STYLE FOR LIVING: Things to help the buyer of your home

LYNDA REEVES
Province

Once, when I bought a house, the former owner taught me how to leave a house in a way that will make its new owner feel grateful and touched.
   First, it was clean. Incredibly clean, right down to the kitchen drawers and shelves, ovens, fridge from the basement to the attic. The windows and mirrors sparkled. Even the broadloom had been cleaned. It felt brand new, even though it was an old house.
   All the nail holes where her pictures had been were patched and the walls repainted. Fresh toilet paper and paper towels waited in their holders.
   In the basement she had left a shelf of things that I would need. There were lightbulbs, paint cans, labelled by room, firewood, parts for appliances, hardware that matched each door and window, leftover shelves and pins for the bookcases, shutters, bathroom tiles, baseboard, mouldings and trim. She even left extra pieces of broadloom in case I needed to patch something.
   In the bathrooms and bedrooms, she left me some privacy in the form of drapes on the windows. A note asked me to return them to her once mine arrived.
   On the kitchen counter was a box filled with the things I would need to help make my new house a home. It was so kind and thoughtful and, as I came to learn, incredibly helpful.
   There was a piece of cardboard for each room, with a dab of paint from the walls along with the paint name, number and manufacturer. Then there were lists. What kind of furnace, when it was installed and the name and number of the company that had serviced it and when.
   The trades who had worked in the house were listed with contact information, including window washers, chimney cleaners and eaves-trough experts. She provided the name of the sewing room who had made the drapes and the carpet installer she really liked.
   She noted her favourite stores and services. She provided garbage-pickup calendars. And she left instructions for when to turn on the sprinkler system and which trees needed spraying in the spring.
   There were the blueprints from her renovation, before and after photos of every room, and of the garden in each season. She listed what was planted, since it was winter and I couldn’t tell.
   Of course, there were instruction and warranty packages for every appliance.
   She told me the things that she was planning to do next, had she stayed in the house: Install a new sprinkler system because the old one didn’t reach many of the flowerbeds, for example. Of course I forgot about that list until my flowers started to dry up. After that, I paid attention to the list and did most of what she had planned.
   And finally, there was the welcome package in my fridge. In it were the breakfast basics you never have on your first morning in your new house. Plus bottled water, great snacks and cold drinks for the moving crew.
   I could not believe the work she had gone to to make me feel welcome. I remember hoping she would receive the same gift at the other end, knowing it was unlikely. Who would do all this? Someone who understands how it feels to love and care for a house and hope that the next person will do the same.
   I have no plans to move, and yet I find myself collecting every warranty and spare tile, and bit of extra hardware. I imagine it must feel great to leave things as she did and if I’m ever a seller, I have to at least try to do the same.
   Lynda Reeves is the host of House &
   Home with Lynda Reeves, Monday and
   Friday on the Global Television Network
   and Saturday on PRIME.

Sun

A new product could help prevent accidental deaths when vehicles are left running in attached garages.

The Garage Master automatically opens the garage door after sensing a carbon monoxide detector’s alarm.

When the CO level exceeds the safety limit, the detector sounds an alarm, which activates a Skylink audio sensor.

The audio sensor then sends a signal to the Garage Master (www.skylink.com), which opens the garage door immediately to ensure proper ventilation.

The Garage Master also allows homeowners to set their garage door to close after a predetermined period of time.

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

But provincial transportation minister insists bridge project will definitely proceed ‘because it is critical’

William Boei
Sun

LOWER MAINLAND – Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon rejected a regional district report Thursday that offers qualified support for the $3-billion Gateway Program but says the twinning of the Port Mann Bridge clashes with long-term regional growth plans.

The report, written by Greater Vancouver Regional District chief planner Hugh Kellas, recommends the GVRD support the program if the province drops its plan to twin the bridge and agrees to several other conditions.

Falcon said “No,” when asked if there was any chance the province will agree to leave out or change any major components of the Gateway Program.

Asked if that means the province will definitely go ahead with the twinning of the Port Mann, he said, “Absolutely. There is no question about it, because that is a critical part.”

The government is in the first phase of public consultations about the Gateway Program but has been talking to municipal and regional officials about it for two years, and Falcon said in a telephone interview that the region can’t pick and choose among the parts now.

“If we just built the South Fraser Perimeter Road without the twinned Port Mann Bridge, then what we would do is create a traffic calamity on the Pattullo and the Alex Fraser,” he said.

“If you try to pull out that portion of it, you create significant challenges for the other portions. And we’re not going to do that.

“This is why you have a provincial government, to kind of look at the broader picture to make sure that we make a decision in the broadest interest.”

Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, who chairs the GVRD’s land use and transportation committee, said Falcon’s comments were disappointing.

“It’s obvious to me that consultation has never been Kevin Falcon’s strong suit,” said Corrigan, whose committee will be presented with the Kellas report on Friday.

But he predicted the regional district will stay the course.

“Of course we will,” he said. “I think the GVRD will be more inclined to dig in its heels if Kevin Falcon isn’t willing to listen to any of the comments we might have about whether or not the Port Mann Bridge twinning fits within our plans, or how it might be made to fit within our plans.”

Asked what recourse the GVRD has, Corrigan, said, “Public opinion. I’m expecting that there will be significant public pressure on the government to re-look at its plans once all of the information is out.”

The Kellas report says the GVRD can support the overall goals of the Gateway Program, such as improved movement of goods and people, better connections to transit and reduced vehicle emissions.

The program includes the twinning of the bridge, widening the Trans-Canada Highway from Langley to Vancouver, building a new four-lane highway on the south shore of the Fraser River and upgrading a truck route on existing roads on the north shore of the river, including a new Pitt River bridge.

Kellas says the Port Mann twinning, widening the Trans-Canada west of the Port Mann and the new Pitt River bridge clash with regional plans. Those plans call for transportation demand management to be used to create space for goods movement before road capacity is expanded.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

But they’re failures at saving, and will have to work long past retirement

Don MacDonald
Sun

The leading edge of Canada’s giant baby-boom generation hits 60 this year, and author Gordon Pape fears they aren’t ready for what awaits them.

Pape says baby boomers, as a generation, are spending champions but saving failures.

The result is that many boomers are facing the prospect of reduced lifestyles in retirement or extended working lives long into their golden years, he says.

On a societal level, Pape looks ahead and sees an increasingly large population of retirees whose needs, especially for health care, will be supported by a shrinking workforce.

The good news is that Canada’s public pension system –the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan –have been put on a sustainable footing for the decades to come thanks to some hefty premium increases in recent years.

But it’s a different story for private corporate pensions. Fewer companies are offering their employees traditional defined-benefit pension plans.

Many of the remaining plans are showing signs of strain thanks to the ravages of the bear market in stocks in the early part of this decade and the low long-term interest rates since then.

“All of these trends, as they come together, say we have to be even more self-sufficient in planning our retirement,” said Pape, whose latest book is The Retirement Time Bomb.

Pape is 70 years old and he has given up trying to persuade 20-year-olds to start planning for their retirement.

But those over 40 had better be sharpening their pencils, he says.

“Anyone who is over 40 should be sitting down and putting together the fundamental outline of where they’re going to be down the road,” he said from his winter home in Fort Myers Beach, Fla.

— Montreal Gazette

© The Vancouver Province 2006

 

Bob Ransford
Sun

Last year Canada’s Heart and Stroke Foundation took aim at the popular myth that living in the country or suburbs is better for your health.

The organization declared that the “suburban dream has gone sour,” releasing evidence that clearly showed that car-dependent Canadians get far less physical activity and are at greater risk of being overweight or obese.

Smart Growth BC has gone even further in looking at how our built environment shapes our transportation choices and, in turn, human health.

Smart Growth BC is a non-government organization devoted to fiscally, socially and environmentally responsible land use and development. Staff work with community groups, businesses, municipalities and the public, advocating for the creation of more livable communities.

This past week the organization issued a report that pulls together the work of many researchers and the results of a number of past studies that look at how our sprawling development patterns have been correlated with higher body weights, obesity and the chronic diseases they cause.

Co-authored by Dr. Larry Frank at the University of B.C., Smart Growth BC’s report is also a call to action with a number of land use policy and design recommendations.

Density — that word dreaded in the suburbs — is the key to providing transportation choice and getting people to walk more.

Each quartile increase in residential density corresponds with a 23-per-cent increase in the odds of walking for non-work travel, according to a recent Seattle study quoted in the report.

Of the leading causes of death in Canada, eight are potentially affected by sedentary lifestyles, air pollution or traffic crashes.

Of course, not all of these deaths result entirely from transportation-related activities, but many can be attributed to the amount of time people spend in their cars moving between their single-family homes in sub-divisions built too far apart and away from the services and amenities people need daily.

Studies also show that nearly all travel is done by car until residential density levels reach 13 persons per gross acre. Employment density levels of greater than 75 employees per gross acre are necessary before there is a substantial increase in transit and pedestrian travel for work trips.

There are policies we can put in place to encourage public transit ridership. Smart Growth BC’s report points to the fact that in the short two years since its inception, UBC’s TREK Program, with a transit pass called the U-Pass, has increased transit use from 26 per cent in 2002 to 41 per cent in 2004.

