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With twice the debt of California, Ontario is now the world’s most indebted sub-sovereign borrower. - > I'm sure Québec had that top spot before, by reading some frequent comments in mtlurb... http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/with-twice-the-debt-of-california-ontario-is-now-the-worlds-most-indebted-sub-sovereign-borrower

Made you click Molson Coors relocating headquarters to 1801 California in downtown Denver Molly Armbrister Reporter- Denver Business Journal Molson Coors Brewing Co. will relocate its U.S. headquarters next year to Denver's second-tallest building: 1801 California. The company (NYSE: TAP) has leased 53,872 square feet in the 54-story tower at 1801 California St., which was purchased and upgraded by Brookfield Office Properties Inc. last year. Molson Coors will renovate the office areas, located on the 45th, 46th and part of the 47th floors, beginning in the spring. The company expects to inhabit the new space in fall 2015. Molson Coors' HQ is currently located at 1225 17th St. in Denver. It also has headquarters space in Montreal. "We are pleased to be moving to 1801 California, which will allow us to maintain our headquarters presence in vibrant downtown Denver," said Sam Walker, Molson Coors global chief people and legal officer. "This new location enables us to bring together our offices and employees under one roof and remain in the heart of Denver's thriving business community." 1801 California was formerly occupied entirely by Qwest Communications, but now CenturyLink Inc., which bought out Qwest, occupies about 30 percent of the building's 1.3 million square feet. Brookfield has been working to fill the building since completing its renovations on the property in February. "We're thrilled to have Molson Coors' U.S. headquarters making its home at 1801 California, said David Sternberg, executive vice president for the midwest and mountain regions for Brookfield. "1801 California is an ideal setting for Molson Coors — a landmark location for one of Colorado's iconic companies and one of the world's leading brewers," said Ted Harris, senior vice president at Cassidy Turley, one of the brokers on the transaction.

Earth to anglos: This is Quebec. Bus drivers speak French BY NICHOLAS ROBINSON, THE GAZETTE JANUARY 7, 2014 I’m an expat American whose family transferred here (my father worked for ICAO) in 1976. In 1988, after having gone to college and graduated in California, I moved to Japan and spent five years there, teaching English. When I returned, my parents had relocated to California, but left their condo here unrented and unoccupied. Naturally, I chose to resettle here instead of California, and I’ve been here ever since. I spoke French before I came to Montreal, having learned it in francophone African countries, so I had no problems getting around Montreal. Except in my lengthy absence, Bill 101 had been passed, and many anglos were hightailing it out on the 401. It was strange coming back to a Montreal that had language issues; I’d never had the Eaton-fat-lady experience while I had been here in the 1970s and had never had any problems back then. And at first, actually, for over a decade, I resented the ridiculous sign law that made English two-thirds smaller than French on signs, plus all the “tongue-trooper” shenanigans over the years. But then my mind started changing, and today I’m pretty much the polar opposite to what I was in 1994. I now teach Japanese to individuals in Montreal, having enthusiastically learned it from scratch while in Japan. Most of my students are francophone, but we usually end up having the class with a mixture of all three languages. Now when I hear about people “not getting service” in English in such institutions as hospitals, or not being responded to in English by bus drivers, my stance is: tough luck. When I moved to Japan, I quickly discovered that almost nobody spoke English, and that in order to function, I would have to learn Japanese — and fast, which I did. And now I feel maybe Bill 101 should have gone farther and made all signs only in French. After all, we are living in a French-speaking province that just happens to be in the middle of a vast country called Canada. Any anglos who have been here for any length of time — over a year or so — should at least be able to carry out basic living functions in French and learn how to read signs in French. The wheedle-factor here is enormous. To my mind, the French speakers of Quebec have been incredibly tolerant of the anglophone “community,” and a vast swath of them have gone to the immense trouble of learning English — when they don’t have to at all. Yet they do, happily and willingly and without a single murmur of protest. Why then, can’t the so-called “anglophone community,” knowingly residing in a province that has every right in the world to make everything in French, not do a better job of learning French? Earth to anglos: this is Quebec. In Quebec most people speak French. Bus drivers have every right in the world to respond to you in French, even when you speak to them in English. And my suggestion to these besieged individuals is simply: learn how to speak French. There are literally hundreds of places where you can learn it absolutely free. Or take some of my classes and move to Japan, where there is a severe shortage of English teachers; I promise there are no French speakers there to hound you. Nicholas Robinson teaches Japanese in Montreal. © Copyright © The Montreal Gazette

