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Hello everyone, I'm an airline employee and a big proponent of YUL and it's future development. Lately I have been using Toronto's public transit system to get to the airport. Even though not as developed as ours, their subway, combined with the new 192 Airport Rocket, is really a winning combination, and has made me really step back and take at look at YUL and our airport access (just a bit better than terrible). From Kipling station the Airport Rocket is a 15 minute express bus from a metro directly to Terminal 1, 3 and Airport road near the hotels. Now before you start, yes, I know Montreal has this too in our 747 bus, directly from Lionel Groulx. However, the difference lies in that the Toronto express bus is part of their transit system, and only costs 3.00$, and a transfer from anywhere else in the network is valid. Why on earth would we charge 10$ for such a service?!?! It should almost be free! Anyway, I just wish the STM would make the 747 a regular bus line with a regular fare and transfers from the other parts of the network accepted, then we could call our airport SOMEWHAT accessible. And don't even get me started on the fact they now have direct train access......argh Rant Over.
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(Coutesy of City Mayors) Top 50
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un sujet a posté Invité dans L'actualité
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https://blog.cogecopeer1.com/why-montreal-is-fast-emerging-as-canadas-cloud-hub?utm_campaign=FY16%20Inbound%20GLOBAL%20Mar%20Colocation%20Digital&utm_content=32715745&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin
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https://blog.cogecopeer1.com/why-montreal-is-fast-emerging-as-canadas-cloud-hub?utm_campaign=FY16%20Inbound%20GLOBAL%20Mar%20Colocation%20Digital&utm_content=31021264&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin So, what makes Montreal attractive for tech startups and cloud providers? The city has low power and real estate costs, making Canada’s second largest financial center more attractive to Canadian organizations. The city’s cold climate is a big advantage. One of the largest costs of running a data center is providing cooling for hardware, and having a supply of freezing cold air for much of the year helps. Montreal, with a population of a million and a half, has a plentiful supply of engineers, and is home to the largest concentration of research complexes in Canada, so is not short of skilled workers. Then there is the abundant supply of green power. It is one of the most inexpensive means of generating electricity, and for organizations requiring power hungry SANs and scaled out storage, cheap power is more attractive than the cheap connectivity offered by a city with a peering exchange.
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(Courtesy of Engadget) It is a good initiative, but will Quebec mandate by a certain year everyone needs to have an electric vehicle? -
Montreal tops international list of competitive cities : KMPG
un sujet a posté ChrisDVD dans L'actualité
Canada ranks 2nd among 10 countries for cost competitiveness, says KPMG THE CANADIAN PRESS 03.29.2016 TORONTO - Accounting giant KPMG says Canada has proven to be second most competitive market in a comparison test of 10 leading industrial countries. In its report, KPMG says Canada lags only behind Mexico when it comes to how little businesses have to pay for labour, facilities, transportation and taxes. The report, which compared the competitiveness of a number of western countries along with Australia and Japan, found that a high U.S. dollar has helped Canada stay affordable despite rising office real estate costs and lower federal tax credits. When it comes to corporate income taxes, it found that Canada, the U.K. and the Netherlands had the lowest rates overall due to tax incentives to support high-tech and research and development. KPMG also looked at the competitiveness of more than 100 cities worldwide. It ranked Fredericton, N.B., as the most cost-effective city in Canada due to low labour costs and continued low costs for property leases. Montreal topped the list among 34 major cities in North America, followed by Toronto and Vancouver. The three Canadian cities beat out all U.S. cities. Although there have been concerns over the impact of a weakening loonie on the economy, having a low Canadian dollar has actually been "a driver in improving Canada's competitiveness and overall cost advantage," KPMG said. As a result, that has made it more attractive for businesses to set up shop north of the border than in the U.S., it said. http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/canada+ranks+among+countries+cost+competitiveness+says+kpmg/11817781/story.html -
1-50 Regulation in Effect for all Aircrafts as of August 1, 2015 Transport Canada has announced that the 1:50 ratio will be the new regulation in effect for both wide and narrow-bodied aircraft effective August 1, 2015. Airlines will be able to “flip flop” between the former 1:40 ratio and the new 1:50 ratio according to their operational requirements. Exit doors may also be left uncovered on wide-bodied aircraft, a major change from previous proposed regulations. Your Union views this development as a completely unacceptable and unnecessary risk to the safety of both crewmembers and the public. In changing the regulation without the usual consultation process, Transport Canada and the Harper government continue to act on behalf of the airline industry and in a manner that is without sufficient parliamentary and public scrutiny. Decades of privatization, deregulation and hyper-competition have led to a relentless drive to cut labour costs. Transport Canada makes no secret of this, and has calculated that the regulation will allow operators to achieve cost savings of $288,469,940 during the next ten years by reducing the number of Flight Attendants and associated costs including salaries, hotel stays and per diems. To read the new regulation, please see: http://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2015/2015-06-17/html/sor-dors127-eng.php. For the federal government and its transportation officials to so baldly place profit over safety is a national disgrace. It appears this government has learned nothing from the rail tragedy in Lac Megantic, which has also been linked to deregulation and the loosening of safety rules Your Union is reviewing all available options to continue our legal fight against the 1:50. We will update you on our intended response as soon as possible. We also look forward to the upcoming federal election, which we are confident will oust Harper and elect a government that supports worker rights and public safety. But to achieve that goal, our members must do their part. The Airline Division Political Action Committee will be working hard between now and the election to turn out Flight Attendants to vote. We will bring the full weight of our safety expertise forward to the new government and the public. Our research on this issue has been extensive, and is grounded in the real life understanding of the safety risks associated with reduced cabin crew. In fact, we believe our members’ real life experience is the best possible evidence that 1:50 jeopardizes safety, disrupts service, and reduces the job satisfaction and morale of Flight Attendants. During the past several months we have been compiling our members’ stories about the effect of 1:50. In the coming weeks, we will publish a series of bulletins that capture the voices of members describing how 1:50 has affected them on and off the job. Each bulletin will describe a different aspect of how 1:50 has affected them, including at work where members report increased fatigue, anxiety about decreased safety and service; and at home, where members report reduced income, greater stress and depression, and harm to personal relationships and overall wellbeing. These stories are gleaned from the responses of well over 100 Flight Attendants who responded to questionnaires made available by the Component and CUPE Local 4092. We encourage members to continue to share their stories in the months to come. Please follow the next bulletins. Your Union remains committed to fighting the 1:50 ratio on the legal, regulatory, and political levels. http://accomponent.ca/
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http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/independent+Quebec+might+benefit+from+currency+report/9637904/story.html An independent Quebec might benefit from its own currency: report Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois said an independent Quebec would accept the loonie, along with Canadian monetary policy, and consider asking for a seat at the Bank of Canada. Photograph by: Jonathan Hayward , THE CANADIAN PRESS An independent Quebec might be better off with its own currency rather than following Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois’s suggestion that it keep the Canadian dollar, a report says. A Quebec currency and separate monetary policy could bring “potential benefits” in the long term to Quebec, Paul Ashworth and David Madani of Capital Economics said in a research report. “The basic problem Quebec faces is that it is a manufacturing-orientated province tied to the resource-rich provinces in the west. The energy boom has boosted the economic performance of those western provinces, saddling Quebec’s manufacturers with a high exchange rate and higher than needed interest rates.” A Quebec currency would presumably depreciate against the Canadian and U.S. dollars, particularly if interest rates were lower than the rest of Canada. The resulting boost to Quebec competitiveness should trigger a rise in exports and a reduction in imports, the report said. But a referendum on separation would have negative consequences — including on investments in Quebec and higher yields on Quebec provincial debt — while a new Quebec currency would bring additional challenges, the economists noted. “If the Quebec currency depreciated in value against the Canadian dollar, then it would make it harder for the new government to repay any debt still denominated in Canadian dollars. The same goes for Quebec households and businesses that had borrowed Canadian dollars.” Separation would bring the loss of equalization payments — $9.3 billion this year, equivalent to about 2.5 per cent of Quebec GDP — while contending with higher debt servicing costs. “The bigger problem is the legacy of provincial debt, equivalent to 49 per cent of Quebec GDP. Assuming that an independent Quebec assumed responsibility for a per capita share of federal debt, too, we estimate that its overall debt burden would rise to 89 per cent of GDP. Under those circumstances, Quebec might find its borrowing costs rising, which would only add to the budget deficit and, in conjunction with the loss of equalization payments, force the new government into a sizable fiscal consolidation. “The risk of default would also be greater if an independent Quebec allowed the Bank of Canada to control monetary policy, since it couldn’t resort to printing more currency.” On the campaign trail last week, Marois said an independent Quebec would accept the loonie, along with Canadian monetary policy, and consider asking for a seat at the Bank of Canada. Her comments sparked discussion over the economic costs of sovereignty even though polls show support for independence running well below 50 per cent. Capital Economics, known for its bearish views of the Canadian housing market, weighed in on Wednesday. “Politicians who are striving for independence, whether it is in Scotland or Quebec, know that talk of adopting a new currency makes the electorate very nervous, so they have a tendency to argue that the new sovereign state would be able to keep its existing monetary arrangements,” the economists wrote. In any event, Quebec should be looking to adopt a looser monetary policy than the rest of Canada, the report’s authors said. “The evidence is overwhelming that interest rates should be set lower in Quebec, to provide more support to the depressed economy.”