The closer you are to the corner store the more chance you will walk, as well. Walking for non-work trips increased 19 per cent with each quartile increase in the number of retail establishments in the area, according to a King County 2005 study.

For those anxious to see the Port Mann Bridge and Highway 1 twinned, I draw your attention to a recent Seattle-area study highlighted in Smart Growth BC’s report.

It concluded that reducing travel time and congestion levels for cars results in a lower proportion of trips on foot and transit.

This suggests that roadway expansions that alleviate congestion attract trips from other active and more sustainable modes and may actually undermine the health-related benefits of smart growth.

Another American study, based on nationwide travel survey data, found that transit users spend a median of 19 minutes daily walking to transit — over half of the 30 daily minutes recommended by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Smart Growth BC also targets air pollution and water quality as measures of a health community. A King County study reported on the relationship between urban form and air quality, showing that a 25-per-cent increase in the over-all range of walkability within King County was associated with 6.5 per cent fewer vehicle miles travelled, 5.6 per cent fewer grams of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and 5.5 per cent fewer grams of volatile organic compounds (VOC) per capita.

Smart Growth BC believes there is much that can be accomplished by educating policymakers, planners and consumers about how to create, evaluate and select healthier communities.

Their report provides some workable land use policy ideas together with neighbourhood and building design concepts that will help us build our communities and plan our transportation to foster the kind of behaviour that will make us healthier.

For further information on the report entitled Promoting Public Health Through Smart Growth visit smartgrowth.bc.ca

– – –

Bob Ransford is a public affairs consultant with COUNTERPOINT Communications Inc. He is a former real estate developer who specializes in urban land use issues. Contact him at: [email protected]

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Water-themed ceremony will feature a liquid stage in BC Place, marine creatures and an all-star cast, organizers’ plans reveal

Becky Soler
Sun

A marine extravaganza exalting Vancouver’s coastal climate is the theme for the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

The information is disclosed in a copy of the Vancouver Organizing Committee’s (Vanoc) preliminary plans for the massive event Feb. 12, 2010, which will be televised and webcast around the globe. The 107-page document, entitled A Wet Welcome: 2010 Millimetres of Rain, was intended only for internal circulation, but a confidential source leaked the program to The Sun Friday.

Vanoc representatives refused to comment on the report.

The most dramatic component is the intention to flood B.C. Place with salt water pumped in directly from False Creek, creating a liquid stage.

The report states that once construction is completed on the RAV line, crews will use a similar procedure to build aqueducts that allow water to flow into the enormous basin and back again.

According to the complex mathematical figures, B.C. Place will hold a whopping 5,944,000 litres of water, the capacity of 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools. This enables a depth of 15 metres, the minimum requirement to accommodate the “cross-section of Pacific marine life” that will inhabit the mini-sea for the ceremonies. The entire lower deck of the stadium will be submerged.

“They flooded the Colosseum in ancient Rome, when they staged great naval battles for sport, so they can easily pull it off at B.C. Place,” says Dr. Jacob Stevenson, professor of aquatic engineering at the University of B.C. “The structure is already primed to seal in water with all those air locks.”

The working slogan of the Olympics is: “Soak up the Spirit.”

In keeping with Vanoc’s commitment to sustainability, the basin will be full of petri-dish cultivated salmon.

The lavish three-hour performance, as envisioned by Vanoc’s team of expert event planners, begins in utter silence and darkness, simulating the birth of life itself.

Suddenly, a spotlight illuminates the mascot — a buoyant, rotund raindrop called Howdy Dew — who floats quietly into the centre of the stadium. When he reaches the epicentre, native drumming becomes audible, “slowly building to a frenzy,” as a band of Coast Salish aboriginals led by Canadian singer Buffy Sainte Marie engage in a rain dance on the jumbotron.

“This symbolizes the modern marriage of technology and tradition,” the document says.

When the volume reaches what the report terms “just shy of of headache-inducing,” Howdy Dew will be whisked on invisible cables to the roof of the closed dome. His arrival there will trigger a realistic rainstorm, which will cascade into the pool but spare the spectators.

“I can’t really give away much, other than the fact that Butchart Gardens is generously donating a number of hoses for the project,” says Jaynie Starr of Fraser Fire Extinguishing Ltd., the company contracted to install the intricate web of hoses that will emit the downpour.

A huge thunderclap and blinding flash of lightning will abruptly end this typical February shower. Simultaneously, a state-of-the-art laser beam will focus on Howdy Dew, melting away the exterior layer of the costume to reveal a brilliant sun beneath.

