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Evict Radon Update: UCalgary research finds short-term radon test kits are not effective in measuring radon gas exposure

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For immediate release: As awareness increases about the health danger of radon gas, more people are making the decision to test their homes for the deadly gas. A University of Calgary-led study finds the only reliable way to measure exposure to radon gas is with a long-term testing kit, which takes readings within the home for 90 or more days.

“Radon gas levels can fluctuate wildly day to day,” says Dr. Aaron Goodarzi, PhD, assistant professor in the departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Oncology and member of the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM).  “Short-term tests can give a false sense of alarm, or worse, a false sense of security as they cannot precisely predict long-term exposure.”

Researchers placed two test kits, a short-term (five-day) and long-term (90-day) in the same homes. Tests were conducted during summer and winter months. Findings showed the short-term kits were imprecise up to 99 percent of the time when compared to a long term test.

Radon is a known carcinogen. Health Canada lists radon as the number one cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. The gas is naturally occurring, colourless, and odourless. It can accumulate to unnaturally high and dangerous levels in homes. Health Canada has promoted the use of long-term testing kits for some time.

“Our recommendation was based on research from international authorities including the US and Europe,” says Kelley Bush, manager, radon education and awareness Health Canada. “This research is critical because it provides Canadian data that confirms the value of long term testing.”

Goodarzi has also been working with the Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA) to educate realtors against using short term radon kits for real estate transactions.

“RECA is appreciative of the assistance provided by Dr. Goodarzi in the development of education enabling real estate professionals to advise buyers and sellers to take radon into consideration during the purchase and sale of a home, in the absence of reliable short-term testing,” says Joseph Fernandez, director of education programs at RECA. “All real estate professionals have completed radon related education and new professionals will be required to complete it before entering the real estate profession.”

The findings also show the Prairies are home to the second highest radon exposed population on Earth. The pan-Canadian scientist and physician led Evict Radon research initiative is now recruiting participation from all Canadians. The research is aimed at gathering as much data as possible to understand and ultimately defeat Canadian’s exposure to radon problem.

“We need to know exactly what factors influence high and low radon in Canadian homes. It’s not just in the Prairies, we know of high concentrations in areas throughout the country,” says Goodarzi. “This is easily one of the most preventable forms of environmentally-caused cancer. We have already learned so much from the work we’ve done in Alberta and Saskatchewan to test for and mitigate radon. We plan to build on that.”

In addition to the data gathered on short-term testing kits, Goodarzi’s team was also able to get a better understanding of how the size, design and age of home are related to radon gas exposure.

Findings are published in Scientific Reports.

This research was supported by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, Alberta Cancer Foundation, Health Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Robson DNA Science Centre Fund at the Charbonneau Cancer Institute.

Dr. Aaron Goodarzi, PhD, holds the Canada Research Chair for Radiation Exposure disease. Evict Radon represents a confederation of Canadian Scholars with expertise in radon biology, architecture, population health, geology and communications.

Learn more about the Evict Radon campaign, and sign up for research study radon kits at http://www.evictradon.org/.

Find the full media release here.

 

Media Contact

Kelly Johnston
Sr. Communications Specialist
Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Kelly.johnston2@ucalgary.ca
403-220-5012

About the University of Calgary

The University of Calgary is a global intellectual hub located in Canada’s most enterprising city. In our spirited, high-quality learning environment, students thrive in programs made rich by research, hands-on experiences and entrepreneurial thinking. Our strategy drives us to be recognized as one of Canada’s top five research universities, engaging the communities we both serve and lead. This strategy is called Eyes High, inspired by the university’s Gaelic motto, which translates as ‘I will lift up my eyes.’ For more information, visit ucalgary.ca/eyeshigh.

For more information, visit ucalgary.ca. Stay up to date with University of Calgary news headlines on Twitter @UCalgary. For details on faculties and how to reach experts go to our media centre at ucalgary.ca/mediacentre.