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10 reasons, not including Rob Ford, why Montreal is better than Toronto
un sujet a posté ProposMontréal dans L'actualité
Source: Thrillist Sure, sure, sure. This war’s been waged a thousand times, but we found 10 reasons why Montreal trumps the “t-dot” (which is a stupid name, btw) and we didn’t even have to use low-blow examples like Rob Ford, Toronto's "sports" teams, or that shining moment when former mayor Mel Lastman called in the military that time it SNOWED IN THE WINTER. 1. Better bagels, poutine, smoked meat, and sandwiches. Let’s just start by getting this out of the way. Montreal is home to one of the best sandwiches in the world, the best bagels in the world, the greatest poutines, and the best smoked meat. Eat that Toronto. 2. You can drink anywhere in Montreal, all the time. Yes, you can legally drink in public in Montreal as long as you’re eating food. And since Montreal has the best Canadian food in the country, that technicality is pretty much a friendly reminder. Heck, you can’t even drink alcohol on a licensed patio in Toronto after 11p. 3. Obtaining alcohol to drink in public is easier. In Montreal, wine and beer are sold in dépanneurs, the greatest corner stores in the world, until 11p, the time most Torontonians are climbing into bed. Also? The beer here is better in general. 4. "Joie de vivre". People from Toronto don’t even know what this means, partly because it’s French, and partly because Montreal is legitimately one of the happiest places in the world, and Toronto isn't. And on that subject... 5. Fun isn’t illegal in Montreal. This is not hyperbole. Montrealers are often found frolicking joyously in parks whilst flying kites, having civilized outdoor dinner parties wherein alcohol is consumed, or joining a hippie drum circle on the side of the mountain. All of the above are literally illegal in Toronto. Toronto has a problem with fun (for those too lazy to follow that link, it's a Toronto newspaper describing how the city's denizens have to go to Montreal to have anything resembling a good time). 6. All the best parties happen in Montreal. People from around the world come to Montreal for the Jazz Fest, Osheaga, Just For Laughs, Igloofest, etc., or to just take in Montreal’s famously awesome nightlife scene. 7. Montreal has a mountain Sure it ain’t no Mt. Everest, but at least our mountain isn’t made of garbage (Chinguacousy Hill, I’m looking at you), and it means we have way better snow sports. 8. The cost of living will cost you almost nothing. Montrealers live in beautiful, penthouse-sized apartments with large balconies, and it costs them what a Torontonian pays for their monthly subway pass. And talking of the subway... 9. Montreal’s award-winning metro system actually makes sense. Who in the hell designed Toronto’s subway system? The impractical waste of money that is called the TTC basically amounts to a straight line running through a narrow “U” shape. And a monthly pass costs about twice as much as one in Montreal. 10. Montreal isn’t a sprawling suburban wasteland. The Greater Toronto Area is where Torontonians who have given up on life go move into cookie-cutter houses and burden themselves with the worst commute in North America. -
Vancouver Becomes First City to Pave Its Streets With Recycled Plastic Read more: Vancouver Becomes First City to Pave Their Streets With Recycled Plastic | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building by Kristine Lofgren, 11/25/12 http://inhabitat.com/vancouver-becomes-first-city-to-pave-their-streets-with-recycled-plastic/ The City of Vancouver has set the lofty goal of becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020 and, judging by their latest green innovation, they are thinking outside of the box to get there. To help up their green quotient, Vancouver has started paving its streets with recycled plastic. The city teamed up with GreenMantra of Toronto to melt together old plastic and asphalt to create a paving mixture that is much better for the environment than traditional asphalt. Traditional asphalt requires extremely high temperatures to allow it to flow easily, but by mixing in a recycled plastic binder, the asphalt flows at a much lower temperature, requiring up to 20-percent less fuel to produce. City engineer Peter Judd estimates that this could translate into a reduction of 300 tons of greenhouse gases per year. Using the plastic binder also reduces the amount of vapors released into the air when the asphalt is laid. The process costs about 1 to 3-percent more than traditional asphalt paving, but as the supply increases, costs are expected to drop. The environmentally friendly paving doesn’t look any different than traditional paving, and the city is currently testing the mixture before deploying it citywide. -
Read more: http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/new-green-tax-to-make-electronics-more-expensive-1.957018#ixzz26druCxzC Things just got more expensive again in this province I wonder what else is left for Quebec to tax us on? Quebec could make life harder for consumers buying stuff at Zara, H&M and others, by having a tax on clothes made in China, Bangladesh and other countries.
