDonald’s letter, some patients are trying to figure out a way to help their doctor make ends meet.
“I’m not a wealthy guy, but I can spare a little bit,” said Bob Munro, who has been a patient for 40 years. “Everybody I’ve talked to wants to do something to help him. I don’t know what that’s going to look like. The college is saying he can’t accept money from his patients — well, we’ll still figure out a way to help him.”
He plans to spend some time with MacDonald over the next few months to determine his financial needs. Munro added that MacDonald lives in a rented apartment, drives a beat-up old car and seldom billed for uninsured services like annual physicals. Patient care came first at the expense of good financial practices.
“How does this happen, that a doctor — a good doctor — that spends 48 years of his life helping people winds up at the end of his career with almost nothing?” Munro said. “He’s not a good businessman, but that doesn’t make him a bad doctor or a bad person.”
B.C. does have a savings plan specifically geared toward helping physicians retire. The Contributory Professional Retirement Savings Plan (CPRSP) is administered by the B.C. Medical Association and provides matching contributions toward RRSPs and pension plans. This year, the B.C. government provided $53.7 million for the CPRSP.
MacDonald’s voice-mail message Wednesday said his office will be closed until further notice. He informed a reporter through one of his patients he couldn’t comment on the matter.
© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
The Columbia at 285 Nelson’s Court New Westminster 242 homes in a 26-storey tower by Wesgroup Properties
Thursday, December 8th, 2016The Columbia at Brewery District fashioned to reflect New Westminster’s charm
Mary Frances Hill
The Province
A bold wall covering was chosen for this show suite bedroom at the Columbia at Brewery District in New Westminster
Homes at Columbia have one to three bedrooms and range up to almost 1,500 square feet in space
This show suite kitchen was fitted with dark flooring and cabinetry, offset by white kitchen island seat cushions and a bright white table and chairs
The Columbia
Where: 285 Nelson’s Court, New Westminster
Developer and builder: Wesgroup Properties
Project size: 242 one-, twoand three-bedroom homes
Residence sizes and prices: 515 — 1,480 square feet; from the mid-$300,000s
Sales centre address: 285 Nelson’s Court, New Westminster
Centre’s hours: noon — 5 p.m.
Columbia at Brewery District has several points of interest for homebuyers, including the project’s location in a newly formed neighbourhood and its proximity to transit and the many unique shops of New Westminster. That was more than enough to inspire Wesgroup Properties interior designer Erin Kenwood when she took on the design of Columbia’s show homes.
“It’s a great area with a variety of future homeowners … all with their own style. I wanted to show some versatility as well as something to remember our displays by,” says Kenwood, Wesgroup’s in-house designer. To make the Columbia a truly memorable space, she decorated the two display homes with high drama, pitting dark against light, using bold wall coverings and striking local artwork.
Visitors get a taste of this drama in one bathroom and bedroom thanks in no small part to the dark wall coverings in both rooms. Kenwood chose this dark-blue shade because she wanted to convey a sense of comfort and offer the feel of a more expansive space at the same time.
“I believe that carefully adding a bit of drama in certain locations can make your home feel bigger and cozier at the same time. It moves the walls out,” she says. “Adding something like the midnight blue wall covering in the bedroom and carrying it into the bathroom helps one look at the space as a whole rather than several smaller rooms. It relates to an open-plan feel, which is how people live today.”
The effect is so successful that visitors may want to copy it — but they should use some restraint, cautions Kenwood.
“Be careful about using too much. Choose one carefully edited feature and carry it through the home. Stick to feature walls or rooms,” she advises.
The drama continues in the kitchen in the malt palette. Wesgroup combines dark flooring with dark cabinetry, only to make a splash with bright, white kitchen island seat cushions, a stunning “galaxy”-like chandelier and a bright, white table and chairs.
The art of pulling the visitor’s attention “out,” as Kenwood and the Wesgroup team did with the wall coverings, is put into practice in a living room, which commands attention with millwork and storage on one wall and dramatic blackand-white photographic art directly opposite.
Kenwood’s tactic here is to give the living and dining area a strong focal point. “The millwork wall gives the living and dining area a focus and demonstrates how to fit usable storage into the main areas.”
The artwork does more than expand the look of the space; rather, local artist Michael Wesik’s photographic series forces the viewer to do a double take. The bold blackand white piece is more than a simple landscape, but a scene turned on its side, she says. The quality of the work reflects the healthy cultural activity surrounding the Columbia.
“New Westminster has a very strong local art scene with many local artists,” says Kenwood.
“I find that artwork really adds interest to any space.”
© 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