“Likewise, the temperature inside B.C. Place will then rise from a chilly eight degrees to a comfortable 12,” the report states.

A rainbow — an homage to the pride flag and Canada’s liberal stance on same-sex marriage — will arc from the sun to the water, where the marine life is suddenly illuminated by underwater lights.

“The Voice of British Columbia” booms from above — possible candidates mentioned in the report are Silken Laumann, Bryan Adams and Tamara Taggart — narrating as a parade of local legends navigate the glowing waters. These include: Ogopogo chased by Stockwell Day on a Sea-doo, a Sasquatch reclining in a BC Ferries life ring, the mountain pine beetle coasting on a blue pine raft and David Suzuki on waterskis made from recycled pop cans, pulled by a speedboat that draws trace molecules of carbon monoxide gas from the air and converts them to green fuel (pending invention).

“Although, extreme caution must be exercised with motorized vehicles, considering what happened to Luna,” the report adds.

At the end of the parade is Ladysmith beauty Pamela Anderson, clad in a mermaid tail, dragging five seals (borrowed from the Vancouver Aquarium). The well-trained seals dangle limply on chains, looking dead, until Pamela kisses each and removes the shackles, symbolizing her abhorrence of Canada’s seal hunt. The animals spring to life and leap through five flaming Olympic rings to freedom.

Cue flag-bearing delegations from participating countries, which row in on culturally relevant vessels: Scandinavians in a Viking ship, the Chinese in a dragon boat, Brits in a yellow submarine and Americans on a military aircraft carrier.

They unite to form the outline of a big inukshuk.

“At this moment, the visuals climax to a frantic festival of cliches. Think Canadian history on ecstasy,” the report says.

Susan Aglukark and Burton Cummings launch into a feel-good duet that combines O Siem with Share the Land. As Aglukark intones the lyrics “we are all family, we’re all the same,” the inukshuk spins, propelled by a school of dolphins that swims the perimeter of the pool. A simulated earthquake provides extra excitement, and strobe lights capture Cirque du Soleil gymnasts, who dive from the nosebleed section into the living soup. Margaret Atwood raps an excerpt from The Handmaid’s Tale. Meanwhile, Mounties ride killer whales through the turbulent waters. Actors portraying Generals Montcalm and Wolfe dunk each other.

“Lifeguards from Kits pool will be on hand to resuscitate performers and wildlife in the event of an emergency,” the report says.

This whirlpool of activity is halted by a Nunavut-inspired blast of arctic air, which is partially designed to jolt the dizzy audience. Snowflakes descend from the dome as Anne Murray rises from beneath the waters on the Olympic pedestal, singing Snowbird. The ever-present rainbow terminates on her soaking wet white dress. In her hands is the proverbial pot of gold.

Murray, one of our national treasures, is indeed holding treasure: the gold medals.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

With the noisy pile driving finished, workers can begin putting in some 3,000 truckloads of what insiders call ‘engineered dirt’ — and the bare rubble look will at last start to disappear

Frances Bula
Sun

The insider name for it is “engineered dirt.” We in the general public know it as concrete, that denser-than-fruitcake grey stuff that’s the foundation for everything in this city from Vancouver Specials to the 600-foot Shangri-La tower.

And it’s the featured material these days at the Vancouver convention-centre expansion now that the pile-driving is slowly but surely coming to an end.

With the pile work finished on the east end of the site, crews have started the 16-month job of pouring and placing the equivalent of 3,000 truckloads of concrete that will form foundation for the new centre.

If you drive past the site the waterfront road, you’ll see the bare rubble starting to disappear.

Instead there is a swarm of workers building forms for concrete to be poured into, embedding the reinforcing bars, directing the pours, and then carefully covering and watering the concrete to ensure that it sets properly.

If you drove past on some nights during the winter, you might even have seen them working then too.

The centre’s unique waterfront site, which is a metre lower than other buildings on the shore, has meant that high tides routinely wash over the concrete work.

Which, as it turns out, is much more of a science than many of us might have suspected.

The first thing that usually surprises the average non-construction-type gawker, Rob Karchewski tells me, is that concrete is basically crushed rock.

Apparently people think it must be more complicated than that. But it’s not.

It’s rock and gravel that’s been pulverized into a powder finer than espresso, then mixed up with a few other things like limestone and calcium, heated to 1,482 degrees Celsius, and mixed with water. The chemical reaction between the water and the minerals makes it set.

On the other hand, this very basic product — something the Greeks and Romans used before the technology was lost for a few hundred years until it was revived in 1700s Britain — has also been seriously tinkered with in recent decades.