About the Cumming School of Medicine

The University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) is driven to create the future of health. We are a proud leader with seven world-class research institutes and 2,900 students, as well as faculty and staff, working to advance education and research in precision medicine and precision public health, improving lives in our community and around the world. Visit cumming.ucalgary.ca and follow us @UCalgaryMed.

What do rural landowners need to know about inactive and orphaned wells?

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Pembina Institute’s latest primer on oil and gas liabilities in Alberta

By Nikki Way and Morrigan Simpson-Marran

Increasingly, Albertans have heard about the number of oil and gas wells that sit inactive, neglected, or potentially orphaned in this province. Inactive and orphaned well numbers are growing in parallel with a prolonged energy recession in Alberta since 2014. Often this issue is discussed in an abstract way, mainly focusing on the financial implications for the province or referencing liabilities that companies do not have the funds to properly care for, which raises questions about whether some of these wells will be cleaned up at all.

At the end of the day, rural landowners are the ones who have this infrastructure on their land and have to live with these uncertainties. With support from the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, the Pembina Institute has published the Landowner’s primer: what you need to know about unreclaimed oil and gas wells to help those who are most impacted. Designed as a complementary follow up to our 2016 publication, the Landowners’ Guide to Oil and Gas Development , this primer addresses questions and examines problems landowners face when dealing with operators who are under financial strain and still have unreclaimed oil and gas infrastructure on landowners’ property.

Since the price downturn of 2014, multitudes of oil and gas companies that had accrued significant clean-up costs in Alberta have declared bankruptcy, in some cases leaving their infrastructure under the care of the Orphan Well Association. Many of the names of bankrupt operators have been in the news recently, such as Sequoia Resources, Lexin Resources, Trident Exploration, and Redwater Energy.

Although these are some of the high profile examples of operators who reneged on their responsibility to clean up hundreds – and in some cases, thousands – of wells, there are many other lesser known instances in which landowners are left with few answers for what might happen, or even who they could seek out to get questions answered. Currently in Alberta there are 90,000 inactive wells and 3,406 orphan wells that are up for abandonment (also known as decommissioning), while another 2,772 orphan sites need to be reclaimed.

Frequently, when wells are orphaned, sold off in bankruptcy, or even neglected and left inactive by companies that are financially struggling, landowners are left without an explanation of how to proceed and what their rights are. They may struggle to navigate the process of insolvency, or to understand the role of the operator or the regulator through this process.

The Pembina Institute’s Landowner’s primer outlines what a typical reclamation process should look like, and what issues may arise if the reclamation process does not go as planned. It explains what may happen if the operator on your land declares bankruptcy, and who might take over the responsibility of the well next. It offers guidance on issues such as missed lease payments and who to contact in case of a leak from the well. It also offers advice on how to navigate an untended well site. Should more questions remain, the guide has a list of contacts for landowners in order to get the help they need.

Without legislative changes that can ensure the timely reclamation of oil and gas infrastructure before companies reach their financial limits, many landowners will continue to experience this problem. It is important that as many landowners as possible have resources to navigate this situation.

Whether you are a real estate professional, an organization that works with landowners, or if you have an oil or gas well on your property, this primer is for you. You can download a copy of the Landowner’s primer: what you need to know about unreclaimed oil and gas wells. In addition, you can order a printed copy of the Landowners’ Guide to Oil and Gas Development for the cost of shipping.

Download your copy of the Landowner’s primer. 

About the Pembina Institute
The Pembina Institute is a non-profit think-tank that advocates for strong, effective policies to support Canada’s clean energy transition. We have offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto. Learn more: www.pembina.org

University of Calgary student is passionate advocate for real estate industry

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Jennifer Allford for Alberta Real Estate Foundation

Arshpreet Baidwan spends a lot of time talking about the different facets of the real estate industry with students at the University of Calgary. A fourth-year student at the Haskayne School of Business, she’s a licensed realtor, program advisor for Haskayne’s Westman Centre for Real Estate Studies and the president of the Real Estate Student Association, a student club dedicated to promoting careers in real estate and land development.

