Small businesses will soon be able to apply for funding to help recover costs from vandalism. Jobs Minister Brenda Bailey says applications for the government’s $10.5 million dollar Securing Small Business Rebate Program open on Nov. 22. She says businesses will be able to apply for up to $2,000 dollars per business for the cost of repairs due to vandalism, and up to $1,000 dollars for prevention measures. Bailey says the rebate will be administered by the BC Chamber of Commerce.
A new provincewide public safety coalition that includes community and business groups, citizens and well-known BC retailers is set to launch today. A statement says the coalition wants governments to work together and act quickly on crime and violence issues in communities across BC. The coalition statement says many people in BC are afraid to walk their own streets, while employees fear assaults at work and businesses say they are losing revenues due to in-store thefts. The BC legislature has been the site of ongoing debate for more than a year over rising crime and inadequate legal measures and deterrents.
A disabled BC man who was forced to drag himself off an Air Canada flight in Las Vegas says he wants to push for change to prevent others from enduring his experience. Prince George resident Rodney Hodgins says he can’t walk and uses a motorized scooter for mobility due to his spastic cerebral palsy, but that didn’t stop an Air Canada flight attendant to ask him to get off the airplane. Air Canada says in a statement the contracted agency it uses in Las Vegas to help disabled people disembark was not available that day last August and the airline is looking for a new mobility provider. Hodgins says he was recently contacted by Stephanie Cadieux, Canada’s chief accessibility officer, who posted on social media earlier this month Air Canada did not place her wheelchair on Toronto to Vancouver flight.
A former Hells Angels clubhouse in Vancouver with an assessed value of more than $1.5 million dollars is about to hit the market . The three bedroom east Vancouver home is one of three houses that were seized under the province’s civil forfeiture law and now belong to the BC government. The other two former Hells Angels homes are in Nanaimo and Kelowna. The homes are are being added to a $155 million bounty of cash, cars, homes, and even luxury purses and drones seized over the past 17 years by the province after being linked to crime.
A joint project that includes the University of Victoria and Greater Victoria’s Indigenous Prosperity Centre is plotting southern Vancouver Island’s Indigenous businesses on a map. Indigenous Prosperity Centre executive director Christina Clarke says there are 75 Indigenous businesses on southern Vancouver Island, with most in the Greater Victoria area. She says the businesses range from construction companies to artists to kelp gatherers. Clarke says the community-assets map will allow people to see where all the Indigenous businesses are on southern Vancouver Island.
An unseasonable cold snap covering much of the province broke records over the weekend, including one that had been in place for more than a century. Environment Canada reports at least eight new lows for the record books, such as Nelson’s low of at minus 4.9 degrees, exceeding the 4.4 degrees set in 1905. White Rock dipped down to minus 1.1 over the weekend, tying a record sent in 1946, while new lows were also set in Bella Coola, Bella Bella, Gibsons, Squamish, Tatlayoko Lake and Terrace. The weather is expected to become more seasonal into the week, warming up slightly for Halloween trick or treaters.