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Investing in infrastructure A question of trust Chicago pioneers a new way of paying for infrastructure May 12th 2012 | CHICAGO AND WASHINGTON, DC | from the print edition FOR decades America has underinvested in infrastructure—even though poor roads, delayed flights, crumbling bridges and inefficient buildings are an expensive burden. Deficiencies in roads, bridges and transport systems alone cost households and businesses nearly $130 billion in 2010, mostly because of higher running costs and travel delays. The calculated underinvestment in transport infrastructure alone runs to about $94 billion a year. This filters through to all parts of the economy and increases costs at the point of use of many raw materials, and thereby reduces the productivity and competitiveness of American firms and their goods. Overall the American Society of Civil Engineers reckons that this underinvestment will end up costing each family in the country about $10,600 between 2010 and 2020. Yet though investment in infrastructure would bring clear gains in efficiency, there is little money around, and all levels of government are reluctant or unable to pile up more debt. Traditional sources of funding, such as the (flat) tax on petrol, have delivered a dwindling amount of revenue as soaring prices at the pump have persuaded people to drive less. The federal government has been unable to get Congress to agree on other ways to generate new sources of funding for transport, to the point where money for new highways has almost dried up. For years America has talked about a federal infrastructure bank, which would blend private and public finance and would yield returns over a long number of years. Various other countries have tried the idea, but it has never caught on in the United States. Barack Obama wants $10 billion in funding as initial capital for a national infrastructure bank as part of his jobs plan. So far the idea has gone nowhere in Congress. In March the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, announced that his city could not wait for such help from elsewhere and will go it alone. With the speedy approval of the city council he created a new breed of infrastructure finance known as the Chicago Infrastructure Trust (CIT). The trust is not so much an infrastructure bank with money to hand out, but a city effort to match public infrastructure needs to private investors on a case-by-case basis; something more like an exchange. The city will finance the running costs of the trust itself to the tune of $2.5m. Several financial institutions are already lined up to make investments totalling $1.7 billion, among them Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, Ullico, Citibank and JPMorgan. The background to this is that Mr Emanuel wants to spend about $7 billion to rebuild the city of Chicago—on everything from streets, to parks, to the water system, schools, commuter rail and the main airport. Tom Alexander, a spokesman for the mayor, says the city cannot ignore the future as it deals with the present. But raising the money needed for new investment, while maintaining the current infrastructure, is a daunting task. The CIT allows Mr Emanuel to tap the private sector for money, rather than just raising taxes and borrowing. The private sector will invest money in projects and get it back in the shape of tolls, user fees, premium pricing or even tax breaks. The first project is an investment of $225m to make city buildings more energy-efficient. This is expected to reduce annual energy costs by $20m, and the savings will then be used to pay back the investors. The CIT will provide some capital, bond financing and grants. It will also offer tax-exempt debt to entice investors. Returns on investment could vary from 3% on tax-exempt bonds to 8% for equity partners. Private involvement should, in theory, improve the quality of projects that get undertaken. A politically-expedient but financially dubious project would be unlikely to generate enough money to interest private investors. Padding, short cuts or shoddy construction are less likely to be tolerated. And city leaders might in turn overcome their aversion to the efficient pricing of public resources such as parking and busy roads. At the moment, investor appetites are keen and the supply of potential projects looks ample. The project is causing some anxiety in Chicago, though. Although the new trust would leave all the resulting investment under public ownership, the city’s recent bitter experience with a bungled 75-year lease of its parking meters under a previous mayor has left residents fearful. And with reason. For example, experience with public-private partnerships shows that cost-benefit estimates can sometimes prove wildly optimistic. When projects go bad—leaving half-built roads and schools—they become a public problem. Private investment might well end up being recouped in higher user fees. Mr Emanuel is well aware that other cities are watching this experiment with interest. The mayor is a hugely ambitious man, who is undoubtedly keen to leave a lasting legacy, and who some believe may want to remain as mayor for a period of Daleyian proportions. He, of all people, will want to build something that other cities will want to copy, not avoid. http://www.economist.com/node/21554579