Baidwan is also the daughter and granddaughter of realtors. “I grew up seeing the industry because my dad is a real estate agent here and in India. I’ve met a lot of people working in the industry,” she says. “I watched a lot of HGTV in junior high and high school and I used to go to a lot of show homes in new communities. That’s where I found my passion for residential real estate.”

That passion has been fueled by getting involved with the Westman Centre at the Haskayne School of Business, which launched the province’s first real estate specialization for undergraduate and graduate business students. And while Baidwan can’t take the speciality—she was already in her third year of studies when the program launched in September 2017—the finance major is taking real estate courses, case competitions and, as program advisor, she plans and manages events at the Westman Centre.

“We have a lot of student engagement and networking events aimed at increasing program awareness on campus and letting students know that we have a real estate studies program and exposing them to different career paths in the industry,” she says. “A lot of students don’t understand that there are so many different aspects to the industry.” Baidwan happily tells them about potential careers—from being a broker in residential or commercial real estate to working in asset management, land development or property management.

“The real estate industry is one of the largest industries in the world and it affects everyone around the globe in some capacity,” says Jessica Abt, the Director for the Westman Centre. “Arshpreet’s desire to learn, engage with industry and invest her time and talent for the benefit of students and industry makes her a great fit for this ever-changing industry.”

Baidwan will graduate with a BComm in 2019 and is deciding where she will take her love for and expertise in real estate. She likes the idea of land development and working on an “open canvas” to create a community. “I’d love to work for a land developer and see where it takes me,” she says. “I think I’d like working with urban planners and getting creative on what should be built. I also like the due diligence part of land development as well as talking to customers and marketing the project.”

The industry is looking forward to welcoming Baidwan and other graduates who have studied real estate through the Westman Centre. “We’re excited to have a school of this stature in our midst,” says Alan Tennant, CEO of the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB). “It creates a place for thought and discussion and knowledge to be expressed and shared. A lot of that was happening on an ad hoc basis of course, but having it take place in an institution of higher learning and higher thought is the ultimate validation that this is important work.”

As she settles into her last year of business school, Baidwan will continue to spread the word to her classmates about the different careers waiting for them in real estate. “It’s such an exciting industry, she says. “You can make a difference in a city and you can be part of making communities. I want to contribute to that.”

2018 Canadian Rental Housing Index

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Jennifer Allford for Alberta Real Estate Foundation

A new and improved Canadian Rental Housing Index (RHI) is giving policy makers, real estate professionals and other interested Canadians a clearer picture of rental markets and the state of affordable housing across the country. The RHI is a comprehensive database that compiles rental housing statistics for cities, regions, and provinces across Canada. See how much rent Canadians are paying in different parts of the country, compare affordability measures and find out where residents are overcrowded and severely overspending on housing.

The interactive web-map, which was updated in May 2018, incorporates new and comprehensive information from the 2016 long-form census. The RHI includes the latest data on rents, incomes and overcrowding in hundreds of large and small communities across Canada.

“It’s Canada’s most comprehensive database of rental housing statistics and provides information about more than 800 municipalities and regions across the country,” says Brian Clifford, the policy manager at the BC Non-Profit Housing Association (BCNPHA). The organization helped start the Rental Housing Index in BC in 2014 and worked with a number of partners across Canada to develop a national version of the RHI in 2015.

The 2018 index is easier to use than the previous website and lets people compare a number of different communities at once. “You can get a snapshot of housing information of one location and use the comparison tool to select several communities at the same time,” says Clifford. “The data can be used to understand average rents, incomes and housing stock in your community as well inform long-term housing planning, development, and research.”

The 2018 update generated a lot of media interest with stories running in major news outlets across the country—some of those stories addressed the state of rental housing in different communities. The long term goal of the RHI is to help with decision-making and planning for affordable rental housing. “We’ve seen many examples of housing stakeholders and organizations using the index to inform planning and we’re beginning to see the new data be translated into policy and research,” says Clifford.

