A major beverage company is asking London’s new city council to reverse a decision by the previous one to ban bottled water at city-owned sites.
In a letter going to politicians Tuesday, Nestle Waters — dubbing itself the “healthy hydration company” — is asking Mayor Joe Fontana to consider lifting the ban, which drew national praise when instituted in 2008.
“I am respectfully requesting that your new council give consideration to rescinding the previous council’s decision to ban the sale of bottled water in City of London facilities,” Nestle’s John Challinor writes in a letter to Fontana.
That has one veteran councillor shaking her head in frustration.
Coun. Joni Baechler, an outspoken supporter of council’s decision to ban bottled water from city-owned buildings, parks and golf courses, sees companies like Nestle as direct competitors to London taxpayers.
“We (Londoners) pay to have clean water. By selling water bottles at city hall, you’re allowing your major competitor in the door,” she said.
The phased-in ban took effect Sept. 1, 2008, after council overwhelmingly voted in favour of it. Only three of 19 members of the old council — Tom Gosnell, Bud Polhill and Paul Van Meerbergen — opposed the move.
The ban on bottled water, which drew national media attention to London, was two-pronged, with both an environmental and economic benefit promised by politicians.
Environmentally, it was seen as advantageous because 40 million single-use plastic beverage bottles are sold in London a year — but only 20 million are recycled, the rest ending up in landfills, city staff said.
And economically, city staff estimated a person drinking eight glasses of city tap water daily would pay $1.88 in water and sewer costs annually — but that much water bought at vending machines would cost more than $2,000.
It’s believed London was the fourth Canadian municipality or school board to ban the sale of bottled water.
But now, with a new mayor and several new councillors in power, Nestle hopes to re-open the issue.
Though Nestle supports tap water in many cases — such as in offices and other workplaces — it argues single-use bottles do have a place in the market.
“Bottled water doesn’t compete with tap water,” Challinor, Nestle’s public affairs director, writes. “It competes with other bottled beverages. (People) drink tap water at home and bottled water out-of-home to support their busy, on-the-go lifestyles.”
Nestle Waters sells two brands of bottled water in Canada — Montclair and Nestle Pure Life.
Challinor casts the issue as a matter of the personal right to choose, and even states the city’s ban “is threatening the health of those citizens with immune deficiencies” and possibly leaving them dehydrated.
Baechler isn’t buying Nestle’s arguments.
“I think they’re wondering whether (this push) will get through this council so they’ll try it. It’s in their financial interest to do so,” she said.
“It’s not in the financial interests of taxpayers to do so.”
Up to the minute news and information for London Ontario Canada and surrounding regions.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Another black eye for Ontario’s oil patch
A London-based junior oil and gas exploration firm has gone down the tubes and more millions of shareholder money has gone up in smoke.
On the heels of the Onco Petroleum fiasco in which $30 million in shares became worthless scraps of paper comes an eerily similar case in which about $20 million was lost.
Echo Energy Inc., like Onco Petroleum, is being wound up by a court-appointed receiver trying to salvage something from what was once a bright dream that captured the imagination of investors and landowners alike.
Like Onco, Echo touted the wisdom of investing in regional natural gas and oil exploration in a world of rising energy prices.
Both raised millions but were delisted from stock exchanges when they failed to file required financial reports.
And like Onco, Echo crashed and burned amid strife among directors, claims of bad management and finger-pointing.
Also like Onco, many Echo investors are upset. They hold a total of 60 million shares and few are willing to reveal their identities, embarrassed at the sums they lost.
Unlike Onco, Echo actually found and shipped natural gas to market to produce a revenue stream. Echo drilled wells near Port Burwell; Onco drilled in Chatham-Kent but found nothing.
One London businessperson said he lost more than $1 million in Echo while others said they were in for about $250,000 apiece.
"As a watchdog, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) is a joke," fumed one irate stockholder. "They know about this and they have done nothing."
Toronto investor Jason Evdoxiadis told The Free Press he lost "a significant amount of my net worth."
He filed a complaint with the OSC last September. The commission told Evdoxiadis it was investigating, but nothing has happened, he said. The commission won't talk about complaints or whether an investigation is underway.
The OSC drew sharp criticism for its handling of Onco promoter Robert Vanier, who admitted misleading investors and regulators about his assets and for hiding his criminal past under another name.
Vanier was fined $10,000 and banned from being a company director or trader of shares, a penalty that upset investors who view it as a slap on the wrist.