Or, as Rob tells me, it’s “highly technical.” That’s engineering speak for lots of extra things have been added to it. (Rob is in fact an engineer, with a degree from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay before he was dragged kicking and screaming out to the West Coast four years ago and now the construction manager for Graham Construction and Engineering.)

The process for making concrete isn’t all that environmentally friendly, what with having to heat the rock up to several degrees more than your average oven.

So, now the manufacturers add waste products from other manufacturing processes, like the flyash that’s a byproduct of coal-burning power generators (which we import from Centralia, Wash., and Alberta) and silica.

As well, manufacturers add a lot of superplasticizer, which makes it a little more fluid and that helps with the pouring.

Plus there are other things in there that make the concrete today considerably stronger than what old Joseph Aspdin was coming up with back in 1700 and whatever.

Old-time concrete — perhaps the very concrete used to construct the 1980s building I’m currently in, for all I know — only had a strength of 3-4,000 psi. Now it’s up to 14,000 — or 20 to 100 megapascals, Rob explains to me helpfully.

And there will be a lot of it underneath the dance floor at the convention centre — three layers in fact.

There are the long concrete bars laid on top of the piles — the pile caps. Then there are pre-cast concrete platforms set on top of those piles. And at the end, Kawchewski and his crew of 60 will ice the whole confection with another 10,000 square feet of additional concrete.

Now there’s something comforting to think about when you’re in a future crowd of 5,000 or so on the public plaza outside the centre and you start to wonder exactly what is holding all of you up.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Little research before signing dotted line goes long way to protecting yourself

Sun

March is national fraud prevention month and ICBC is advising consumers to be aware when purchasing used vehicles. By taking the proper precautions, ICBC says, buyers can greatly reduce their chances of purchasing a stolen or fraudulently altered vehicle.

“When buying a used car, a little research can go a long way. Arm yourself with knowledge about the vehicle before you sign the dotted line and hand over your payment” said Mark Francis, ICBC manager of regulated vehicle programs, in a news release.

“If at any point along the process something causes you concern, your best option is to walk away from the sale,” said Francis.

ICBC invests in more fraud prevention and investigation programs than most property and casualty insurance companies in Canada. ICBC seeks to identify instances of fraud to deter others, and actively pursues fraudulent claims through civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions to recover fraudulent payments.

But there are a number of precautions individuals can take to help protect themselves. The following list of suggestions is intended to help better inform customers buying used vehicles:

Inspect the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). Since 1981, the VIN is a combination of 17 numbers and letters used to uniquely identify a vehicle.

Confirm the VIN on the dashboard matches the vehicle registration form.

Check for signs of tampering with the VIN. Signs to look for include: loose or mismatched rivets, scratched numbers, tape, glue or paint over the VIN.

Have a licensed mechanic check the VIN on the doorpost and engine firewall.

Insist on seeing the original Vehicle Registration form, not a photocopy.

A recent change by ICBC now requires the original computer-generated registration form to transfer the ownership of a vehicle.

Check that the licence plate on the vehicle matches the licence plate listed on the vehicle registration form.

Confirm that the vehicle make, model, and colour match the description on the vehicle registration form.

Ask the seller to provide photo identification.

Make sure the name on the vehicle registration form is the same as the person selling the vehicle. Make note of the seller’s valid home address and contact information.

Inspect the vehicle’s odometer for signs of tampering. Odometer fraud is the illegal practice of rolling back an odometer to display fewer kilometres than actually driven.

Look for marks on the odometer, and make sure the numbers are properly aligned.

Check to ensure the vehicle’s mileage is consistent with the condition of the vehicle.

Pay careful attention to the following high-wear points: the brake pedal, carpets, seats, steering wheel and seat belts.

Keep in mind that a car travels an average of 25,000 kilometres per year.

Uncover the vehicle’s claims history. Visit www.icbc.com and perform either an ICBC Vehicle Claims History report or the new more detailed CarProof Verified BC report. Both are specific to the vehicle; descriptions of the reports are available online.

Perform a lien search. A lien may have been placed on the vehicle by a person, a bank or other entity as collateral for an unpaid debt. A lien is attached to the vehicle, not to the owner of the vehicle. In the event the previous owner does not pay their debt, the car can be repossessed.

A lien search can be performed at an ICBC Driver Service Centre, some Government Agents Offices, or at the Personal Property Registry in Victoria at a cost of $10.

The CarProof Verified BC report includes lien searches from across Canada.