The real estate and development industries are also using the index. The Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, for example, used the data to compile a report for the construction industry on shelter affordability.  Various industry real estate agents and blogs, including the Real Estate Management Industry network, have written about the updated RHI. “These examples provide some concrete evidence for how the index is being used by the real estate industry but we would like to see an even greater adoption of the tool within the sector,” says Clifford.

Detailed data tables can break down renter households according to income quartiles and bedroom size. This gives the user “a nuanced understanding” of where housing need is clustered and allows them to assess factors such as average rent, households spending more than half of their income on shelter costs and overcrowding across different income and bedroom sizes.  “These data can help the real estate industry identify opportunities for where housing need lies, what local income ranges are, and how much housing needs to be built in specific communities,” he says.

Brokers How-To

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Brokers did you know that the interest earned on deposits is paid to the Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF) and is then reinvested into the community of Alberta? This is mandated in The Real Estate Act and it is important that you ensure your compliance and understand where the money goes.

The Real Estate Act states that all licensed brokers are required to maintain a general trust account to hold deposits on behalf of their client(s). Section 25(1)(b) requires general trust accounts to be interest bearing and section 69(2) directs any interest earned on these trust accounts to be paid to the Alberta Real Estate Foundation . For the complete Real Estate Act visit Service Alberta’s Website.

All the projects AREF distributes grants to benefit the real estate in some way and are encompassed by five main areas of interest: Education and research, housing, land stewardship and environment, and industry leadership. AREF does not fund personal real estate licensing or capital builds. In over 25 years, AREF has granted over $17.5 million to 550 projects. For a list of all our grant recipients visit our Projects Page, and for useful resources visit our Resource Library.

To be compliant you must follow three easy steps to direct interest earned on deposits to the AREF: First, download the broker form from our website. Second, get the form signed by your bank. Third and finally, send the form to AREF (make sure your bank has a copy and that you have a copy). For more detailed information about when to remit funds and how to remit to AREF visit our Broker Page.

 

 

Real Estate Council of Alberta Partners with University of Alberta School of Business to Raise the Bar in Commercial Real Estate Education

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Calgary, Alberta – Commercial real estate education in Alberta will take an enormous step forward with a new partnership between the Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA) and the University of Alberta.

RECA and the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta have entered into an agreement that will see the University’s business school develop a completely new Practice of Commercial Real Estate course. RECA will offer the course to individuals entering Alberta’s commercial real estate sector.

“RECA is extremely excited about this new partnership,” says Council Chair, Krista Bolton. “This is the first time RECA has partnered with a university for course development. Commercial practitioners have told us the current commercial real estate education in Alberta doesn’t go far enough; the new commercial course will be a game-changer.”

The Alberta School of Business already offers real estate courses as part of its Bachelor of Commerce and MBA programs. Its experience in these areas makes it the perfect partner to develop RECA’s new leading-edge, university-level commercial real estate course.

Edmonton commercial real estate professional Chad Griffiths, who was Council Chair when RECA and the University of Alberta signed a Memorandum of Agreement, strongly supports the partnership and the new course. “From what I have seen of the planned course content, this truly is going to be the pre-eminent commercial real estate course in Canada.”

The new Practice of Commercial Real Estate course offered by RECA will launch in phases, beginning in Fall 2016. As each phases launches, RECA will incorporate it into the current Practice of Commercial Real Estate course.

The Alberta Real Estate Foundation, a funder and supporter of the Real Estate Program, has provided the Alberta School of Business with a $150,000 grant to partially fund the development of the new course.

To read the Real Estate Council of Alberta’s (RECA) announcement please visit their website here.

Top 5 Questions by Brokers

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Where do I find this form?

You will find this form on the Alberta Real Estate Foundation website www.aref.ab.ca. Click on the Brokers heading and you fill find the form on this page under Step 1: Download Broker Form.

Why do I have to fill this form out?