"It's a little bit of buyer beware," conceded Denis Crane, a principal of County Heritage Forest Products, who declined to say how much he lost in Echo.
"I have some worthless share certificates," he said.
Crane said investing, aside from investing in a dream, is also about people.
"You are investing in those people," he said. "It's a high-risk investment and with risk comes a high rate of return."
The problem with Echo, he said, was a new management team. Crane said it moved in and took over a going concern and fumbled its affairs.
Echo investors and directors are split into two warring factions.
Some, like Crane, support Londoner Gary Conn, the first president of Echo, and feel Conn was muscled out by what they consider a less-than-competent group led by Toronto promoter Salvatore (Sam) Fuda.
The Fuda faction includes Andy Brandt, former mayor of Sarnia, former MPP and Ontario cabinet minister and longtime head of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. The Fuda faction has accused Conn of misleading directors and shareholders and misrepresenting the extent of natural gas reserves.
Volleys of litigation have been traded.
Fuda sued Conn and the Echo board for defamation and was awarded $108,000, including costs. Conn sued for wrongful dismissal, seeking $500,000, to which Fuda-controlled Echo replied with a countersuit for $35 million.
Fuda stepped down from the Echo board and sued Conn and Echo for $2.4 million, claiming misrepresentations led to his purchase of Echo shares. Echo sued three of its directors, accusing them of inappropriate transactions.
The cost of litigation for Echo alone to date is well over $1 million.
Brandt, who was a fellow director of Fuda at Ontex Resources, a gold exploration firm, was an Echo board member and continues to sit on the board of Fuda's Micromem Technologies.
Brandt backs Fuda and questions the management of Conn.
He said Conn overbuilt infrastructure such as pipelines and compressors without enough natural gas to justify the costs, especially when natural gas prices plunged.
And then there were all those lawyer bills.
"That was ongoing throughout the entire piece because there was a problem between Mr. Conn and Mr. Fuda that continued on," Brandt said. "The litigation costs were excessive, no question."
Conn and his fellow directors spent about $900,000 trying to fend off a bid by Fuda to increase Fuda's stake in Echo and his clout on its board in late 2007. They lost the fight and were replaced by appointees of Fuda.
"He used all that money to fight me," Fuda said.
Fuda insisted he is the biggest loser in the entire Echo episode because of the extent of his share holdings. He agrees with investors who think about $20 million was lost.
"I lost multi millions," Fuda said. He remains the owner of 55% of Echo shares that once traded at $3 apiece. He said he isn't bidding for Echo assets in the receivership.
Owners of "flow-through" shares received some income tax benefits because of government policies that encourage investment in mining and oil and gas. So some investors saw some gain.
Fuda makes no apology for the extent of litigation, saying "we are all looking for answers and I hope the court will give us those answers."
Fuda said he's anxious to see if the extent of gas reserves was properly reported. An engineer hired later by Fuda found substantially less than an earlier engineering report indicated.
For his part, Conn said he developed his dream into a going concern that was producing and shipping about one million cubic feet of natural gas into the Union Gas network each day.
"We had revenue of $4 million in the first year," he noted. "It was a completely above-board operation all the way."
Conn said he isn't bitter about being turfed, adding "it's the reality of life, you know."
"It wasn't me that got hurt," he said. "It was all the shareholders that got hurt."
Conn said he met Onco promoter Robert Vanier once but never did business with him.
Chuck Edey, who followed Conn as president at Echo and backs Fuda, had a simple answer when asked why Echo failed: "There wasn't the gas there that people thought there was."
Edey said he's relying on the courts to sort out the Echo collapse.
"I'd like to believe that after the receiver's done, the Fuda faction and the Conn faction will sit in court and determine who is accountable for what happened," he said.
In the meantime, Edey, who is also president of Leader Resources, a wind power company, is managing Echo for court-appointed receiver KPMG.
He said he, along with friends and associates, put in a bid to the receiver to acquire Echo because he knows its part of the oil patch still has some value.
More than 400 property owners in the Port Burwell area negotiated gas leases with Echo and haven't been paid in about a year. Doug Dennis, who owns Otter River Farms, said he received a few thousand dollars every year for seven or eight years.
Echo found gas on a remote part of his property, he said, but capped its well when it couldn't find a way to access it by road.
Dennis said he hopes something good comes of the receivership and his payments return. He remembers the "gentlemen" he dealt with at Echo and understands what they were trying to do.
"We all need the gas," he said.
On the heels of the Onco Petroleum fiasco in which $30 million in shares became worthless scraps of paper comes an eerily similar case in which about $20 million was lost.