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A cautionary tale: Cheap glass window wall is not suitable for our climate http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/11/13/tor-glass-walled-condos.html Thermal Window Failure: How it Happens A Developer's Change of Heart Engineering Buildings to Perform Audio and Video Highlights Many of the glass condominium towers filling up the Toronto skyline will fail 15 to 25 years after they’re built, perhaps even earlier, and will need retrofits costing millions of dollars, say some industry experts. Buyers drawn to glass-walled condos because of the price and spectacular views may soon find themselves grappling with major problems including: Insulation failures. Water leaks. Skyrocketing energy and maintenance costs. Declining resale potential. Glass condominiums — known in the industry as window walls — have floor-to-ceiling glass, so essentially the window becomes the wall. Window walls generally span from the top of the concrete slab right to the bottom. The slow-motion failure of Toronto's glass condos http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/features/condos/ Over the past decade, Toronto's building boom has been dominated by tall glass condo towers. They've transformed the look of city skylines all over the world – especially here in Toronto, where according to Emporis.comwe've built more towers per capita than any other city in North America. But it may be a trend that puts style over substance. A small but growing chorus is sounding the alarm about the future of these buildings. Building scientists have known for a long time that glass-walled structures are less energy efficient than the stone and concrete buildings that were put up forty of fifty years ago. But the market demand for glass combined with the relatively low cost of glass-wall construction means the building industry has been happy to oblige. However, industry insiders warn that as energy costs climb, glass towers may become the "pariah" buildings of the future. In these stories, we explore the hidden costs of building with glass and the slow-motion failure of window walls. We also look at why the Ontario Building Code failed to make energy performance a priority, and meet a developer who is reconsidering the construction of such buildings. Building science consultant and University of Waterloo professor John Straube wrote a paper called Can Highly Glazed Building Facades be Green? View Paper [1MB .pdf] http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/features/condos/pdf/condo_conundrum.pdf John Straube John Straube, a building science consultant and professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo says glass condos are a "perfect reflection" of a society that's found it easier to throw things away than to build them to last. "We have a hard time," says Straube, "thinking five years when we buy a laptop, ten years when we buy a car. With these buildings – both the skin and the mechanical systems are going to have to be redone in a 25-year time frame. The concrete structure will be there a long time but in 20, 25 years time, we are going to see a lot of scaffolding on the outside of the buildings as we replace the glazing, sealants and the glass itself." Although falling glass from the condo balconies has attracted most of the public attention during the summer of 2011, building scientists warn that the long-term failure of the glass structures – although less sensational – is much more serious. More: how thermal window failure happens Window-wall systems Most of them are built using window-wall systems which have next to no insulation value, except for a half inch of heavy gas between the two panels of glass. As John Straube points out, what glass does really well is conduct heat. "A little experiment anyone can do at home is get a glass for drinking. Pour boiling water into it, and try and pick it up. You'll burn yourself." Straube, along with building science colleagues like Ted Kesik at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, warns that as energy costs climb, the costs of heating and cooling glass towers will increase the monthly fees. Kesik wrote a paper called The Glass Condo