Canadian Expert Publishes New Book on Organic Gardening

Canadian expert gardener Mark Cullen’s brand-new book, The Canadian Garden Primer: An Organic Approach (M & M Communications), soon to be in Victoria bookstores, has left no proverbial paving stone unturned in offering readers everything from how to grow fruits and vegetables to ornamental and lawn gardening using an environmentally sound approach. Vividly photographed, Cullen has removed the guesswork out of gardening, featuring numerous easy to follow sequenced shots of the various stages of planting, specifically for the Canadian gardener.

Cullen also highlights some of the more practical approaches to gardening- including the benefits of eating organically grown produce. What could be better than knowing exactly what you’re putting on the table given you planted and harvested it yourself? The Canadian Garden Primer: An Organic Approach, Cullen’s 18th book in print, offers readers the hands-on goods regarding “how to grow it” (flowers, vegetables, fruits, perfect lawns), regardless of expertise and in a way that’s good for you and the environment.

Some of Mark Cullen’s Top 10 Gardening Trends for Spring 2009 include:

· Sound water conservation practices aided by the use of mulch and rain barrels.

· Using native plants in the landscape to reduce maintenance and increase natural biodiversity cycles.

· Gardening with home-grown remedies (in lieu of harsh toxic chemicals) that are safe for use around children and pets.

· Small space gardening becomes more prevalent as high density dwelling means homes are built on smaller lots and people move into condos with limited outdoor space. Creative “small space” garden design and yard plans begin to serve multiple uses.

· Ergonomics and the environment play a large factor in the search for tools that make gardening chores easy and resourceful. With this in mind, Mark has developed a new line of Mark’s Choice/Spear and Jackson stainless steel digging tools.

· With less disposable income available for costly travel vacations or the purchase of a vacation property, Mark suggests spending hard earned cash to beautify and improve your home’s yard and garden. Investing in your own “outdoor retreat” makes any staycation all the more palatable.

Mark has channeled years of experience and in-depth knowledge of the Canadian garden into this, his 18th publication, in an effort to guide even the most tentative gardeners, while still providing valuable information to seasoned green thumbs. This full-colour, how-to guide will have Canada blooming organically this spring.

Rogers Chocolates Could Become Heritage Site

Victoria councillors will decide tonight whether to declare the 100-year-old interior of Rogers’ Chocolates on Government Street a heritage site. Designation would be a precedent-setting and potentially costly move, as it’s the first commercial interior in the city to be designated and it’s being done without the owner’s consent — setting the stage for compensation.

While councillors have been briefed about the potential legal and compensation ramifications, they can’t reveal the cost estimates because the matter could end up in court.

Steve Barber, senior heritage planner for the city, said the interior is important not only to Victoria but to the country as a whole.

Read more…

Victoria’s unemployment up, still third lowest in Canada

Victoria’s unemployment rate nudged up last month as surprised analysts learned that Canada lost a total of 129,000 mostly full-time jobs in a record high drop in a single month, Statistics Canada said today.

The capital region’s rate is at four per cent, from 3.7, putting it in third place behind Regina, Sask. at 3.2 per cent, and Edmonton, Alta., at 3.8 per cent.

Today’s economic downturn is playing out across the country. B.C. saw its unemployment rate rise to 6.1 per cent, from 5.3 per cent as the province was hit by job losses in both construction and manufacturing.

In the Greater Victoria, 1,900 fewer people were working in January, said Vincent Ferrao, labour market analyst for Statistics Canada. Last month, the labour force dropped by 1,500 people.

Job losses locally were spread throughout a number of categories: Accommodation and food services, public administration, information, culture and recreation, and professional, technical and scientific services, he said.

Year-over-year figures are more telling. Retail and wholesale trade stood at 30,400, down from January from 33,300 in January 2008, based on a three-month running average, Ferrao said.

Accommodation and food service jobs were at 13,800 last month, lower than 17,100 the previous year, he said. However, public administration had increased to 22,800 by last month, from 18,000 in January 2008.

Ken Stratford, Business Victoria CEO, said that Greater Victoria’s employment picture is still pretty good. This region is still running below full employment of five per cent. This region will likely hit five per cent later this year.

“We are in for some constraints but at the local level, we are still in very good shape and we need to keep that in mind.”

