B.C. informal family court promising for domestic violence victims: advocates


KAMLOOPS, B.C. — A family court pilot project in British Columbia may be a promising solution for domestic violence victims trying to navigate a confusing and intimidating legal system, advocates say.



An "informal" trial process is being tested as part of new court rules meant to resolve legal matters more quickly. The pilot project, developed by the Ministry of Attorney General and B.C.'s provincial court, started in Kamloops last month.

Under the model, lawyers aren’t necessary. Each party explains their side and the judge takes a direct role to control and manage the trial. The informal trial is voluntary and will only be used if all parties in the case and the judge agree.

The rollout of the project also means it can be assessed before being expanded, said River Shannon, a staff lawyer for the YWCA of Metro Vancouver.

"There are a lot of aspects to the pilot that I think really, really work. I think almost every aspect of this pilot is very much worth investigating and assessing, and if it's positive, I would personally be really excited to see it rolled out to more registries," Shannon said.

The provincial court said in a release the aim is to help people who don't have a lawyer use the legal system by setting aside strict court and evidence rules and just allow them to present their case "more naturally."

The parties will usually be the only witnesses and the judge will be the only person who questions them. Lawyers may, however, suggest questions for the judge to ask.

"It has certain features of a traditional court process that I think are protective for survivors," Shannon said.

Those include a court record and a judge who assesses evidence and acts as both an arbiter and questioner, and it allows for an appeal process, Shannon said.

The ministrysaid the project will take about two years to adequately test and "collect meaningful data."

"The pilot is being monitored by the project team on an ongoing basis and evaluation planning is underway," it said in an emailed statement.


When asked for comment from the chief judge, the court referred to its original statement, but added the Kamloops location was chosen based on several factors including "volume of cases and available resources in provincial court locations."

Kathleen Kendall, a family duty counsel lawyer in Kamloops, said she was consulted before the start of the pilot.

"I think it's really important for the judges to emphasize to people that this is voluntary, that it's only going to be (used) if you consent to it," she said. "It's going to be a more open process and I think that can work well for self-represented people."

Another project operating from the same family court rules has been criticized by some advocates.

The mediation aspect of the Early Resolution Model, currently operating in Victoria and Surrey, risks repeating the same power imbalances that exist within abusive relationships, said agencies that support people transitioning out of relationships with domestic violence.

Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women Support Services, said the Kamloops family court project is a more promising solutionto addressing the needs of victims of intimate partner violence.

“I appreciate (the province) is trying different things, and this is closer to what we would want to see, not what they're doing in Victoria and Surrey, when it comes to violence," she said.

MacDougall said research has found that mediation in legal proceedings involving victims of intimate partner violence "should not be used and should not be suggested."

"Rather, we believe that a victim should have the benefit of an advocate, as well as a lawyer," she said.

MacDougall said the most important aspect to the informal court model will be ensuring judges are trained in intimate partner violence and are willing to hear evidence about abuse.

“The devil's in the details, but so far it's looking like this is a better practice," she said.

The statement from the Ministry of the Attorney General said provincial court judges attend 2 1/2-day education programs twice a year for training on subjects including intimate partner violence and mental health issues.

Shannon agreed the informal court process seems to address most of the complaints from victims' advocates about dispute resolution.

"I tend to be a pessimist but I'm really optimistic about this pilot, and I would like for British Columbians to be excited about it and watching it because it might really offer a realistic solution, especially to low-income or self-represented folks moving through the family system."

— By Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 5, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Ex-Afghan president likely did not flee Afghanistan with millions, report finds

Eleanor Watson - Yesterday

Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his senior advisers likely fled Afghanistan without millions that went missing during the Taliban takeover, contrary to rumors, an oversight report has found. Since the government's records are now controlled by the Taliban, it might be hard to find the definitive culprit.

The interim report released by the special Inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction concluded that during the collapse of the government last summer, Ghani and his advisers may have taken closer to $500,000 as they left the country by helicopter, but the amount did not exceed $1 million, the report found.

This is far less than the $5 million that disappeared from the presidential palace and the estimated tens of millions that went missing from the National Directorate of Security vault during the chaos of the Taliban takeover.

The findings are in an interim report on the theft of funds from Afghanistan, and a final report is expected after the inspector general conducts more interviews. However, the interim report stated it would be difficult to determine who stole the millions since the government's records and security surveillance are now in the hands of the Taliban.


Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani makes brief remarks during a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, in the Oval Office at the White House June 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. / Credit: Pete Marovich / Getty Images

After more than 30 interviews with former Afghan officials, the inspector general ruled out in the interim report Ghani as the culprit, since he and his advisers were focused on evacuating quickly — and with more people than the helicopters were intended to carry.

The Russian Embassy in Kabul accused Ghani and his adviser of taking $169 million with them when they flew from Afghanistan. The inspector general found this was unlikely, due to the space and weight the cash would occupy.


The report assessed that $169 million in hundred dollar bills stacked end to end "would be somewhat larger than a standard American three seater couch," and would weigh nearly two tons.

The presidential helicopters were too overloaded with passengers and fuel to have made room for additional cargo, especially cargo weighing two tons, according to the interim report.

As the Taliban quickly closed in on Kabul, Ghani's team focused on escaping with their lives.

The decision to flee was so abrupt that Ghani was barefoot, requiring an official to look for his shoes, and Ghani didn't even have time to find his passport before evacuating.

Ghani had arranged for his wife, former first lady Rula Ghani, to flee the country with senior officials, but as the security team was making arrangements, the situation for the president deteriorated. The head of the presidential security team warned the national security adviser that if the helicopters left Ghani behind, "the president would be killed," according to the interim report.

On Saturday, Aug. 14, Ghani delivered a video address from the presidential palace expressing his belief that the Taliban advance could be stopped, but by the end of the next day, he had fled, and videos of the Taliban inside the presidential palace were broadcast widely.

Ghani's Facebook shared a post Aug. 15, 2021, after he had already fled, that said in part, "Taliban had made it clear that they are ready to attack Kabul and the people of Kabul to remove me. To avoid a flood of bloodshed, I decided best to get out. Taliban won the judgment of sword and gun and now they are responsible for protecting the honor, wealth and self."

COMMODITY FETISH

Rare inlaid Stradivari violin could fetch $11 million at auction

Reuters - Yesterday 

A rare 1679 violin made by renowned Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari is headed for auction next month where it could fetch up to $11 million.

The “Hellier” Stradivarius “is the finest inlaid violin ever made by… Stradivari and one of the finest Stradivarius instruments in existence,” said auction house Christie’s which is offering the instrument as the top lot in its July 7 “The Exceptional Sale”.

Engraved with ivory diamonds and finished with a golden varnish, the violin has a price estimate of 6-9 million pounds ($7.54-11.31 million).

Stradivari kept the instrument for 55 years, selling it in 1734 for 40 pounds to Samuel Hellier of Wombourne, England.


Rare inlaid Stradivari violin could fetch $11 million at auctionA close up of the violin's inlay and its golden varnish. - Henry Nicholls/Reuters

“I expect a lot of interest for such an instrument because it is so rare that it comes out of a museum,” violin expert and Christie’s consultant Florian Leonhard told Reuters.

“When can you touch a violin like this and own it? It’s incredible.”

Stradivari’s violins are known for their exquisite craftsmanship. They cost between $8 million and $20 million, according to Leonhard.

“Of the roughly 1,100 instruments Stradivari made over the course of his career, only around a dozen are embellished with decoration, and this specimen is regarded by the Smithsonian curators as the best-preserved extant example,” Christie’s said in a statement.


Rare inlaid Stradivari violin could fetch $11 million at auctionA close-up of the front of the "Hellier' Stradivarius, held by violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason. - Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason played the instrument at a preview and described it as “beautiful”.

“These kinds of violins are often compared to sports cars, you have to firstly learn how to drive them, but once you learn how to maneuver it’s incredibly rewarding,” he said.

Top image caption: Violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason plays the rare ‘Hellier’ violin.

Ousted board of Philippine casino sues Japanese tycoon Okada after resort seized

Reuters - Yesterday 

The ousted board of the Philippines’ biggest casino said on Monday it is suing Japanese tycoon Kazuo Okada and his partners, accusing them of coercion and other misconduct in what it said was a “violent and illegal” seizure of the gambling resort last week.

In a dramatic turn of events in a long-running dispute over control of Tiger Resort, Leisure & Entertainment which is owned by Japan’s Universal Entertainment Corp, Okada’s camp took physical control of the $3.3 billion casino known as Okada Manila on May 31 with the help of private security guards and local police.

The move came after the Philippines’ Supreme Court in April issued a “status quo ante order,” reinstating Okada, who had been ousted in 2017, as CEO of the casino. That followed a decision by the country’s Court of Appeals in January to dismiss an embezzlement charge against Okada and an associate.