Conundrum (250KB .pdf) on the potential liabilities of glass towers. The Glass Condo Conundrum It's not just the energy costs. Glass structures require major maintenance much earlier in their life cycle than a traditional structure made of precast or brick. Straube warns maintenance costs will skyrocket in 20 to 25 years' time as the buildings age. The windows will begin to fog up, and the cost of replacing entire walls of glass will be prohibitive on highrise structures that can only be accessed from swing stages. Building scientists talk about the life cycle of a building, akin to a human life cycle, language that encourages people like Straube to see a building as an organism. "It has lungs," says Straube, "it has veins, all of that stuff – it has a structural skeleton." To Straube, a building is a living, breathing thing, enclosing the people who live inside. Building with glass walls is to miss the main point of a building, says Straube – sacrificing the protection that is a building's first duty for a beauty that is only skin-deep. "It's almost derogatory in my world," says Straube, "to forget about everything else that's part of experiencing a building. I like to think what is this building going to be like on a dark and stormy night. In our climate particularly, we care about that. It's life and death." Audio Introduction Matt Galloway spoke with Mary Wiens about the series. Listen (runs 6:11) Part One Mary Wiens introduces us to people concerned about the hidden costs of glass walls. Listen (runs 6:48) Part Two A developer of glass towers tells us why he will never put up another one. Listen (runs 6:28) Part Three Mary Wiens asks engineers about the rise, and repair, of the glass towers. Listen (runs 6:38) Part Four Mary Wiens tours a new condominium with a young couple and their real estate agent. Listen (runs 6:50) Part Five Mary Wiens tells us about a solution that has helped produce more efficient cars and appliances, an approach that may have potential for condominiums as well. Listen (runs 6:59) Video Part One: How glass fails John Lancaster talks to David House about the potential problems facing owners of glass condos in Toronto. Watch (runs 3:16) Part Two: Hidden costs Kamela and Jason Hurlbut are looking for their first dream home but there are hidden costs to living in Toronto's glass condos. Watch (runs 3:19) Part Three: The ripple effect If I can't sell my condo, I can't buy your home. John Lancaster looks at the possible ripple effect in Toronto's real estate market. Watch (runs 3:48)
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Dessau Chaboillez Square Client City of Montreal, Montreal, Canada Scope of Work Optimization study of the Chaboillez Square site for a 2.4 million sq. ft. real estate development. This 194,000 sq. ft. site was chosen for the construction of 2.4 million sq. ft. of office space, distributed mainly in three towers (25+ floors each) built on a 10-floor podicum. The personnel at Plania, Dessau's urban planning and landscape architecture subsidiary, created several different development scenarios. This allowed the team to select the option that best balanced development costs, profitability and urban integration issues, while minimizing impacts on local traffic. Challenges * Reconcile urban, economic and functional requirements. © Dessau Copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved
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Dana FlavelleBusiness Reporter Dana Flavelle Business Reporter There’s a bill before the U.S. Congress that would allow Americans to bring back $1,000 worth of Canadian goods duty-free after just a few hours of shopping across our border. Meanwhile, Canadians can’t bring back anything from the U.S. duty-free until they’ve been away for 24 hours. Even then the limit is $50. This protectionism is one of the reasons U.S. retailers who open up shop in Canada can charge higher prices here than in their home market, an economics professor says. “There are two reasons prices are higher in Canada,” said Ambarish Chandra, a professor with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “It is more expensive. Retailers here have to pay higher taxes and have somewhat higher costs. But a larger part of it is because they can get away with it.” Canadians can complain all they like but unless they do more cross-border shopping, retailers here will charge whatever the market will bear, Chandra said. The same barriers exist online: Canadians are charged duty on items shipped across the border. The Consumers Association of Canada says it has lobbied Ottawa to raise the limits, noting the maximum exemption - $750 after a week-long stay - hasn’t changed in more than 15 years. But the consumer group says its efforts are always opposed by Canadian