Attending Oxford
Home inspectors are fighting back against a licensing fee increase of 95 per cent.
“It’s an unjustified money grab,” said Bob Hamm, president of the 325-member Home Inspectors Association of British Columbia as well as owner of Building Pro Inspections in Kelowna.
“The fees are already too high and now Consumer Protection B.C. wants to charge us more and provide less.”
In 2017, every home inspector in the province had to pay Consumer Protection $525 for a licence.
On April 1, the annual fee will jump to to $656, in 2019 it will go to $820 and by 2020 it will be $1,025, a 95 per cent over three years.
Ironically, the association said Consumer Protection is jacking up fees so it can enforce the lower standards it has implemented.
In September, Consumer Protection reduced requirements for training and education, removed mandatory ongoing education and professional development and no longer required home inspectors to belong to a recognized association, creating a category of unaligned inspectors who aren’t governed by the additional rules of associations.
The increased fees could raise over $500,000 annually from home inspectors, yet in 2016, less than $10,000 was spent to handle just four complaints against home inspectors.
“There are very few complaints against inspectors, so the prime role of Consumer Protection is to license and collect money,” said Hamm.
“Even if there is a complaint, Consumer Proection asks the association to handle it because they don’t understand the industry.”
Rather than increase fees, Hamm said an annual licence should be $250, a reflection of how little Consumer Protection does.
The association has asked Consumer Protection to roll back the increases.
The most Consumer Protection has conceded is to say it will look at the situation again in two years.
“They want us to stay quiet and just take it,” said Hamm.
“Well, we aren’t going to.”
Tim Krupa is on an incredible public-policy trajectory.
The 2009 Kelowna Secondary School graduate, went on to earn a science degree from UBC Okanagan and then work for three years with Justin Trudeau, both before and after he became prime minister.
Krupa helped Trudeau’s office with everything from tour planning and writing briefing notes to being an aide and special assistant inthe realm of youth, sport and disabilities policy. Licence fees doubling for home inspectors over the next three years is an unjustified money grab, according to Kelowna-based Bob Hamm, president of the 325-member Home Inspectors Association of B.C.
In March of 2016, I profiled Krupa for The Daily Courier’s Top Forty Under 40 series recognizing exceptional youth who are making an impact.
As much as Krupa loved his job in the Trudeau administration, he’s given it up to attend the University of Oxford in England.
Krupa won the Pershing Square Scholarship worth over $200,000 to attend Oxford for two years to earn a combined Masters in Business Administration and Master of Public Policy from the unviersity’s Said Business School and Blavatnik School of Government.
“If you are motivated to study business because you want to help solve world-scale problems, I think the Pershing Square Scholarship is the best opportunity out there,” said Krupa.
“The chance to spend two years learning and growing in a magical place like Oxford is truly wonderful.”
Krupa wants to work with businesses, governments and non-government organizations to promote diversity, genderequality, education, economic development and public health in developed, developing and Third World countries.
Pot plant
Pot can help Lumby, the economically struggling logging community of 1,700 in the northeast Okanagan.
Both Vernon-based medical Kelowna’s Tim Krupa has moved on from being a youth, sport and disabilities policy aide in the Office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to attend the University of Oxford in England on the $200,000 Pershing Square Scholarship. marijuana company True Leaf and Lumby Mayor Kevin Acton are looking forward to the employment and economic boost a cannabis production facility will bring to the town.
True Leaf is buying a $3.3-million, 40-acre plot in Lumby to build a 16,000-square-foot hydroponic-grow building and a 9,000-square-foot complex for offices, an extraction facility, laboratory and packaging plant.
Construction is expected to start soon for summer completion.
True Leaf Medicine International, which also has hemp pet supplements subsidiaries in North America and Europe, is publicly-traded
New chair
David McDougall, the master franchisor for Blenz Coffee in the B.C. Interior, is the new chairman of the Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission advisory board.
McDougall heads up an executive committee of seven and a bigger board of 41 representing numerous business sectors, local governments and public and private organizations and facilities.
The rest of the executive committee is made up of:
– Vice-chair: Lynn Heinrich, Sun-Rype Products
– Past-chair: Dominic Vinci, Coast Capital Savings
– Mike Checkley, QHR Technologies
– Alex Greer, Adaptive Ventures
– Brad Klassen, Troika Developments
– Raghwa Gopal, Accelerate Okanagan
Steve MacNaull is The Okanagan Weekend’s business and wine reporter and columnist. Reach him at steve.macnaull@ok.bc.ca.