The deposed board of Tiger Resorts appealed the Supreme Court’s decision in April and its legal counsel said on Monday that there was nothing in the court’s decision that authorized Okada’s camp to seize physical control or to create a new board. It is also seeking clarification from the Supreme Court about its order.

Okada’s group used “brute force and intimidation” in taking over the property on May 31, Michiaki Satate, co-vice chairman of the ousted Tiger Resort board, told a news conference.

“At this moment, it is an illegitimate board and set of officers who are running the business,” Satate said, adding that the casino operator’s parent company would not honor any business dealings conducted by the new board.

Universal, which has seen its shares slide 10% since the takeover, has also called the seizure of the casino an “illegal occupation.”

The lawsuit names as defendants Okada, who was not physically present during the takeover, as well his partners Antonio Cojuangco and Dindo Espeleta and the private security guard company they employed.

They are accused of forcibly removing Universal director Hajime Tokuda from the casino premises and taking him to an area near his home in what the ousted board has called a kidnapping. They are also accused of harming other company officers in grievances that range from “grave coercion” and “unjust vexation.”

Okada, currently in Japan, on Monday remotely addressed the casino’s management in a town hall meeting, committing to the success of the property and greater interaction with the new board.

All charges against Okada and his group “are pure fabrication and have no legal basis whatsoever,” Vincent Lim, spokesperson for Okada Manila’s current management, told Reuters in a statement.

No violent incident occurred during the takeover and further decisions by the Supreme Court could prompt the competing group to stop their accusations, Lim said.

Officials from the Philippine gaming regulator were present at the takeover to monitor the event. The regulator said, however, it wanted to emphasize its neutrality in the dispute as the matter is still before the court.

Okada was also ousted from Universal’s board in 2017, with directors accusing him of misappropriating $20 million in funds, which he has denied.

The 44-hectare (108-acre) Okada Manila started operations late in 2016.

With 993 suites and villas, 500 table games and 3,000 electronic gaming machines, it is the biggest of four multi-billion dollar casino-resorts operating in the capital of the Philippines, which has one of Asia’s most freewheeling gaming industries.

Ontario farm fined $125K after pleading guilty in COVID-19 outbreak behind Mexican worker's death

Kate Dubinski - Yesterday 

An Ontario farm where a COVID-19 outbreak led to the death of a worker from Mexico was fined $125,000 in a Simcoe court Monday after Scotlynn Sweetpac Growers pleaded guilty to one count of failing to take reasonable precautions to protect employees.

The farm group had faced 20 charges after an inspection by the provincial Labour Ministry in September. The Ontario Court of Justice was provided with an agreed statement of facts between the ministry and the farm.

Some 200 workers tested positive for COVID-19 during the spring 2020 outbreak at the Norfolk County vegetable farm in Vittoria, about 75 kilometres south of Hamilton. Juan Lopez Chaparro, 55, died that June.

The $125,000 fine is far short of the $1.5 million the court could have imposed. That doesn't do justice to the migrant workers who were sick and living in cramped conditions during the pandemic, said Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

"This fine is mere peanuts to a multimillion-dollar corporation, and it shows yet again that what's needed is change at the federal government level," Hussan told CBC News. "Migrants need permanent resident status to protect themselves."

Scott Biddle, owner of Scotlynn Growers, which is based in Norfolk County, would not comment on the guilty plea, said a representative of the farm operation.

"Honestly, we are disappointed in the judgment," Hussan said. "These minimal fines are simply the cost of doing business for corporations like Scotlynn, who can have a person die on their farm and hundreds of workers get sick, but they continue to make massive profits off the backs of migrants."


© Provided by Chaparro FamilyJuan Lopez Chaparro died June 20, 2020, after contracting COVID-19 while working at the Scotlynn Group farm.

At the time of the 2020 outbreak, Scotlynn Growers workers were living in bunkhouses that slept up to 50 men, but they purchased and cooked their own food. They were transported by Scotlynn Growers to various fields by bus or van.

 
No consistent screening

According to the agreed statement of facts, "The deceased worker had been bedridden for several days in the bunkhouse he lived in. He had symptoms that were typical of COVID-19 but was not isolated.

"The employer failed to take the reasonable precaution of isolating COVID-19 symptomatic workers from other workers to protect workers from the transmission of COVID-19 at the workplace."