retailers. The Retail Council of Canada denies it has lobbied the government on this issue. “In an age when you can shop around the world, travellers’ exemptions would be the least of our concerns,” said council president and chief executive Diane Brisebois. “We have not had any conversations with the government about exemptions.” Ottawa doubled the exemption for 48-hour trips outside the country to $400 from $200 in 2007, but has no plans to make further changes at this time, said a spokesperson for federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. “We continually monitor the adequacies of the travellers’ exemption for Canadians. This includes taking into consideration the impact of any further modifications on the government’s budgetary balance and the impact on Canadian retailers,” the minister’s office said in a written statement. The U.S. currently allows $200 for same-day shopping. The issue of retail price parity arose again this week after some Canadian customers complained U.S. retailer J. Crew is charging higher prices in its new Canadian store and on its Canadian website than in its U.S. stores and on its U.S. website. The difference in the stores averages 15 per cent; the difference online is up to 40 per cent, once taxes and shipping are included. Canadians have been railing about price differences between the two countries ever since the Canadian dollar rose to parity with the U.S. greenback in 2007 after years in the doldrums. “It’s come to the fore again because the Canadian dollar is so strong and so many U.S. retailers are coming here,” said Lynn Bevan, a partner with the consulting firm RSM Richter in Toronto. Bevan said retailers who bring their operations north of the border face a slew of higher costs, from duty and freight to real estate and labour. Overhead costs in Canada are spread across fewer stores, and in some cases the Canadian business is separately owned and must pay royalty and other fees to the U.S. parent. “It’s not like Canadian retailers are making out like bandits,” she said. Prices were on average 20 per cent higher in Canada than in the U.S. on a broad range of goods from DVDs to luxury cars to golf balls, according to a survey last April by Doug Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. The only times the price gap has closed in the past four years are when the Canadian dollar has dropped below the U.S. greenback, Porter said. http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1043928--canadians-need-higher-duty-free-limits-prof-says
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Canada may be a hotspot for retail expansion, but lease costs in the country’s fanciest downtown shopping districts are still a relative bargain compared to other global centres. Toronto’s Bloor Street area was the priciest in Canada at $291.66 (U.S.) a square foot, according to Colliers International. Toronto is the only Canadian city to make the Top 50 in the report, coming in as the world’s 37th most expensive retail leasing market. The most expensive space in the world can be found on Fifth Avenue in New York, where lease costs are $2,150 a square foot – gaining 70 per cent over last year. The top five is rounded out by Hong Kong’s Russell Street ($1,510, up 25 per cent), Paris’s Avenue des Champs-Elysees ($1,310, unchanged), London’s Old Bond Street ($962, unchanged) and Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse ($955, up 14.2 per cent). Ste-Catherine Street West in Montreal was the second most expensive Canadian location, at $204.15, a drop of 4.5 per cent. Saskatoon saw the biggest jump in Canadian lease rates, with Broadway Avenue gaining 25 per cent to $34.03. Other Canadian sites included: Calgary’s Uptown 17th Avenue at $53.47 (down 26 per cent), Downtown Edmonton at $43.75 (unchanged), Halifax’s Sprig Garden Road at $48.61 (unchanged), Ottawa’s Byward Market at $38.89 (down 20 per cent), Vancouver’s Robson Street at $194.44 (unchanged) and Victoria’s Government Street at $53.47 (unchanged). “After two successive years of lackluster growth, the world’s top retail streets once again regained their vitality, as reflected by a general rise in rents in many of the world’s premier shopping districts,” the report states. “As the lingering effects of the global downturn faded during the latter half of 2010, rising demand for the world’s most prime retail real estate was evident in many countries as many new retailers sought to establish a foothold in the world’s most prestigious avenues.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/canadas-retail-space-still-a-deal-report/article2050037/
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Renduring Completed Built: 2006 Its on the McGill campus. Matrox, President paid $10 million to cover part of the costs.
