A Contemporary Classic

Charges galore on April 1, 2011 for Contemporary Security Canada and an assortment of senior executives and staff over an alleged lack of licenced and uniformed staff at the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario during June 2010.

CSC was paid $20 million by the RCMP in an expedited contract award, shortly after it wrapped a $97 million job at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

CSC spokesperson Lecia Stewart, who helped broker Aeroguard's involvement with the Los Angeles-headquarted Contemporary Group, downplayed the charges (because they're under a private security law, not the criminal code) and claimed the company was properly licensed. More on Stewart and her intriguing connections at another time.

CSC has a date in an Ottawa courtroom on April 29.

While I've been chasing any and all news on the Olympics, including what happened to your tax dollars because of those multi-million dollar contracts, Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington has been keeping tabs on the G8 and G20 mess. Here's Joe's latest.

Contemporary continues to have a Vancouver presence with contracts with B.C. Pavilion Corporation for the Vancouver Convention Centre and with the Strathcona Business Improvement Association on the edge of the Downtown Eastside ghetto. Contemporary CEO Damon Zumwalt did not return my phone call to his Northridge, Calif. home office.

Below is what the OPP released April 1. No fooling.

CSC File - List of Charges Against Corporation and Individuals
1822479 Ontario Corporation o/a Contemporary Security Canada, ULC Vancouver, B.C

7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)
Sec 31. Being a business entity engaged in the business of providing security guards, unlawfully did employ as a security guard a person who was not the holder of a licence issued under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act. (1 count)
Regulation 362/07, section 8 Being a business entity engaged in the business of providing security guards, unlawfully did fail to ensure that employees wear a uniform. (2 counts)

OFFICIALS OF CSC-7
Stephen Vincent MIRABILE
President – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Vancouver, British Columbia
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Jane Elizabeth GREENE
Vice-President – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Toronto, ON
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Damon Ray ZUMWALT
Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Northridge, CA
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

James Hugh SERVICE
Secretary – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Glendale CA
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Keith Jay GRANIRER
Treasurer – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Sherman Oaks CA
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Mark Anthony CAMILLO
Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Clarksburg, Maryland
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

Paul Russell MOORE
Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Calgary AB
7(1)(a) Unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005. (3 counts)

EMPLOYEES-3

Todd Eric SEVERSON
Project Director – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia
7(1)(b) Not being an employee of a licensee - unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005.
(1 count)

Lorraine FOSTER
Division Manager – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Vancouver, B.C
7(1)(b) Not being an employee of a licensee - unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005.
(1 count)

Alexandre HOULE
Compliance Manager – Contemporary Security Canada, ULC
Vancouver, British Columbia
7(1)(b) Not being an employee of a licensee - unlawfully did hold out as being engaged in the business of selling the services of security guards while not being licensed under the provisions of the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005.
(1 count)

Green Gregor to balance budget with bike tolls?

Vancouver city hall's latest bid to balance the budget is a plan to toll cyclists on downtown bike lanes.

A document obtained by QMI shows that sensors were embedded in the pavement along Dunsmuir and Hornby streets and the Burrard Bridge. A sole-source contract was awarded to Cubic Technologies, the San Diego company behind
TransLink's 2013 Compass card and fare gates, to sell the mandatory transponders to cyclists.

Cyclists will be required to pay $5 to affix the transponder to their bikes. They will be charged 25 cents per city block and be billed monthly by Verrus, which also handles mobile phone parking meter payments for the city.

A press conference is planned for noon April 1.

Vancouver borrows card name from San Diego

Hong Kong has the Octopus

London has the Oyster

Seattle has the Orca

Vancouver is getting the… drum roll… Compass.

The Compass?

While the public transit authorities in the world's other great seaside cities chose to name their reloadable, digital-wallet transit passes after sea creatures, Vancouver chose a name already used in San Diego. See it here. The emphasis will be comPASS not COMPass, even though TransLink's goal is to stop fare evasion: asses who take complimentary trips.

TransLink's rejected, shortlisted names were Starfish and TPass.

Starfish would have been ideal. It has five points, like your hand. There are five modes of transportation in Metro Vancouver: bus, SkyTrain, SeaBus, West Coast Express and air. The pass is applicable to the first four and would bring commuters to Vancouver International Airport and the Coal Harbour seaplane terminal. The five points of a starfish would've also been a subtle way to remember the five-ring circus of 2010.