Building and construction sectors are still doing well, with the Uptown project busy on Douglas Street. “That is employing a lot of people and there is still a year’s work ahead of them.” Plus, plans have been submitted to the city of Victoria to expand the Hillside Shopping Centre, Stratford said.

He has been talking to real estate agents who have saying that while the market is softer, they do not expect prices to soften into the double digits.

“For people who can do it, mostly young singles, school is a good place to take refuge in an economic downturn.”

Provincially, employment in B.C. dropped by 35,000 in January, including 18,000 in manufacturing, Statistics Canada said.

“Following a five-year period of sustained growth, construction employment fell for the fourth consecutive month in January, bringing total losses in that industry to 32,000 since its peak in September 2008,” the federal agency said.

Philip Hochstein, president of the Vancouver-based, Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, said, “The construction industry is beginning to feel the effects of the economic slowdown on the ground now, and we expect more of this to come.”

When the Association surveyed construction companies in January, “half of them told us they expect work levels to decline, and 38 per cent expect the amount of work to stay the same over the next year.”

“Workers and employers in construction who had been putting off education to this point are now turning their attention to training and upgrading skills,” Hochstein said.

“Now is a good time to improve your future hiring prospects and productivity by going back to school, and we hope to see more government incentives for retraining in the coming provincial budget.”

Nationally, the cumulative total of job losses for the last three months to 234,000 and pushes the unemployment rate to 7.2 per cent from 6.6 per cent.

“This is a bad report all across the range,” said Derek Holt, vice-president of economics at Scotia Capital. “The time to be an optimist falls by the wayside with a report like this.”

The single-month record loss was just over three times the consensus estimate of 40,000 among Bay Street economists. The economy lost 71,000 jobs and 34,000 jobs, respectively, in November and December.

“The recession deepened at the start of 2009 and we are likely to see the jobless rate rise above eight per cent by year end,” BMO Capital Markets said in a note to clients, adding this “bleak” report will likely prompt the Bank of Canada to cut its key benchmark lending rate, at one per cent, at its next decision date in March.

Statistics Canada said the drop in employment was most pronounced in manufacturing, where the net loss totalled 101,000. There were declines in a number of other industries as well. The only industry with notable gains was health care and social assistance, where employment increased by 31,000.

Canada’s three largest provinces accounted for the entire employment decrease in January, with Ontario recording its single biggest one-month loss, 71,000, in three decades. January’s data pushes that province’s unemployment rate to eight per cent, the highest since November, 1997. Statistics Canada added that the province has lost 125,000 jobs since October.

The Canadian dollar was trading around 79.84 cents US shortly after the employment report was released, down from Thursday’s close of 81.23 cents US.

A report this week from the economics team at Toronto-Dominion Bank indicated that the country stands to lose 325,000 jobs in 2009 as major industries slash production in response to weaker demand, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.8 per cent. Meanwhile, Bank of Nova Scotia forecasts job losses of 220,00 this year with the unemployment rate settling at eight per cent.

The recent federal budget said the stimulus measures would create or maintain 190,000 jobs. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in the budget that the government would introduce further stimuli if required, a point he repeated Thursday in advance of the jobs report.

Holt said new data raises more doubt about the optimism expressed by the Bank of Canada in its last monetary policy update, in which it suggested the economy would rebound by a robust 3.8 per cent in 2010.

“We are going to dig a deeper pit in the near-term and have a muted recovery,” said Holt, whose bank projects the Canadian economy will shrink 1.6 per cent in 2009 — compared to the Bank of Canada’s 1.2 per cent — and post a modest gain of 1.6 per cent in 2010.

On Wednesday, Hudson’s Bay Co. — Canada’s oldest retail company and now owned by a U.S. group — announced that it would cut 1,000 jobs across the country because of “challenging economic times.”

A day later, Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. said it was eliminating 1,360 jobs, or about 4.5 per cent of its worldwide workforce, because of slowing demand for its business jet models. Also Thursday, Montreal-based Domtar Corp. said it would cut its paper manufacturing operations in North Carolina, eliminating 185 employees, due to declining orders caused by the downturn.
By Carla Wilson, Times Colonist and Canwest News Service
Link to original story at Times-Colonist.