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Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (EUT) may be on the brink of discovering a breakthrough that will lead to reduced pollution and cleaner air for all. According to the EUT, a roadway made of concrete blended with titanium dioxide can effectively remove up to 45 percent of the nitrogen oxides that it comes in contact with. The titanium dioxide, a photocatalytic material, captures airborne nitrogen oxides and, with the aid of the sun, converts it to nitrates that are harmlessly washed away by the rain. The EUT conducted real-world studies on a 1,000-square-meter section of repaved road in the Netherlands. Such testing showed that the laced pavement could reduce nitrogen oxides by 25 to 45 percent more than traditional concrete. As Jos Brouwers, professor of building materials at the EUT remarked, "The air-purifying properties of the new paving stones had already been shown in the laboratory, but these results now show that they also work outdoors." Additional testing is still underway and although the pavement laced with titanium dioxide does cost some 50 percent more than regular cement, overall road-building costs only increase by a marginal 10 percent. Costs aside, the advantages of the titanium dioxide are readily apparent, but the implementation of such a product requires repaving our roadways – a time intensive and costly endeavor. [source: Eindhoven University of Technology] http://w3.tue.nl/en/news/news_article/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=9833&tx_ttnews[backPid]=361&cHash=d58ad9cc61 -
LA Metro picks up more natural gas buses
un sujet a posté mtlurb dans Urbanisme, architecture et technologies urbaines
The 200 compressed natural gas (CNG) buses acquired in 2003 by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) have worked out so well that LA Metro is hiring 96 more. The Cummins Westport vehicles, which run 20 feet longer than traditional city buses and bring 30-percent more power to the table (while claiming bragging rights to low emissions) use a 6-cylinder, 8.9L CWI L Gas Plus CNG mill with 320 hp. Perfect for the city, the buses help LA Metro cash in with lower operating costs, better performance and reduced emissions. http://www.autoblog.com/2006/03/30/la-metro-picks-up-more-natural-gas-buses/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+weblogsinc/autoblog+(Autoblog) -
BP oil spill's real impact on Canada's energy sector
un sujet a posté jesseps dans Discussions générales
(Courtesy of The Calgary Herald) -
Canada rejects idea of building new isotope reactor
un sujet a posté jesseps dans Discussions générales
(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette) -
La Presse threatens union with closure By Mike King, The Gazette September 4, 2009 La Presse newspaper employees talk during preparations for a meeting for employees at the Palais des congrès in June 2009. La Presse newspaper employees talk during preparations for a meeting for employees at the Palais des congrès in June 2009. Photograph by: Phil Carpenter, Gazette file photo MONTREAL – La Presse, North America’s largest French-language broadsheet, will stop publication Dec. 1 if its 700 employees don’t give up $13 million in concessions between now and that date. Caroline Jamet, the 125-year-old newspaper’s vice-president of communications, confirmed publisher Guy Crevier sent the staff an email yesterday informing the workers they have three months to reach an agreement to avoid suspension of both the paper and its website, cyberpresse.ca. In acknowledging La Presse’s current business model “has no chance of surviving,” Crevier noted how management has cut its share of the $26 million needed to be reduced this year to continue operations and that contract negotiations must be sped up to get the other half from the 600 unionized workers. “We have to reduce our cost structure and the only missing link is the contribution of the employees,” Jamet told The Gazette. She said the main issue is the 32-hour, four-day work week that the company wants changed to 35 hours over five days because of the expense of extra staff for that fifth day. That move would likely result in the loss of about 100 jobs, but Jamet added retirements and voluntary departures could reduce the number of layoffs. Crevier, also president of Gesca Ltée – the Power Corp. of Canada subsidiary that owns and publishes La Presse and other French-language papers in the province and Ontario – listed what was done to cut $13 million: • Ceased publication of its Sunday paper June 28 • Reduced the size of the paper to reduce paper costs • Put a voluntary departure program in place • Concluded agreements with financial institutions for new financing, including to cover the “seriously underfunded” pension plan. He first announced to employees in June that, facing an anticipated $215 million deficit by 2013, the paper was seeking to cut costs by $26 million annually over the next five years. It was at that meeting the decision on the Sunday paper was made known. Union leader Hélène De Guise said the longer work week is one of the items being negotiated as well as the possibility of trimming employees’ vacation time. But she added the bargaining team wants to further analyze Crevier’s pronouncement before making any further comments. The last collective agreement expired Dec. 31. Crevier ended his missive stating: “The future of La Presse, your future, is in your hands. It’s up to you to decide.” Jamet, also spokesperson for Gesca, said the measures being taken at La Presse presently have no effect on the chain’s other dailies: Le Soleil in Quebec City, La Tribune in Sherbrooke, Le Nouvelliste in Trois-Rivières, La Voix de l’Est in Granby, Le Quotidien in Saguenay and Le Droit in Ottawa. It is up to the publishers at each of those papers to identify how to cut their costs, she added. In July, the Boston Globe’s union approved a package of $10 million in wage and benefits cuts after owner The New York Times had threatened earliler this year to close New England’s biggest paper unless major concessions were made. The same thing happened at the San Francisco Chronicle in March in order to avoid being closed by the Hearst Corp. mking@thegazette.canwest.com © Copyright © The Montreal Gazette
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(Courtesy of Public Mobile) Thing is they are going to use CDMA G-Band. They are targeting the 38% of Canadians who do not have mobile phones. Seems interesting. Only way this can work if their plans are like $10/month or something.
