News

Golfers dressed in their Hawaiian best!

The sun smiled on the B.C. Chapter's Hawaiian Golf Tournament held on June 16th after Security Canada West. 100 golfers came out to hit the greens at the Eaglequest Coyote Creek Golf Course in Surrey, B.C.

The B.C. Board of Directors would like to thank the players and sponsors for their support of B.C.'s annual tournament. A big thank you to the sponsors for selling out BC's golf sponsorships this year and for their generous door prize donations.

At the buffet dinner the Prostate Cancer Foundation B.C. (PCFBC) received the proceeds of the 50/50 draw. PCFBC would like to offer their thanks to everyone who participated in the draw for their support.

Fed up with false alarms
Chilliwack Times (BC, Canada)
Posted May 19, 2011

Building owners and occupants who freely waste valuable Chilliwack Fire Department (CFD) time because of false alarms will now pay for that time.

City council approved a policy directive at Tuesday's meeting that will allow it to enforce its recently-adopted false alarm bylaw with an ever-rising schedule of fines.

The first false alarm in a given year will cost $100. That goes up $100 per occurence, up to $400 for the fourth and subsequent violations of the bylaw.
 
The CFD responded to 705 fire alarms in 2010, which accounted for 31 per cent of all calls--the single largest response type for the department. That number is up 17 per cent from 2003.

Because of that, council passed a bylaw in April that requires building owners to maintain their systems in accordance with the B.C. Fire Code, requires security alarm monitoring companies to verify alarm signals by telephone before fire and/or police are dispatched, and requires property owners to pay a fee for fire or police service attendance at nuisance fire alarms.

Fire alarm systems account for 68 per cent of all fire alarm responses by the CFD, according to a staff report prepared by Fire Chief Rick Ryall.

Once the CFD attends a false alarm, notices are issued to building owners or occupants to make sure alarms are repaired and/or serviced.

"In several instances building owners/occupants choose to ignore fire department orders for servicing and the fire department may return to many false alarms in the same building multiple times over a short period (days, weeks or months)," Ryall wrote.

But security alarm companies that have been upselling systems to include smoke alarms make up the rest of alarm responses and in 99 per cent of incidents simply waste fire department.

Ryall said that even when keypad mistakes trigger alarms, security companies often call the fire department before any attempt is made to establish phone contact with the home's occupant.

"Of the 717 residential security alarms to the fire department since 2007, a total of five were the direct result of smoke and/or fire in the home," Ryall wrote. Of that five, three were pots left on stoves after a homeowner left.
 

The Asia Pacific Gateway Skills Table

With the influx of trade with Asia, security is in the spotlight and understood to be crucial to a successful foreign trade industry. The Asia Pacific Gateway Skills Table was created as a result of the skills shortages anticipated with the construction and operation of the "Gateway" trade corridor. The Skills Table brings business, labour and educational institutions together to develop proactive, project-based solutions to meet employers' human resource needs.
 
In May 2009, the Skills Table initiated a series of roundtable meetings to determine if the security industry has the capacity and capability to meet its future labour requirements. The Security Roundtable has representation from all the stakeholder groups in the Gateway and from senior ranks of the industry which contributed to the creditability of the group and the information collected. The Security Roundtable was the organization's first project, and it was recently concluded with the publication of the report, Security in the Asia Pacific Gateway: Human Resources Issues and Strategies.

This report was the first comprehensive review of private security HR issues in the Asia Pacific Gateway and has created momentum to further engage the security sector. The report summarizes the findings of the Security Roundtable, compiling feedback on human resource issues, future labour requirements, and possible solutions from the security services operating in the multi-modal Gateway supply chain.

The report can be downloaded here.

Important BC HST Information

Beginning July 1, 2010, British Columbia will no longer have the BC provincial sales tax ("PST"), and will instead be adopting the British Columbia harmonized sales tax ("BC HST"), which will parallel the GST at the provincial level. The BC HST rate will be 12%; 5% of the BC HST is the existing GST component and 7% will be the British Columbia provincial portion. To date, the federal and British Columbia governments have issued some publications dealing with the application of the new BC HST, but many details remain under discussion. In order help Canadian Security Association members obtain a better understanding of the BC HST, we have put together some explanations that address the following issues of concern:

• GST/BC HST as it applies to revenue for services which are performed partly before and partly after July 1, 2010
• GST/BC HST as it applies to sales of goods which are ordered before July 1, 2010 but delivered after July 1, 2010
• GST/BC HST as it applies to the supply and installation of fixtures
• GST/BC HST as it applies to 'bundled' sales consisting of products, together with services, sold as a package for a single price
• Transitional rules relating to leased equipment
• Self-assessment requirements under the BC HST rules
• Restricted input tax credits for "large businesses"
• Transitional rules with respect to BC PST

Download BC HST memo

Regulation

As of March 1, 2009 both CCTV and Access Control have been regulated. On-line licensing is now available.

Following are the links to Security Programs & Police Technology Division:

• Main page
• Forms and Guides
• Compliance and Enforcement
• Legislation and Policy (Includes Act)

The following is a list of Security Programs Division Enforcement and Compliance Officers:

Vancouver Island 
Stephen Hitchcock - 250-356-9276

Lower Mainland & Surrey
Iain McLellan - 604-572-8437
Arliss Trenholm - 604-572-8623
Nidhan Rikhia - 604-572-8423

Interior
Brad Berrow - 250-861-7670
Jeff Hum - 250-861-7567