In accordance to the Real Estate Act, Section 25(1)(b) requires general trust accounts to be interest bearing and section 69(2) directs any interest earned on these trust accounts to be paid to the Alberta Real Estate Foundation.

Who signs the bottom of the form?

Your bank contact will sign the bottom of the page highlighted in blue and will also fill out the top section with the banking information.

What do I do with an unclaimed security deposits?

Unclaimed deposits, or unclaimed interest on deposits, must be remitted to the Foundation after:

a)      at least two (2) years have passed since your client was entitled to receive the funds back.

b)      reasonable efforts have been made to locate the beneficial owner of the funds.

There must be some type of letter or memo as to why these funds are being sent.

What if I am only a rental property brokerage?

If you are a rental property you do not remit interest to the Alberta Real Estate Foundation. The interest collected on security deposits should be given back to the tenants upon termination of their lease agreement.

Alberta Real Estate Association’s Service Excellence Program

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Aimed at enhancing the professionalism of Alberta REALTORS®, the Alberta Real Estate Association (AREA)’s Service Excellence Program is a comprehensive professional development opportunity helping to align the services Alberta REALTORS® provide with what today’s consumers expect. Using extensive consumer research, the program provides REALTORS® the knowledge of how those expectations have changed, and then provides the tools to help ensure the REALTOR®’s service meets or exceeds clients’ expectations.

The advent of the Internet has resulted in more online resources becoming available to consumers. This, in turn, has lessened the REALTOR®’s role in finding neighbourhoods and properties that pique a client’s interest. However, the relatively high cost of property and a more complex and litigious contract environment are two reasons why clients value the REALTOR® as guide and advisor more than ever before. The Service Excellence Program is all about this reality and how REALTORS® can effectively adapt their services in order to better serve today’s consumers. 

The program comprises three parts:  first is The Art of Service Excellence, a high-quality, interactive online course packed with tips, tools, downloadable resources and customizable templates. Following completion of the course, REALTOR® can gain access to the second part of the program: The Measure of Service Excellence, an independent third-party client satisfaction survey that correlates with the course material and that REALTORS® can use with their clients. The third part of the program:  The Proof of Service Excellence, still under development, is a provincial certification process that will allow Alberta REALTORS® to become Service Excellence certified.

Click here to watch a video about the program and read testimonials from REALTORS® who’ve completed the online Service Excellence course. Contact AREA with any questions at pd@areahub.ca or by phone at 1.800.661.0231. AREA wishes to thank the Alberta Real Estate Foundation for their generous sponsorship of this initiative.

Century Homes Calgary receives the Governor General’s History Award

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Centure Homes CalgaryDecember 4th Calgary – Century Homes Calgary receives the Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Community Programming

The Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Community Programming was created by Canada’s History Society (http://www.canadashistory.ca/) to recognize programming developed by volunteer-led heritage, community and cultural organisations at the
grassroots level, the award judges considered a variety of criteria when evaluating the submissions, including audience reach, historical research and innovation. According to Joanna Dawson, community engagement coordinator of Canada’s History Society, Century Homes Calgary stood out because of its significant impact on the community, both in terms of the number of participants in the project, and the number of those benefitting from the legacy of the research in future years.

As you may be aware, 508 historic homes in 30 communities participated in Century Homes Calgary. The project focused on homes constructed during Calgary’s first building boom, which peaked in 1912, with people celebrating their home’s 100th birthday in a citywide event.

The projects intention was to increase awareness and appreciation of Calgary’s heritage homes by engaging the people who live in them. The number of people who signed up to do research and display their passion for their Century Homes with signs and banners was overwhelming.

The Alberta Real Estate Foundation is proud to have supported this project in its first year.

Executive Director Cheryl De Paoli commends the award by saying “Century Homes Calgary is an innovative project that got communities and the public engaged with the history of homes and neighbourhoods in Calgary. A well deserved recognition indeed.

Plans are underway for a 2013 round of Century Homes in Calgary.