By Haddon Libby
In recent years, the Coachella Valley has benefitted from the free flow of Loonies to our community. I am not talking about that guy who inexplicably stops for green lights, argues with ghosts at Wal-Mart or spouts endless conspiracy theories.
I am taking ‘aboot’ our friendly neighbours to the North – Canadians. When these snowbirds migrate to our warmer confines for the winter, our desert becomes a happier and more crowded space. Our community also becomes wealthier because of their Loonies.
As I did at ‘aboot’ this time last year, I want to share with you and our Canadian friends a few news tidbits from the Great White North.
If you are having a pop with a Canadian, they might want to know that Canadian Coke will have its sugar content reduced from 10.5 to 9.7 teaspoons per can this month. Until now, Canadian Coca-Cola was sweeter than its American counterpart. As the Loonie has fallen by 15% over the last six months alone (25% since 2011), offer to pick up the tab.
Canadians are well known for their neigbourliness. Local police in Cornwall, Ontario proved how kind Canadians can be when they came to the rescue of a struggling couple. With a wife suffering from Alzheimer’s, her loving husband of 54 years was struggling to making ends meet. In order to buy groceries, he sold his wedding ring. When the local police heard about this, they collected money for the couple to live on, bought groceries and repurchased the elderly gentleman’s ring.
With this as a backdrop, it comes as no surprise that a recently released report by The Economist found that Toronto and Montreal are two of the best large cities in the world to live in. Both ranked ahead of San Francisco 5th, Los Angeles 11th and New York City 13th.
Remember Toronto’s former crack smoking Mayor and current councilman, Rob Ford? He is battling an especially aggressive cancer in his abdomen. While he readies for his sixth 27 day chemotherapy treatment in advance of having the tumor removed, he continues to be seen at numerous political events and has already begun talking about running for Mayor again in 2018.
In an unrelated story, whale watchers are stunned by recent observations of Orca whales rubbing themselves on smooth stones. This is happening near the Discovery Islands in British Columbia and appears to be the only place in that world that Orcas do this.
Down the river in Vancouver, someone recently ‘erected’ a 9-foot tall statue of a naked devil in the middle of the night. City officials quickly removed the statue.
Over in Ottawa, residents set a Guinness Book World record by building 1,299 snowmen in one hour, besting Salt Lake City’s mark of 1,279 snowmen in 2011. I personally think the Ottowans cheated as a large number of their snowmen were just piles of snow with carrot noses and coal eyes stuck on top.
Canada’s leaders are worried that their economy is slipping into recession. As such, the Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate from 1% to 0.75% last week. Look for more interest rate cuts in April.
Canadian leaders are challenged in making policy decisions as The Labour Force Survey, their report on the unemployment rate is so flawed that economists believe this statistic is virtually useless. It is hard to manage an economy when you have no idea as to whether it is doing well or poorly. Robert Fairholm, partner and economist at the Centre for Spatial Economics said it best, “It’s like driving with a blindfold on. The chance of a mishap happening certainly increases.”
The difference between their flawed unemployment survey and our flawed unemployment statistics is that their errors do not appear intentional…although a conspiracy theorist might disagree.