The employer didn't consistently enforce COVID-19 screening and some workers didn't report their cold-like symptoms to supervisors, the agreed statement of facts says.

"If symptoms were self-disclosed to supervisors, they were not communicated consistently to Sweetpac management. Supervisors only communicated that workers had symptoms if the supervisor felt it was necessary, meaning if the symptoms were persistent or required medical attention."

Chaparro, like thousands of workers who come to Ontario each growing season, was in Canada as part of the federal Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, which allows farmers to hire temporary foreign workers.

Luis Gabriel Flores, Chaparro's bunkmate at Scotlynn Sweetpac, was fired after speaking out about conditions at the farm.

The province's Labour Relations Board ordered Scotlynn Growers to pay Flores $20,000 in lost wages and $5,000 in damages.

Migrant workers typically live in communal bunkhouses with shared kitchens and bathrooms, conditions that health officials and advocates for migrant workers had warned, prior to the outbreak, created unsafe conditions in a pandemic.

Advocates say the workers' families rely on money they earn in Canada, and many don't speak out for fear of losing their jobs and the ability to earn during the growing season.

Deadly Bangladesh container depot fire brought under control

By Ruma Paul - Yesterday

© Reuters/AL MAHMUD BS

Smoke rises from the spot after a massive fire broke out in an inland container depot at Sitakunda, near the port city Chittagong

DHAKA (Reuters) - Firefighters in Bangladesh brought a blaze at a container depot under control on Tuesday, three days after fiery explosions killed at least 41 people at a facility that a senior fire service official suspected had not followed safety guidelines.

Drone footage showed smoke and rows of burnt-out containers from the fire that began late on Saturday, triggering blasts and blazes at Sitakunda, 40 km (25 miles) from the southeastern port city of Chittagong.

Authorities have not determined the cause of the disaster but suspect a container of hydrogen peroxide was the source.

"The fire has not been put out completely but there is no risk of further explosion as our team has sorted out the chemical containers .. one by one," senior fire service official Monir Hossain told Reuters from the scene.

"We haven't found any basic fire safety measures ... There were simply some extinguishers. Nothing else. They didn’t follow storage guidelines for hazardous chemicals."

The director of the facility, the BM Container Depot, did not answer calls to his mobile telephone seeking comment.

Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary of the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association said on Monday its members, including BM Container Depot, regularly handled hydrogen peroxide without any incident and as far as he knew, the company followed guidelines.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said an investigation had been launched and those responsible would face justice.

Bangladesh has grown quickly over recent decades to become the world's second-biggest exporter of garments but its industrial safety standards have not kept pace with its economic development and fires are common in factories and other places of work.

The confirmed death toll was revised down to 41 from 49 because of some double counting of victims, police said. At least nine firefighters were among the dead and three were missing, they said.

Chittagong's chief doctor, Mohammed Elias Hossain, said some of the injured were in critical condition. Of the 200 or so injured, 50 were rescue officials, police said.

Troops were deployed to try to prevent the spread of chemicals into canals and along the nearby coast, officials said.

The last major fire in Bangladesh was in July last year when 54 people were killed at a food processing factory outside the capital, Dhaka.

Bangladesh's deadliest fire was in 2012, when a blaze swept through a garment factory killing 112 workers.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Robert Birsel)

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/06/bangladesh-officials-accuse-depot.html

Wage gap between CEOs and US workers jumped to 670-to-1 last year, study finds

The wage gap between chief executives and workers at some of the US companies with the lowest-paid staff grew even wider last year, with CEOs making an average of $10.6m, while the median worker received $23,968.


© Provided by The GuardianPhotograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Dominic Rushe - THE GUARDIAN- YESTERDAY

A study of 300 top US companies released by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) on Tuesday found the average gap between CEO and median worker pay jumped to 670-to-1 (meaning the average CEO received $670 in compensation for every $1 the worker received). The ratio was up from 604-to-1 in 2020. Forty-nine firms had ratios above 1,000-to-1.

At more than a third of the companies surveyed, IPS found that median worker pay did not keep pace with inflation.

The report, titled Executive Excess, comes amid a wave of unionization efforts among low wage workers and growing scrutiny of the huge share buyback programs many corporations have been using to inflate their share prices. US companies announced plans to buy back more than $300bn of their own shares in the first quarter of the year and Goldman Sachs has estimated that buybacks could top $1tn in 2022.

Share-related remuneration makes up the largest portion of senior executive compensation and as buybacks generally boost a company’s share price, they also boost executive pay. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called buybacks “nothing but paper manipulation” designed to increase executive pay.