As well, be wary of sellers who don’t want you to come to their house to see the vehicle. They might suggest meeting at a mall or bringing the car to your house because it’s “more convenient.” These cars are sometimes the products of “curbers” who buy cars that have been written off in accidents and then do the cosmetic work to make them salable. Such cars can be a safety hazard.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

 

A selection of books to help you navigate the latest tax changes from Ottawa

Ray Turchansky
Sun

Nothing wreaks havoc with annual books on income taxes like a winter federal election, when vote-luring tax changes are announced close to the tax filing season.

Yet at least 10 such guides to help taxpayers navigate a sea of T-slips and schedules managed to make it out in time for this year’s tax deadline at the end of April.

One can just imagine the last-minute scrambling that went on when former finance minister Ralph Goodale announced a series of tax changes in his Nov. 14 economic update.

Of course, it’s years when there are bountiful tax changes that attract taxpayers to bookstores.

A major reason for the proliferation of tax books is the preponderance of grey areas in Canada’s Income Tax Act.

Tax books tend to be one of three varieties: the academic tomes that go through the income tax return line by line or topic by topic; the accounting firm versions that try to highlight the major areas and explain them; and the user-friendly offerings with as much tax-planning advice as information and interpretation.

Here’s a selection of the tax-related books available for readers this year, starting with two of the most in-depth offerings:

– Preparing Your Income Tax Returns

(Michael Mallin, CCH Canada Ltd., 1,473 pages, $72.)

Preparing You Income Tax Returns remains the bible for serious preparers of individual income taxes.

Variously called “The Andersen,” when it was written by the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, and now, “The Mallin,” it is the reference book used by major firms teaching income tax preparation. Not usually available in big box book stores, it can be found in independent stores, which often take reservations for the book because it’s a high ticket item they don’t want to overstock.

The book has tremendous detail with all sorts of stats, such as historic year-by-year average currency exchange rates set by the Bank of Canada. It’s a topic-by-topic book, often offering some background and examples on how to treat various tax situations. The author occasionally expresses humour and bewilderment about the way some tax items are treated. Chances are if you don’t find the answer to a tax question here — although it may require looking in a number of places — you won’t find it in the other annual books.

This is a book to buy every four or five years, whenever there’s been a number of major tax changes from budgets and economic statements.

– Line-by-Line

(Jim Morrisey and Peter Wood, Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ernst & Young, 1,102 pages, $49.95.)

Line-by-Line is an interesting guide, literally a full-blown version of the T1 General guide that comes with your income tax form. It follows the T1 form in order, expanding on what can and cannot be included in each line, and listing other lines that have an effect on the one you’re checking out.

There is a detailed chapter on each of the provincial and territorial tax return forms, and in fact roughly half this book contains every form and schedule you’re likely to come across. Inside the back cover is a bonus CD, said to be worth $120, containing all the forms which you can download.

Preparing Your Income Tax Returns and Line-by-Line complement each other quite nicely. If you know the item or topic, you can find out about it quickly in the former. If you know the line number, it’s easy to get help using the latter.

– Tax Planning 2006

(KPMG. Thomson Carswell, 340 pages, $20.95)

– How To Reduce The Tax You Pay

(Deloitte, Key Porter, 278 pages, $19.95)

– Smart Tax Tips

(Grant Thornton, Key Porter, 296 pages, $18.95)

Each of these annual books by accounting firms handles most of the major tax situations nicely.

I personally like Tax Planning 2006 the best, primarily because there’s more detail and it’s the product of nine contributing editors from across the country, representing various areas of expertise.

Visually it’s the most reader friendly, with a number of pull-out boxes highlighting examples and tips on topics being discussed. The other two books tend to be more superficial.

But all these books are hit-and-miss. Each one handles some topics better than the others. One thing they have in common is a minimal number of information charts, something that could be bolstered.

– Essential Tax Facts

(Evelyn Jacks, Knowledge Bureau, 224 pages, $20)

– Winning The Tax Game 2006

(Tim Cestnick, Wiley, 308 pages, $26.99)

– Beat The Taxman 2006

(Stephen Thompson, Wiley, 226 pages, $26.99)

– Tax Tips For Canadians For Dummies

(Christie Henderson, Wiley, 345 pages, $19.99)

These books are of the self-help variety, geared more towards tax planning and savings than tax preparation, thus they have a value of their own.

Evelyn Jacks of Winnipeg has evolved over the last couple of decades from being a tax preparer to a tax author, famed for her Jacks on Tax books, to an educator. A few years ago she set up The Knowledge Bureau, providing a network of speakers on subjects ranging from taxes to fitness to wine.

In dozens of books, Jacks has attacked taxes from various angles — knowing your deductions, a line-by-line guide, and looking at taxes in tough times and for the long term.

This offering, Essential Tax Facts, contains 233 ways to save taxes, and expands on them. As usual, she has nuggets of information everywhere.