California Cities Face Bankruptcy Curbs By BOBBY WHITE MAY 28, 2009 As California seeks more funds from its cash-strapped cities and counties to close a $21 billion budget deficit, some state legislators are pushing a plan that could compound municipalities' pain by making it tougher for them to file for bankruptcy. The bill would require a California municipality seeking Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection to first obtain approval from a state commission. That contrasts with the state's current bankruptcy process, which allows municipalities to speedily declare bankruptcy without any state oversight so that they can quickly restructure their finances. The bill, introduced in January, has passed one committee vote and could reach a final vote by mid-July. The bill was sparked by the bankruptcy filing last year of Vallejo, Calif., just north of San Francisco. Vallejo's city leaders partly blamed work contracts with police and firefighters for pushing the city into bankruptcy, and won permission from a bankruptcy court in March to scrap its contract with the firefighters' union. That spurred the California Professional Firefighters to push for statewide legislation to curtail bankruptcy, said Carroll Willis, the group's communications director. "What we don't want is for cities to use bankruptcy as a negotiating tactic rather than a legit response to fiscal issues," he said, adding that he worries cities may work in concert to rid themselves of union contracts by declaring bankruptcy. If the bill passes, it could hurt cities and counties by lengthening the time before they can declare bankruptcy. That creates a legal limbo during which a municipality is more vulnerable to creditors. The proposed state bankruptcy commission would be staffed by four state legislators, which some critics worry could politicize the bankruptcy process. "This bill is impractical," said John Moorlach, a supervisor in Orange County, Calif., which filed for bankruptcy in 1994. "In many instances, haste is important. If you can't meet payroll but have to delay seeking protection, what do you do?" California towns and counties face a catalog of troubles. Earlier this month, voters rejected five budget measures, sending the state deficit to $21 billion. To overcome the gap, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed borrowing $2 billion from municipalities, using a 2004 state law that lets California demand loans of 8% of property-tax revenue from cities, counties and special districts. But that proposal lands as California municipalities are already facing steep declines in tax revenue because of the recession. Dozens are staring at huge deficits, including Pacific Grove and Stockton, which have publicly said they are exploring bankruptcy. Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, a Democrat who introduced the bankruptcy bill, said the initiative is needed to protect the credit rating of California and its ability to borrow and sell bonds. Mr. Mendoza added that he wants to avoid bankruptcy's repercussions on surrounding communities by offering a system that examines all of a municipality's options before filing for bankruptcy. "Municipalities should have a checks and balance system in place based on the fact that all economies are interconnected," he said. Dwight Stenbakken, deputy executive director for the California League of Cities, a nonprofit representing more than 400 cities, said the group is lobbying against the bill because "there's nothing a state commission can bring to the process to make this better." Write to Bobby White at bobby.white@wsj.com

article de bloomberg

(Courtesy of CanWest News)