The report found that two-thirds of low-wage corporations that cut worker pay in 2021 also spent billions inflating CEO pay through stock buybacks.

The biggest buyback firm was home improvement chain Lowe’s, which spent $13bn on share repurchases. That money could have given each of its 325,000 employees a $40,000 raise, according to IPS. Instead, median pay at the company fell 7.6% to $22,697.

“CEOs’ pandemic greed grab has sparked outrage among Americans across the political spectrum,” said report lead author Sarah Anderson, director of the IPS Global Economy Project. She cited one recent poll that showed that 87% of Americans see the growing gap between CEO and worker pay as a problem for the country.

IPS noted that many of the companies in its sample were also the recipients of large federal government contracts. Forty companies in the sample were awarded $37.2bn in government contracts between 1 October 2019 and 1 May 2022.

The biggest recipient was Maximus, a company that manages federal student debts and Medicare call centers, which received $12.3bn in federal contracts. In 2021, Maximus CEO Bruce Caswell collected $7.9m in compensation, 208 times the firm’s median paycheck. Maximus workers have recently staged walkouts over pay and benefits.

Amazon, the second-largest federal contractor in the sample, amassed $10.3bn in federal contracts. Last month shareholders approved a $212m pay deal for Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, 6,474 times the company’s median pay.

This report offers a number of policy solutions, including actions president Joe Biden could take without waiting for Congress. “The president could wield the power of the public purse by introducing new standards making it hard for companies with huge CEO-worker pay gaps to land a lucrative federal contract,” Anderson said. The report also urges Biden to ban top executives at federal contractors from selling their personal stock for a multi-year period after a buyback.

N.B. vet clinic switches to emergency only due to skyrocketing demand

Suzanne Lapointe - Yesterday 



© Suzanne Lapointe / Global News

The Riverview Animal Hospital is switching to emergency visits only as of August

In her 20 years of experience in the veterinary field, Riverview Animal Hospital operations manager Kelli Cormier said she's never witnessed anything close to the spike in demand she's seen recently.

She said that's what led the clinic, which has been open for more 50 years, to make a difficult decision.

"Balancing the demands of emergency and general medicine over the last two years have become increasingly challenging, so we had to make a decision to close our general practice," she said in an interview on Monday.

The clinic will now only offer emergency drop-in services, forcing those who came in for regular veterinary appointments to find a new veterinarian by early August.

Cormier said her staff are trying to help their clients find spaces for their four-legged friends, but it's been challenging.

"I think all animal hospitals across the province are having similar issues. There's not enough time in the day to see the amount of pets that are needing our care," she said.

She believes the sharp increase in demand is due to a combination of pandemic-related factors, like the rise in remote work allowing people to have more time to care for pets, as well as people seeking the comfort of a pet in troubling times.

Read more:

Pandemic pets a lifesaver to many Canadians during COVID-19 isolation

That was the case for Siobhan Curry, who adopted her dog in August 2020.

"It's mostly because my son experienced bouts of depression during the lockdown and it was very difficult for him so I figured getting a dog would be helpful for that," she said on Monday.

Curry, who had brought her dog Winnie into the animal hospital for emergency services on Monday, will be unaffected by the changes as she already has a regular vet for Winnie.

She said adopting Winnie definitely boosted her family's morale.

Cormier said there wouldn't be reductions to staffing levels or hours at the Riverview Animal Hospital, as there was sufficient demand for emergency services.

"It takes a lot of people to make a 24-hour facility go around. We are constantly recruiting (staff)," she said.

WTF IT'S A STAR CHAMBER
Lawyers ask Quebec Court of Appeal to shed more light on secret trial

MONTREAL — Lawyers for the province's attorney general, the chief justice of the Quebec court and several media organizations went before the Quebec Court of Appeal Monday to demand details about a secret trial for which there's no publicly available record.



The existence of the trial only became public earlier this year because a police informant accused in the case appealed his or her conviction, and the appeals court issued a heavily redacted ruling in February critical of the lower court proceedings. The Court of Appeal has criticized the trial for being conducted in a way "contrary to the fundamental principles" of the country's justice system.

Christian Leblanc, a lawyer for media organizations — including The Canadian Press — told the Court of Appeal that legal proceedings must be conducted in public.

"The very confidence of the public in its legal system depends on justice being rendered publicly," Leblanc said following Monday's hearing.