Contactless smart cards for commuters are not new and go hand-in-hand with turnstiles and fare gates, which Vancouver still doesn't have after more than 25 years.

Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway began the Octopus Card in 1997. Transport for London started the EDS and Cubic Corporation-provided Oyster Card in 2003. Seattle's 2009-introduced Orca card is actually ORCA (One Regional Card for All) and was developed by ERG, the Australian company behind Octopus.

In 2006, TransLink was mulling the idea of a smart card and leaning towards the MasterCard contactless card system tested in New York City. The plan was to get it in use in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The International Olympic Committee requires free transit for pass-holders and limited free transit for ticket-holders.

It took until Jan. 27, 2011 to finally announce a contract with San Diego-based, New York Stock Exchange-listed Cubic. The company gets $84 million to design, build and install the smart card and fare gate system by 2013. Cubic gets $13 million a year for a decade plus a five-year option and a $6 million, one-time "transition cost."

To get the contract, Cubic hired lobbyist Ken Dobell, the chairman of VANOC's board finance committee, chairman of Hill and Knowlton Vancouver, former city manager and deputy minister to Premier Gordon Campbell.

What do you think of the Compass? Email me or comment below.

Lights on at the Green House

There are 8,760 hours in a year on Earth (8,784 in a leap year), but the World Wildlife Fund chooses one on the last Saturday of March for its Earth Hour promotion.

WWF reported $224,159,728 in revenue in 2010 and spent $186,770 on programs. WWF is a savvy marketer, having forged relations with Mars and perennial Olympic sponsor Coca-Cola. (Some readers might question WWF's intentions because of Coca-Cola's labour relations in Third World countries, as seen in the National Film Board's Coca Cola Case.)

WWF uses Earth Hour to stoke the flames of fear, particularly on climate change, and to earn a donation or two. Turn off your lights and the world will be a better place. Leave them on and you're going to bring the planet and humanity closer to the brink. Those who go with the flow get a shiny, happy feeling, then go about their lives for the next 8,700-plus hours until they can do it all over again. It may be the biggest single-day of publicity WWF gets in a year. Imagine all the people rushing to view the WWF website and use the donation portal -- things one can't do without electricity.

Earth Hour seems to have lost its novelty. In Vancouver, lights were on at the Vancouver Convention Centre (including the Olympic cauldron and spinning globe) and B.C. Place Stadium, where construction continues. Bon Jovi was rocking Rogers Arena and, I understand, it was not a hippy-dippy, acoustic affair in the dark. A Hollywood North film shoot closed Pender Street near Thurlow as floodlights turned night into day. A public art installation outside the Vancouver Public Library at Homer and Robson remained on.

City hall was mostly dim, but not the house of Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. From the street, I could clearly see lights were on inside the front window on the main floor. Most of the Mayor's neighbours were also not drinking Earth Hour juice: one neighbour had Christmas lights on in what may have been a show of defiance against Mr. Green Capital. I found out later that the Mayor was in Calgary at the Inter-American Development Bank annual meeting. Evidently someone in his own house didn't get the Earth Hour memo. Or they all mistakenly thought that Vancouver is a big city without a single curious reporter.

I'm exercising discretion and not publishing the Mayor's home address. British Columbia politicians like former Premiers Bill Vander Zalm and Glen Clark gave up their privacy because of sleazy business deals that mixed their personal real estate with their political duties. I have no evidence that Robertson is in the same league. I'm also not going to publish the photograph of Robertson's house for now. I won't hesitate if his minions doubt my credibility.

Conservation is a noble goal, but the rhetoric and spin are outrageous. The world is not running out of oil or natural gas. It's just that it costs a lot of money and creates a lot of waste and pollution to extract and use such resources. Waste and pollution are not healthy, and wouldn't it be nice if more money could be spent on finding a cure for cancer or HIV, feeding the famished and housing the homeless.

The United Nations wants to spend $100 billion by 2020 from a climate change pool funded by taxpayers around the world, based on the conclusions of some (but not all) scientists that humans are to blame. Imagine if that money was spent instead to help victims of earthquakes and tsunamis rebuild their shattered lives and to do whatever is needed to prepare for the potential of deadly tremors and waves in the most vulnerable, seismically hyperactive places on Earth.

Fear of global warming is not something that keeps residents of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti; Banda Aceh, Indonesia; Chengdu, China; Christchurch, New Zealand; or Sendai, Japan up at night. Instead, it's the memories of dead friends and loved ones.