Like Jacks, Tim Cestnick is a regular guest on ROB-TV’s Talking Tax and regularly authors tax books, as well as writing a tax column for the Globe and Mail. But while Jacks is an educator, Cestnick remains a practitioner, with WaterStreet Group. He may be the most visual tax expert in Canadian media. His Winning the Tax Game 2006 is a bit of a cross between Jacks’ book — his offers 102 tax tips — and the accounting firm books. His writing is clear and easily understood and covers most major topics.

Stephen Thompson’s Beat the Taxman 2006 is aimed at small business owners, certainly a growing field in Canada. It deals with many of the classic business start-up issues — to incorporate or not and when you have to charge GST — and addresses practices like accounting.

Of course, the most basic of self-help books is the Dummies series, and Cestnick’s every-day language is also evident in Tax Tips For Canadians for Dummies, of which he is senior editor. The book does a good job explaining many every-day tax matters in down-to-earth fashion, but don’t expect it to solve tricky situations. It’s a good starting point.

Ray Turchansky is a freelance writer and income tax preparer. He may be contacted at [email protected]

© The Vancouver Sun 2006

Olympic village that housed athletes is the most visible example of the 2006 organizing committee’s commitment to sustainability

Jeff Lee
Sun

TURIN – On one side of a Turin railway yard is the Lingotto Fiere, the massive former Fiat automobile factory, a testament to everything industrial in this northern Italian city.

For nearly 70 years Europe’s biggest mass-production factory pumped out millions of pollution-producing cars and trucks, and in its own right became a significant polluter.

On the other side of the tracks is an equally potent symbol of the industriousness of Italy’s architects and planners, but of a different generation.

The 39 buildings that make up the new Olympic village signify a small but important change in the city’s stature as it tries to remake itself away from its heavy-industry image.

The village is the centrepiece of a complex environmental statement by the Turin 2006 Winter Games organizing committee.

The drinking and bathing water in each of the apartments is heated by roof-top solar panels. Wide-area radiant floor heating is used instead of inefficient wall radiators, and the heat comes from a new co-generation and district heating plant at Moncalieri that now heats part of the southern neighbourhoods of Turin. The walls are insulated with recycled cellulose fibre.

Each of the buildings has also been oriented to take best advantage of the sun as it rises and sets in the south, with deep double-pane windows to trap heat. The roofs all have wide flanges for collecting water that is then funnelled into underground cisterns for recycling on to area gardens.

Paolo Revellino sees the manifestation of a relatively new Olympic ideal, the concept that environmental stewardship should be as important in the Olympics as are two other concepts, sport and culture.

Revellino, the head of sustainability assessment for the Turin Olympic Organizing Committee, and his colleague Ugo Pretato, head of environmental programs, are the main architects of Toroc’s self-described attempt to be “the greenest Games ever.”

As he stood on the rooftop of one of the village’s buildings looking at the Lingotto, Revellino explained why Toroc undertook such a lofty goal.

“I don’t think you can consider the Olympics to be just about sport any more. It has the ability to influence the way people think and to change attitudes. Turin has the opportunity to do that also in how we take care of the environment. This is an industrial city, but it is changing.”

The Olympic village is the most visible example of Toroc’s sustainability commitments. It is built on the site of another industrial legacy, the old Mercati Generali wholesale grocers market, which operated from 1934 until the early 1990s before it was moved out of the city because of complaints of pollution and noise from residents.

In 2004 most of the abandoned warehouses were torn down, but the central building was kept and renovated into a series of shops and services.

Marco Operto, the construction manager for Agencia Turin 2006, the government arm that built the village, said it represents the best that Italy has to offer for changing public attitudes.

“This is something very new for Italians,” he said. “We haven’t always been so careful about conserving energy or water.”

It has only been in the last decade that the International Olympic Committee has realized its power to change public views around the environment. In 1994, when the Lillehammer Winter Games in Norway earned high marks for being compact and environmentally friendly, the Olympic movement began to recognize it could influence the world on environmental matters.

Two years later the IOC amended its charter to include environmental stewardship, and it has used moral suasion and political clout ever since to encourage Games organizers to plan events that meet or exceed environmental standards.

For organizing committees that have to manage tight budgets, these are not inconsequential costs. Operto figures the environmental initiatives drove the $198 million Cdn project up by about five to seven per cent, but the savings will be realized within 10 years.

Toroc’s environmental statement is much broader than just the Olympic village. The committee based its environmental management program on a set of stringent principles that included minimizing the footprint of the Games, recycling waste material, monitoring and mitigating the impact of construction and operation of the facilities and using eco-efficient transportation. It also encouraged local hotels and boarding facilities to subscribe to the European Union’s Ecolabel program which sets environmental standards for accommodation.