Echo Energy Inc., like Onco Petroleum, is being wound up by a court-appointed receiver trying to salvage something from what was once a bright dream that captured the imagination of investors and landowners alike.
Like Onco, Echo touted the wisdom of investing in regional natural gas and oil exploration in a world of rising energy prices.
Both raised millions but were delisted from stock exchanges when they failed to file required financial reports.
And like Onco, Echo crashed and burned amid strife among directors, claims of bad management and finger-pointing.
Also like Onco, many Echo investors are upset. They hold a total of 60 million shares and few are willing to reveal their identities, embarrassed at the sums they lost.
Unlike Onco, Echo actually found and shipped natural gas to market to produce a revenue stream. Echo drilled wells near Port Burwell; Onco drilled in Chatham-Kent but found nothing.
One London businessperson said he lost more than $1 million in Echo while others said they were in for about $250,000 apiece.
"As a watchdog, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) is a joke," fumed one irate stockholder. "They know about this and they have done nothing."
Toronto investor Jason Evdoxiadis told The Free Press he lost "a significant amount of my net worth."
He filed a complaint with the OSC last September. The commission told Evdoxiadis it was investigating, but nothing has happened, he said. The commission won't talk about complaints or whether an investigation is underway.
The OSC drew sharp criticism for its handling of Onco promoter Robert Vanier, who admitted misleading investors and regulators about his assets and for hiding his criminal past under another name.
Vanier was fined $10,000 and banned from being a company director or trader of shares, a penalty that upset investors who view it as a slap on the wrist.
"It's a little bit of buyer beware," conceded Denis Crane, a principal of County Heritage Forest Products, who declined to say how much he lost in Echo.
"I have some worthless share certificates," he said.
Crane said investing, aside from investing in a dream, is also about people.
"You are investing in those people," he said. "It's a high-risk investment and with risk comes a high rate of return."
The problem with Echo, he said, was a new management team. Crane said it moved in and took over a going concern and fumbled its affairs.
Echo investors and directors are split into two warring factions.
Some, like Crane, support Londoner Gary Conn, the first president of Echo, and feel Conn was muscled out by what they consider a less-than-competent group led by Toronto promoter Salvatore (Sam) Fuda.
The Fuda faction includes Andy Brandt, former mayor of Sarnia, former MPP and Ontario cabinet minister and longtime head of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. The Fuda faction has accused Conn of misleading directors and shareholders and misrepresenting the extent of natural gas reserves.
Volleys of litigation have been traded.
Fuda sued Conn and the Echo board for defamation and was awarded $108,000, including costs. Conn sued for wrongful dismissal, seeking $500,000, to which Fuda-controlled Echo replied with a countersuit for $35 million.
Fuda stepped down from the Echo board and sued Conn and Echo for $2.4 million, claiming misrepresentations led to his purchase of Echo shares. Echo sued three of its directors, accusing them of inappropriate transactions.
The cost of litigation for Echo alone to date is well over $1 million.
Brandt, who was a fellow director of Fuda at Ontex Resources, a gold exploration firm, was an Echo board member and continues to sit on the board of Fuda's Micromem Technologies.
Brandt backs Fuda and questions the management of Conn.
He said Conn overbuilt infrastructure such as pipelines and compressors without enough natural gas to justify the costs, especially when natural gas prices plunged.
And then there were all those lawyer bills.
"That was ongoing throughout the entire piece because there was a problem between Mr. Conn and Mr. Fuda that continued on," Brandt said. "The litigation costs were excessive, no question."
Conn and his fellow directors spent about $900,000 trying to fend off a bid by Fuda to increase Fuda's stake in Echo and his clout on its board in late 2007. They lost the fight and were replaced by appointees of Fuda.
"He used all that money to fight me," Fuda said.
Fuda insisted he is the biggest loser in the entire Echo episode because of the extent of his share holdings. He agrees with investors who think about $20 million was lost.
"I lost multi millions," Fuda said. He remains the owner of 55% of Echo shares that once traded at $3 apiece. He said he isn't bidding for Echo assets in the receivership.
Owners of "flow-through" shares received some income tax benefits because of government policies that encourage investment in mining and oil and gas. So some investors saw some gain.
Fuda makes no apology for the extent of litigation, saying "we are all looking for answers and I hope the court will give us those answers."
Fuda said he's anxious to see if the extent of gas reserves was properly reported. An engineer hired later by Fuda found substantially less than an earlier engineering report indicated.
