Category: Money
Coolest business card ever
The format of a standard business card is so inherently boring, it cries out for creative embellishment. In place of the usual 2×3-inch card, games inventer Will Wright (SimCity) hands out worthless paper currency stamped with his contact information.
This bill, which Wright recently gave The Atlantic’s technical editor Alexis Madrigal, happens to be from Yugoslavia, a country that no longer exists. Fittingly, it features electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla. (That’s the blurred-out stamp on the right-hand side.)
Why didn’t we think of that, dear reader?
H/T: Alexis Madrigal
Ships start singing here
The Canadian Beaver Band offers a jaundiced musical view of Halifax’s spankin’ new ship contract [possibly NSW].
H/T: Charlie Phillips
What no one dares say about Sydney’s harbor dredging project
In a call to CBC-Cape Breton last week, North Shore resident David Papazian spoke a widely held but rarely voiced opinion about the $38 million project to dredge Sydney Harbor in hopes that someone will build container terminal here:
The money could be much better spent fostering small business here in Cape Breton which is a much better engine of growth than these sort of mega-projects that require huge amounts of capital at the taxpayers’ expense, with a whole lot of expectations and dreams and hopes that — maybe not, but very likely — will become another chapter in the probably fairly long history of frustrated economic development here in Cape Breton.
Here’s the whole call:
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Papazian mixes up his geography a bit — the alternative terminal is at Melford, not Guysborough Town — but his broad strokes echo private assessments I’ve heard in Halifax and Ottawa: The Halifax terminals are loping along well below capacity, and the proposed Melford terminal is well ahead of Sydney’s in the planning pipeline.
But support from CBRM Mayor John Morgan, CPC candidate Cecil Clarke, and various business and community development interests gave the project sacred cow status that no one wants to buck.
The YHZ-YQY rip-off — rebuttal
Air Canada did not respond to Contrarian’s invitation to explain its price gouging on the Halifax-Sydney run, where it often costs more to get off in Halifax than to fly on to Toronto or St. John’s (original complaint here).
However, an Air Canada employee has argued forcefully that Sydney Airport (now called J. A. Douglas McCurdy Airport) “has extremely high fees and rents even for a Canadian Airport.”
I challenged my correspondent for specifics, and he responded:
I called the YQY airport and asked how much it cost to land an airplane. There does not seem to be anything published. [An employee] said it was $6.97 per 1,000 kgs. up to 20,000 kgs. and $8.80 per 1,000 after 20,000 kgs. Abbotsford, BC, charges $2.82 per 1,000 kgs.*
Air Canada’s fees are governed by a contract, but I bet anything it cost three times what it would to land in YQY over any comparable airport.
A Dash 8 weights in the range of 15000 kgs, so if this logic follows it would add $100 per flight. [Not sure about my correspondent's math. I make it about $900 more to land in Sydney than Abbotsford, or roughly $23 per round trip ticket at full capacity of 39 passengers. - PD] The parking fees and terminal fees are also rumoured to be much higher. We also pay for the right to park equipment such as loaders, air-starters, and the like on the tarmac.
Airport rent has been discussed to death in other venues so I will not repeat what has been said, but it costs a fortune to keep offices in YQY.
If I buy a ticket from YQY, the Airport Improvement fee (AIF) is $28.75. From YHZ to YQY it’s $23.00.
Everything in YQY is more expensive than it is elsewhere at least on the surface. I toften hear scuttlebutt where staff says YQY is the
most expensive airport in Canada. Suffice to say that YQY is paying through the nose for year-round service. I know that when you fly the planes are full, but in the winter months the planes are just about vacant.
* My correspondent acknowledged the Sydney-Abbotsford comparison is not apples-to-apples, because Abbotsford adds on a per-seat charge, which Sydney does not. The writer was not authorized to speak for Air Canada, so I have not used his name.
I’d love to hear The Sydney Airport Authority’s rationale for its high prices, but none of this explains or excuses Air Canada’s screwy practice of charge less for a two- or three-leg flight to St. John’s or Toronto, and more for the first leg only.
Contrarian advises everyone flying between Halifax and Sydney to see if you can save money buy purchasing a longer flight but only using the YQY-YHZ portion.
The YHZ-YQY ripoff — it still doesn’t add up
Contrarian’s aviation guru, Adrian Noskwith, thinks the Porter Airlines 50%-off sale may have played a role in the weird pricing I encountered flying from Toronto to Sydney (as Joe MacKay argued), but it’s not the whole story.
Airline pricing is a weird science at the best of times. When Porter is whipping Air Canada’s ass out of Toronto Island, as they are at the moment, this drives airline pricing executives to do even weirder things.
But why is it consistently cheaper to fly from Sydney to St. Johns (via Halifax) than from Sydney to Halifax?
To check this claim, I priced one-way Air Canada tickets for a week from today.
From Sydney to Halifax:
From Sydney to St. John’s via Halifax:
Cheapest Sydney to Halifax fare: $259. Cheapest Sydney to Halifax to St. John’s fare: $149. What a deal: Travel almost four times as far (1180 total km. v. 303 km.) and pay 40 percent less.
Is it too much to ask Air Canada to explain why Canada’s national airline continues to gouge Cape Bretoners flying to Halifax? Just Email an explanation, dear Air Canada brass.