Judge throws out Victoria city rules for campers on public property

A provincial court ruling has opened Victoria’s parks for daytime camping, creating a situation called historic by a homeless activist but unmanageable by Mayor Dean Fortin.

Judge Brian Mackenzie declared Kristen Woodruff, David Johnston and Tavis Dodds not guilty Wednesday of violating a city bylaw that banned public camping from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“It means people could set up a tent right now if they were sick. And it’s huge,” a jubilant Woodruff said outside court. “This is a historic moment, not just for Victoria, but for the whole country because it means people can rest if they need to.”

The ruling also creates the possibility of a tent city forming and Victoria police Acting Insp. Jamie Pearce said police now have limited tools to deal with that situation.

Fortin said council will meet this morning to discuss the issue but, until that happens, he could offer no idea of what actions will be taken in the short term. “Our municipality is trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

“We cannot effectively manage our parks if unregulated camping goes on,” said Fortin. But “as long as we have people living on our streets, we have the responsibility to find them housing.”

Mackenzie suggested city council could pass an amendment to its bylaws if it wants to continue to enforce the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. ban on public camping. That ban was in response to an Oct. 14 Supreme Court ruling that said it was unconstitutional for the City of Victoria to prevent homeless people from erecting shelters to protect themselves from the elements in the absence of sufficient shelter beds.

Outside court yesterday, lawyer Irene Faulkner, who acted on behalf of the homeless campers in their Supreme Court challenge, said the judge had accepted her argument that the city had imposed an enforcement policy on a bylaw that no longer exists.

“If the city does want to go back and amend the bylaw they have to do that through the proper enforcement process which requires public hearings and readings, we very much hope that they’ll consider the needs of the homeless people.”

Robert Randall, chairman of the Victoria Downtown Residents Association, noted that shelter space has been available but there are people who just insist on sleeping outdoors. “If they are allowed to camp there, regardless of whether there are shelter beds available, then it’s clear this is no longer about shelter beds.”

Johnston, who with Dodds was arrested November and charged with the civil offence of continuing to breach a bylaw, called yesterday’s court decision “expected” and “maybe a small victory.

“There’s going to be more politics and more ridiculousness coming from city council and the Chamber of Commerce,” he predicted.

Woodruff, a former Victoria mayoral candidate, was arrested Dec. 9 after refusing to move from the tent she set up in Centennial Square. She was charged with five counts of continuing to violate the city’s parks enforcement bylaw.

In court, MacKenzie said the bylaw has no force and effect as it applies to homeless people and their shelter is temporary. The judge concluded that all three accused were in fact homeless and their tents were temporary shelters. He did not agree with the city’s argument that a shelter is a home.

See story at Times Colonist…

Ex-Uvic Theatre Student Now TV Star

As the star of the new Being Erica series on CBC-TV, Erin Karpluk now ranks as a big-shot actor. At least, in Canada. Yet only a decade ago, Karpluk was just like you and me…an ordinary shmo living in Victoria.

A former University of Victoria theatre student who fell into acting almost by accident, Karpluk graduated with distinction in 2000. Back in the late ’90s, she might have been your usher at the Phoenix Theatre. In her spare time she also drove Kabuki cabs, giving tourists rickshaw tours of our city. More.

Oak Bay murder house is up for sale again

Less than one year after it was purchased, the King George Terrace home that was the site of a grisly murder is up for sale again. Last March, the house was purchased by a Courtenay couple for $970,000. The five-bedroom, 3,300 sq. ft. house is on the market again, listed with Camosun/Remax for $999,000. The owners have spent almost $100,000 renovating, installing a new kitchen and bathroom.

Local restauranteur Peter Lee killed his wife, Yong Sun Park, their son, Christian Lee, and Park’s parents before killing himself on Sept. 5, 2007. More.

Victoria police face another allegation of excessive force at jail

Victoria police pledged yesterday to improve how they run jail cells in police headquarters after yet another allegation of excessive force in the facility.

A rookie constable has been assigned to administrative duties pending the outcome of an internal investigation and criminal probe into an allegation from October, Police Chief Jamie Graham revealed at a news conference.

Graham said he ordered the officer’s reassignment after watching surveillance footage of the incident and discussing the case with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner this week. More.