Toroc also sought certification under both the European Union’s Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) and ISO 14001, two voluntary programs designed around standardizing environmental management systems. Failing to comply with the certification doesn’t earn participants a fine, but it is a public embarrassment to be de-listed or criticized, Revellino said.

Toroc put together a number of high-value environmental projects to demonstrate its management principles, including the Olympic Village, three co-generation plants — two of which are at mountain venues –and a biathlon venue building that generates its own electricity with photovoltaic solar panels.

Ever since the Sydney 2000 Summer Games organizers have tried to make the events “carbon-neutral”, offsetting the greenhouse gases produced by the Games through efforts such as planting trees.

But Turin was the first Games to attempt to meet the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases.

“Our goal was to offset the greenhouse gases generated by the Olympic Games,” Pretato said. “We want to be able to say we recovered the greenhouse gases between our Games and the next one in Vancouver,”

Carbon dioxide is blamed for causing global warming, and the Kyoto Protocol, which comes up for renewal in 2012, has been signed by a number of countries, including Canada, as an action plan for reducing greenhouse gases.

Pretato and his colleagues calculated that more than 121,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide would be generated by the Games, primarily from transportation and the operation of the events. It didn’t include the amount that the spectators themselves would produce.

The $7-million Cdn greenhouse gas initiative, called Project Hector (which stands for Heritage Climate Turin), is funded by the Piedmont Region and involves carbon credits generated from three low-energy district heating and two co-generation projects. The town council in Pinerolo, site of the curling venue, is also undertaking energy-saving programs that will generate carbon credits.

“I think we are expecting about 250,000 tonnes of carbon credits from these projects,” Pretato said. “Over four years we will generate more credits than were necessary for the entire Games.”

Toroc also became the first organization in Italy, and one of the first in Europe, to implement a “strategic environmental assessment.” The SEA program was mandated by Italian law and required Toroc and Agencia Turin 2006 to subject every project to set of environmental principles.

Revellino said one example of that was the snow-making facilities Toroc had to install at mountain venues. After reviewing the plans, Toroc cut the number of temporary reservoirs needed by a third.

Toroc also used methane-powered buses where possible, and electric golf carts in the village itself.

But not every program has met with success. Recycling in Italy is not widely practised and unlike the Lower Mainland, there is no curbside program. Inhabitants can take their cans, bottles and papers to communal depots, often large containers located on street boulevards. Italy also doesn’t have a container deposit system. Instead, manufacturers pay an up-front fee that is then supposed to be filtered down to municipalities which mount recycling programs.

Toroc tried to encourage a separate-at-source recycling program with its staff and at the media centres.

It put out different-coloured cardboard bins for bottles, papers, organics and plastics. In the media centres, however, they didn’t put all the containers together to offer a choice. As a result, people threw their garbage into the nearest container regardless of content.

However, Revellino said Toroc worked with suppliers to cut down the potential for waste; Coca-Cola, the corporate beverage sponsor, agreed to supply drinks only in plastic bottles that could be recycled, and McDonald’s, another sponsor, used environmentally-friendly packaging.

Food suppliers also used utensils made from corn starch instead of plastic. The only problem with that was that the corn starch, which is compostable, also breaks down under heat. Revellino said that presented problems for soup-eaters, and Toroc had to change to plastic spoons.

Turin‘s efforts have also earned high marks from the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (Vanoc).

“They definitely raised the bar in environmental management and certification,” said Linda Cody, Vanoc’s vice-president of sustainability.

Cody said Vanoc is still working on its environmental management plan but has also pledged to be “carbon neutral.” Vanoc hasn’t finished a greenhouse gas audit but Cody thinks it will be less than Turin’s 121,000 tonnes because B.C. has a different energy structure.

Most of the province’s power-generation is hydro-electric. The city also uses a high proportion of electric buses and the SkyTrain and new Canada Line are also carbon-free.

BC Transit also has a proposal to have 20 hydrogen-powered buses in operation in Whistler. Vanoc will supply bus transportation between Vancouver and Whistler, reducing the amount of vehicles on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, Cody said.

Vanoc is also working on obtaining environmental certification under ISO 14001, and has also pledged to build most of its venues to a minimum LEEDS silver standard, she said. (LEEDS is a North American environmental equivalent to EMAS.)

Cody said every Olympics is different, even if the end goal in environmental sustainability is the same.

“There is no cookie-cutter plan for how you do this,” she said. “But I think we will be equally diligent in what we do.”

She said Vanoc’s map for its environmental programs will likely be ready by the end of the year.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006