BCBusiness

November/December 2021 – She’s Got Game

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

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20 BCBUSINESS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 READ THIS With its anti-vaccination protests and widespread embrace of quack COVID "cures," the pandemic has highlighted people's willingness to believe dubious claims by health scammers, drug companies and so-called alternative medicine practitioners. Bernie Garrett tackles that growing problem in The New Alchemists: The Rise of Deceptive Healthcare. A professor at UBC's school of nursing, Garrett details the flim- flam in all its variety, from OxyContin–marketed as less addictive than other opioids–to weight-loss products and therapeutic touch. He also calls out celebrities who should know better (here's looking at you, Oprah Winfrey) for enabling the deceivers. Hammersmith Books 415 pages, softcover, $34.95 • pro-medical privacy, pro- Charter, pro-choice." But it's not easy to police a Facebook group that's growing faster than the Delta variant. Numerous posts spieled out paranoid conspiracies about vaccine passports as a sinister first step toward a police state. One poster promised that standing up against tyranny could earn you a "40% discount on digital marketing services" (that message accompanied by a GIF of blue-faced Mel Gib- son in Braveheart, shouting "Freedoooom!"). Another member described an encounter with a store man- ager: "[He] said, 'Can't you just wear a mask for 10 minutes?' And I asked him if he wanted to rape me for 10 minutes too..." There was also a heaping helping of Hitler. At one point, a meme depicting provincial health officer Bonnie Henry in a Nazi uniform was posted. "The BC Government are creat- ing divide amongst people, like Adolph [sic] Hitler did in 1933," said one member. Although Cahill urged group members to remain upbeat, he also posted a PDF of a "Vaccine Notice of Liability." The document suggested that a vaccine pass violated the Nuremberg Code (a post– Second World War convention intended to outlaw medical experimentation on humans) as well as the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act of Canada. While a parade of businesses posted messages trumpeting solidarity, at least one entre- preneur took it a step further. Kitimat jewelry artist Kelly Ruff showed off a key tag she'd de- signed, featuring a raised mid- dle finger and the inscription "Here's my vaccine passport." Requests flooded the thread. "I shipped 100 this morning alone," Ruff says. "Never had anything move so fast." Group members also dis- cussed larger retailers. Several posts from people claiming to be Save-On-Foods employees implied that the grocer is sym- pathetic to the anti-mask move- ment. "I work at Save On and we don't enforce customers to wear masks," one said. Another poster who claimed to be a Save-On em- ployee wrote: "We were the last to do masks (government rule only). We have been told to leave people alone without masks." A man who said he works in security at a Save-On location referred to masks as "chin diapers" and said he won't enforce their use. (Save- On-Foods didn't return several calls asking for comment.) Meanwhile, London Drugs was called "evil" and "the en- emy," apparently thanks to its decision to ask employees to be vaccinated by November 1. President and COO Clint Mahl- man says the chain's policy has been widely misrepresented by opponents: "We have never said we would fire people." At London Drugs, new hires must now be vaccinated, while existing employees who are unvaccinated (for non-medical reasons) will need regular COVID testing. "Factual discus- sions are important," Mahlman says. "We can disagree on the approach, but we should agree on the goals. Our employees are overwhelmingly happy about this policy, and custom- ers have been thanking us. But there is a lot of nasty vilification going on right now." Filmmaker Chandler says she's experienced plenty of so- cial media hate for her stance, and that many of the group posts simply express gratitude for finding a safe space for their anti-vax views. Meanwhile, group members are planning a future of free- dom. One concern: maskless holidays. "I just got a quote for Vancouver to Manzanillo on a private jet for six of us," a mem- ber posted, "and it was about 30K USD one way." Someone warned that rules for private charters are the same as for commercial flights, but that didn't dampen the en- thusiasm. Another post asked: "When are we all leaving?" • ( the informer ) G O F I G U R E Say Cheese The B.C. dairy industry gathers virtually and in person November 24 and 25 for a hybrid conference streamed from Vancouver. We're milking the opportunity to take a local look at all things udder by Melissa Edwards Dairy is the province's No. 1 agricultural product by value, generating 18% of all farm income in 2019 There were 82,500 milking dairy cows on 469 farms in B.C. that year 840+ million litres of milk produced $683.1 million in raw-milk value $1.47 billion in sales of finished dairy products AVERAGE NUMBER OF COWS PER FARM: 140 AVERAGE DAILY MILK PRODUCTION PER COW: 26 litres It takes about 1 week for a cow to learn how to milk itself with the Lely A5 Astronaut robotic milking system sold by Agassiz- based West Coast Robotics B.C. had 9.1% of the allowable national milk production quota in 2019/20 3rd-largest share in Canada after Quebec (36.8%) and Ontario (31.9%)

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