Most details in the original case are sealed and being kept from the public, including the nature of the alleged crime and where it allegedly took place, the name of the police force involved and the names of the lawyers. As well, the original case had no official docket number.

"We recognize that we must protect a police informant," Leblanc said. "That said, once we say that, we have to draw the line at where that protection ends, and we certainly think it's not a total in-camera hearing."

The police informant involved in the case was convicted of participating in a crime that he or she had initially revealed to police. The informant claimed he or she was a victim of an abuse of process, but the lower court judge disagreed. The Appeal Court panel, however, sided with the informant and stayed the conviction and the legal proceedings.


Leblanc told the panel of three justices on Monday that in his 25 years of practising law, he had never heard of a case being held entirely in camera. He also questioned how the information could be identified if basic information about the trial is revealed. The wide-ranging seal, Leblanc said, may be "exaggerated."

"That's why I told the Court of Appeal that for us, these are clues, little hints that maybe the sealing order is too wide here and maybe we should have a debate so that the court can hear both sides … and review its decision," Leblanc said.

Pierre-Luc Beauchesne, a lawyer representing the attorney general, told the court his office had not been made aware of a request to stay the lower court decision, which is customary for cases that are appealed. He said his office wants the information to create a court file, noting that keeping a record of a case is not optional.

The hearing on Monday was heard in two parts. Part 1 included public arguments with the lawyers representing the attorney general, Quebec court Chief Justice Lucie Rondeau and several media organizations. Part 2 included lawyers representing the informant as well as the lawyer for Rondeau, who is also seeking further details about the case.

Monday's hearing was held before Court of Appeal justices Marie-France Bich, Martin Vauclair and Patrick Healy, the same three justices who rendered the heavily redacted ruling critical of the lower court proceedings. The Court of Appeal ruling was from February and released in March.

In their decision, the appeals court judges wrote that "no trace of this trial exists, other than in the minds of the individuals implicated."

The court said at the time that it is "of the opinion that if trials must protect certain information disclosed therein, a procedure as secret as the present one is absolutely contrary to modern criminal law and to the respect of the constitutional rights not only of the accused, but also of the media, and it is equally incompatible with the values of a liberal democracy."

The same panel of judges will render a decision at a later date after deliberations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2022.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press

N.B. doctor tackles footwear affordability for kids by starting own shoe company

Dr. Maryse Tadros, a family physician by profession, found out first-hand how quickly children outgrow their shoes and how pricey it is to replace them with a durable pair.

Chameleon Shoes was created by Maryse Tadros to help keep up with how quickly children outgrow their shoes while maximizing the affordability.

 Nathalie Sturgeon / Global News

So she set out to do something about it. She created a company called Chameleon Shoes.

Tadros, who has three small children, said the company began after one of her children made a hole in her winter boots in February. She went in search of a new pair but many stores had transitioned to summer footwear already.

After a search online, she said a durable pair was more than $50.

Read more:
How much does it cost to raise a kid in Canada?

“There's got to be a better way to do this,” she recalled in an interview on Monday. “I know they're going to wear all the sizes, there should just be a way to buy all the sizes from the moment they are little because you know you're going to need all of them.”

The company has individual kits which include a hanging organizer and six pairs of gender-neutral rainbow-coloured shoes. It’s all in one package, and Tadros said the shoes are durable and can last multiple generations of children. She has shoes for toddlers and infants.

“We picked the shoes that were the most durable,” she said. “They last as long as your kids need them.”

She says the company doesn't just address the pace at which children outgrow shoes, but also affordability.

“That's something a lot of parents have told me,” she said. “They have a very hard time finding shoes that are affordable but also durable. So, this is a bigger investment upfront. You're paying $109 or $139 depending on the kit, but you're getting six pairs of shoes.”

The infant kits are for kids age zero to one and a half years old, while the toddler kits go from two to five years old.

Read more:
Here’s why Canadians are having fewer children

“It was important to me to make sure all kids have access to shoes ... $60 a pair is not nothing for a lot of families,” she said. “It’s a considerable expense when your kids is outgrowing shoes every two to four months.”

The company name was inspired by an ever-adapting chameleon who not only changes its colour but sheds its skin when it doesn’t fit anymore – just like a growing child’s feet.

For every 10 kits that Tadros sells, she donates one kit to a daycare or a shelter.

She said there are plans to expand into running shoes and sandals next.

Chameleon Shoes are available online and at Jumping Jacks in Fredericton.