Now, you can catch a wave, then hang 10 with some Montreal smoked meat ... in California MIKE BOONE, The Gazette Published: Monday, June 18, 2007 Surf's up in Redondo Beach - and so is the cholesterol. Thanks to a couple of former Montrealers, hungry diners in the southern California coastal town can tuck into smoked meat and poutine. The Redondo Beach Cafe is about 4,000 kilometres from the lineup at Schwartz's, but Steve Spitzer, another expat, says the smoked meat gap isn't that wide. "I was driving by when I saw their sign," Spitzer adds, "and I thought 'Montreal-style smoked meat' was BS. But it wasn't. "Since I discovered the place, I've gained six pounds in six weeks," says the 50-year-old Spitzer, who describes himself as "an attorney who dabbles in the poker world." Redondo Beach is about a 12-minute drive south of the Los Angeles airport. Spitzer describes its distance from L.A. as approximating Montreal to Dollard. The restaurant is on California's Pacific Coast Highway, about 200 metres from the beach. It is owned and operated by the Tsangaris brothers, 42-year-old Costa and Chris, who's 39. While studying at Vanier College and Concordia University, Costa worked in Montreal restaurants, including high-class joints like Milos, and "learned from the masters on Park Ave., Duluth, Ste. Catherine and St. Lawrence." Chris was a jock who played football at Long Beach State University (where he was coached by the legendary George Allen) in the late 1980s and had a six-year career - including a brief stint with the Alouettes - as a linebacker in the CFL. Hearing a Montreal voice on the phone last week transported Costa back to his boyhood in Park Extension (the family moved to New Bordeaux when he was a teenager). "We grew up on Birnam near Beaumont," he said. "Before we knew there was such a thing as real smoked meat in restaurants, we used to eat it out of those plastic pouches our mother would put in boiling water." The concept of smoked meat in a bag would send shivers down the spine of any Schwartz's/The Main/ Abie's/Smoke Meat Pete habitue accustomed to the hand-carved delight of the real deal. But you eat what you can get. What you could get in the way of spiced meat in southern California, until the launch of the Redondo Beach Cafe, was pastrami or corned beef. My friend Alan Richman, who wrote a superb sports column for the Montreal Star in the mid-1970s and went on to many wonderful gigs, including restaurant writing for GQ magazine, used to insist that Montreal smoked meat was merely a local variation of the pastrami he'd grown up eating in New York. This esoteric debate among east coast foodies is a moot point in sunny California, where - far from the delicacy's origins in eastern Europe - smoked meat is new, different and popular. At the Redondo Beach Cafe, you can get the real deal. Briskets imported from Montreal are carved into sandwiches (including a Speedo-stretching "double-meat" special), served Montreal-style on rye bread with mustard. Then there's the "Rachel" (as opposed to a Reuben) made with smoked meat, Thousand Islands dressing, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese; a smoked meat club; a smoked meat sub that's a variation of the Philly cheese classic; spaghetti marinara with smoked meat and a smoked meat omelet. "We also do a health food item - smoked meat scrambled with egg whites," Costa said. Only in California can smoked meat be marketed as health food. In addition to Ahi Tuna Tacos, the El Paso Grill and low-fat, high-protein ostrich burgers, the Brothers Tsangaris also offer poutine (made with Wisconsin curd cheese and imported St. Hubert BBQ sauce) and Greek specialities, including souvlaki, pastichio, moussaka and two Hellenic hamburgers, the Kojak's Gyro Burger and Big Fat Greek Burger. Chris has a master's degree in sports management from Long Beach State and ended up running the program at the school after an injury ended his CFL career. Costa moved to California seven years ago, and he and his brother began thinking of bringing "Montreal quality and hospitality" to southern California. Two years ago, the brothers bought a 45-year-old beachside restaurant. In addition to renovating and Montrealizing the menu, Costa and Chris decorated with Habs' stuff, including Guy Lafleur and Yvan Cournoyer jerseys. "The first picture we put up," Costa said, "was Rocket Richard." The Cafe's big-screen TVs were tuned to the Stanley Cup playoffs. There will be a Canada Day party on July 1. The Redondo Beach Cafe seats 145 (75 if everyone orders double-meat). Business is good, with a clientele, Costa says, ranging from "surfers to CEOs." Bread is a problem. Costa said the local variety lacks the crustiness of Montreal rye. "The flour here is different," he said. "But we're working on it." mboone@thegazette.canwest.com