Canada column for
Sunday, Jan. 7/18
THE CANADIAN REPORT
(c) By Jim Fox
They’re talking
about the weather in eastern Canada but unable to do much about it aside from keeping
warm and away from blizzard “bombs.”
Unrelenting frigid
air has much of Canada in its grip, setting record low temperatures in Toronto
and many places.
In Atlantic Canada,
a ferocious storm cut power to 150,000 customers, flooded coastal roads, battered
sailboats and downed trees with hurricane-force winds.
Affected by the
“weather bomb” with up to 20 inches of snow were Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and
Prince Edward Island.
Just as things
appeared to be warming after Toronto set a record -23 C (-10 F) overnight
Friday, plus wind chill, Environment Canada issued a province-wide warning to
prepare for more cold and snow.
Toronto has opened
additional warming centers and is using armouries as shelters for the homeless.
The so-called polar
vortex with frigid Arctic air has turned the usual free-flowing Niagara Falls
into a frozen spectacle.
---
A public and corporate
backlash has erupted as two Tim Hortons’ coffee shop operators have cut benefits
for employees over Ontario’s new $14-an-hour minimum wage.
Ron Joyce Jr. and
Jeri Horton-Joyce, the children of the company’s billionaire co-founders, told
staff they will no longer receive paid breaks and must pay more for their benefits.
Not only was there
reaction from the public and politicians about the two Cobourg, Ontario franchised
locations, but Hortons’ Canadian head office called it “reckless” and “completely
unacceptable.”
Staff should never
be used to further an agenda or be treated as just an expense, the company said
while Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne called it “a clear act of bullying.”
---
News in brief:
- More cities are banning plastic, single-use
grocery and shopping bags to protect the environment. Montreal’s ban begins next
Jan. 1 while Victoria will follow on July 1 next year. Vancouver is planning a ban
on coffee cups and foam containers. Other cities with bag bans are Leaf Rapids
and Thompson, Manitoba; Brossard, Deux-Montagnes and Huntingdon, Quebec; and
Wood Buffalo, Alberta.
- Chief executives
earn more in less than a day than the average worker makes in a year, a study
by the Center for Policy Alternatives says. Corporate executives’ average
annual compensation in 2016 was $10.4 million, compared with the average worker
pay of $49,738, it said. CEO compensation rose 8 percent while the average for
staff was 0.5 percent.
---
Facts and figures:
Good economic
numbers with 79,000 jobs created last month pushed Canada’s dollar higher to 80.58
cents U.S. The U.S. dollar returns $1.24 in Canadian funds before exchange
fees.
The Bank of Canada’s key interest rate is steady
at 1 percent while the prime-lending rate is 3.2 percent.
Stock markets are higher, with the Toronto
exchange index at 16,349 points while the TSX Venture index is 895 points.
The average price for gas in Canada is $1.18 a
liter or $4.48 (Canadian) for a U.S. gallon.
Lotto 6/49: (Jan. 3) 3, 13, 20, 35, 37 and 39; bonus 14.
(Dec. 30) 8, 12, 23, 25, 45 and 47;
bonus 43. Lotto Max: (Dec. 29) 22, 23, 26,
35, 37, 39 and 47; bonus 14.
---
Regional briefs:
- Bill Lishman, a writer
and filmmaker known for leading a flight of Canada geese with an
aircraft, has died at age 78. The feat for the Scugog, Ontario man inspired the
1996 Oscar-nominated film Fly
Away Home and his autobiography Father Goose. He trained the geese to fly
alongside him in his tiny ultra-light plane. An eccentric
artist, Lishman created massive replicas of Stonehenge formations – one out
of rusty old cars and the other out of lake ice.
- Only in Canada,
eh! What happens when drivers are stuck in wintry conditions on the Coquihalla
Highway in British Columbia and no one’s moving? A hockey game breaks out. When
crashes and avalanche hazards brought traffic to a standstill, drivers dropped
the puck for a pick-up game of hockey. “Bless this country,” someone wrote on
Twitter.
-30-
Jim Fox can be reached at canadareport@hotmail.com
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