For his part, Conn said he developed his dream into a going concern that was producing and shipping about one million cubic feet of natural gas into the Union Gas network each day.
"We had revenue of $4 million in the first year," he noted. "It was a completely above-board operation all the way."
Conn said he isn't bitter about being turfed, adding "it's the reality of life, you know."
"It wasn't me that got hurt," he said. "It was all the shareholders that got hurt."
Conn said he met Onco promoter Robert Vanier once but never did business with him.
Chuck Edey, who followed Conn as president at Echo and backs Fuda, had a simple answer when asked why Echo failed: "There wasn't the gas there that people thought there was."
Edey said he's relying on the courts to sort out the Echo collapse.
"I'd like to believe that after the receiver's done, the Fuda faction and the Conn faction will sit in court and determine who is accountable for what happened," he said.
In the meantime, Edey, who is also president of Leader Resources, a wind power company, is managing Echo for court-appointed receiver KPMG.
He said he, along with friends and associates, put in a bid to the receiver to acquire Echo because he knows its part of the oil patch still has some value.
More than 400 property owners in the Port Burwell area negotiated gas leases with Echo and haven't been paid in about a year. Doug Dennis, who owns Otter River Farms, said he received a few thousand dollars every year for seven or eight years.
Echo found gas on a remote part of his property, he said, but capped its well when it couldn't find a way to access it by road.
Dennis said he hopes something good comes of the receivership and his payments return. He remembers the "gentlemen" he dealt with at Echo and understands what they were trying to do.
"We all need the gas," he said.
Homeless group wants Best out
Payday Loans: The organization has asked him to move his cheque-cashing franchise away from the Ontario Works office payday-loan and cheque-cashing business — just steps from London’s welfare office — is “cause for grave concern,” the London Homeless Coalition has appealed to the owner to find a different location.
The Money Plus Xpress franchise — on the main floor of Market Tower at Dundas and Richmond streets — is owned by Tim Best, husband of former mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best, and is only 75 steps away, up an escalator, to the front door of the city’s main Ontario Works office, which handles welfare. In an open letter, Gordon Russell, chair of the London Homeless Coalition, said the location is “cause for grave concern.”
“It is clear that the location of this new Money Plus Xpress is strategic: It is positioned to take advantage of precisely those people who are least able to afford its services, but who will be sorely tempted to do so by proximity and the empty promise of ready money.”
In the letter, he said he’s written to Best, asking him to move his franchise to a “more suitable site” and copied Best’s landlord, Farhi Holdings, with the request.
Reached Friday, Best said he hadn’t received anything from the group. “I haven’t seen the letter,” he said, adding he had no comment.
Asked if he’d consider moving the business, Best said again that he hadn’t seen the letter. Asked if he’d heard from the London Homeless Coalition, Best repeated he had no comment, but added: “I haven’t heard from them, no. I know nothing about this.”
In the past, Best said he chose the location because it’s owned by the same landlord for his Friday Knight Lights bar, Shmuel Farhi.
At the time, Best was asked about the proximity of his business to the Ontario Works office, responding “It’s not the worst location.”
The business charges 2% per cashed cheque. A borrower has two weeks to pay the money back, at which time money is added.
Two in critical condition after crash
A 50-year-old Ingersoll man and a 58-year-old Thames Centre man were in critical condition in a London hospital following a three vehicle crash on Dundas St. near Shaw Rd. Saturday evening.
Another 85-year-old woman is in hospital in serious condition.
The three-vehicle crash occurred about 6 p.m..
Middlesex OPP said a westbound minivan crossed the centre line on Dundas St. and hit an eastbound van. An eastbound Jeep was unable to avoid the crash and collided with the other vehicles.
Occupants of both vans were trapped in their vehicles and had to be extricated by Thames Centre volunteer firefighters.
Ambulances transported five patients to London Health Sciences Centre.
The two occupants of the Jeep, a 58-year-old man and his 56-year-old female passenger, both of London, sustained minor injures in the collision.
Another 85-year-old woman is in hospital in serious condition.
The three-vehicle crash occurred about 6 p.m..
Middlesex OPP said a westbound minivan crossed the centre line on Dundas St. and hit an eastbound van. An eastbound Jeep was unable to avoid the crash and collided with the other vehicles.
Occupants of both vans were trapped in their vehicles and had to be extricated by Thames Centre volunteer firefighters.
Ambulances transported five patients to London Health Sciences Centre.
The two occupants of the Jeep, a 58-year-old man and his 56-year-old female passenger, both of London, sustained minor injures in the collision.
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