That YHZ-YQY ripoff – a partial explanation
I am posting from the tarmac at Montréal-Trudeau Airport, part way through the strangely priced Air Canada flight I wrote about here. Contrarian reader Joe MacKay offers a plausible if partial explanation for Air Canada’s charging more for a Halifax-Sydney ticket than the Toronto-Sydney ticket I’m flying on, even though the Halifax-Sydney leg is the same flight on the same plane I’ll be taking.
I think this was a side effect of a Porter sale. Porter ran 50% off flights from the Island briefly a week or so ago. Air Canada responded (as they do) with a predatory sale on all bookings from same. Evidently their 50% discount hit your ticket all the way to Sydney. Since the Halifax-only booking didn’t involve Toronto Island Airport, it would have remained full(ish) fare. Moral: there are two wronged parties here—the people of Cape Breton and the airline that doesn’t hate you.
Less is more: the YHZ-YQY ripoff
Contrarian needed to make a reservation yesterday from Toronto to Sydney. The fact I had to get all the way to Sydney meant I couldn’t use Porter Airlines’ magnificent service from Toronto Island Airport.
Porter is the upstart airline known for its curious, retro habit of treating passengers as welcome guests. Leaving from the Island Airport avoids the time and money wasted getting to and from unspeakable Pearson.
So I made a quick check to see if Air Canada could accommodate me from Toronto Island. To my astonishment, I found the following:
$219.36 is an almost unheard of low fare. As I snapped it up, my flight-savvy friend wondered, ”What would it cost to buy the Halifax-Sydney leg by itself?” The answer will come as no surprise to Sydney travellers:
The poor sod taking the 50-minute flight from Halifax to Sydney in the most efficient aircraft Air Canada flies will pay $339.24 — more than half again as much as Contrarian paid to fly all the way from Toronto to Sydney, on an itinerary that included the same YHZ-YQY flight. The guy flying from Halifax pays $1.11 per kilometer; I paid 14 cents per kilometer.
I’m not quick to pull the regulation trigger, but the way Air Canada abuses its monopoly on the lucrative Halifax-Sydney run to gouge Cape Breton residents, business people, and tourists is crystal clear to everyone but the Competition Bureau and Transport Canada.
Where’s that shovel? —feedback
For the better part of a decade, developers have successfully quashed efforts to block new office and residential projects in the city, and then failed to build them. Contrarian reader Marian Lindsay asks:
What gives? Does anyone have anything to say about all this procrastination? This seems a ridiculous waste of time and perfectly good space. Does no-one in power find this unacceptable? Can no-one get these projects rolling?
And, why, I ask, if these are private developers, are they dependent on government hand-outs? Has this just become the standard way of operating in this province? Yet, it seems to me, that business interests, and the right-leaning public refuse to accept, or give any break whatsoever, to governments who want to give so-called hand-outs to the “small citizens” who really need it to live. But it seems they are fine with corporate hand-outs (while usually denying that they exist) to build projects often of questionable need, and dubious design (it would seem to some).
What’s wrong with this picture, Nova Scotia?! Perhaps we really ARE as backward and stupid as some in the rest of Canada think we are! Even so, is it necessary for us to make it so easy for some people to claim this? I can only shake my head at the things that go on – or fail to go on – here.
I don’t know, but perhaps Ms. Lindsay should keep an eye on the Chamber of Commerce this morning where, according to media reports, Defence Minister Peter MacKay will announce $47 million in federal funding for Joe Ramia’s controversy-drenched Halifax Convention Centre. That’s on top of $56 million each from the province and the city.
So maybe, just maybe, developers who aren’t being showered with government subsidies don’t appreciate having to compete for tenants against a developer who is.
Just a thought.
Where’s that shovel again?
Developers often portray Halifax as a place where they face a demoralizing obstacle course of preservationists and pencil pushers whenever they try to build anything. But lately, the self-styled progressives have been winning the day, vanquishing opponents to win approval for project after project.
So where are the shovels?
A friend of Contrarian took a stroll around downtown Halifax recently and sent us this photo album of projects long since approved but not yet begun.
Sisters missing, not twisted
This project, approved in 2007 after a long fight with its detractors, featured two buildings with vertical twists, like licorice sticks. The “Twisted Sisters” were to replace the unlamented Tex-Park garage at Sackville and Granville.
Former O’Carroll’s et al
In 2008, then-premier Rodney MacDonald intervened in favour of development here because Halifax “must move forward, not step backward.” (Duke and Lower Water)
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church
Shovel-ready since May 2009. (Gottigen and Kaye)
Former Herald Building
The building was dreary, but the new view, created in March 2010, is worse. Work on a convention centre at the site will begin as soon as the developers can get more government money. (Argyle St.)
Former Midtown Tavern
The Midtown Tavern, with its terrazzo floor and access to the women’s washroom through the kitchen, had genuine character. Across from the Herald, it, too, makes way for the new convention centre – as soon as the developers can get more government money. (Grafton and Prince)
WDC Property
The Waterfront Development Corporation took back this lot in March 2011 after it got tired of waiting for the developer to break ground. (Lower Water St., across from the Brewery Market)
Unique view of Province House
This lot’s been empty so long that it would be unfair to include it if it weren’t across from Province House, Nova Scotia’s legislature (background). Mercifully, that building has so far escaped the attention of Halifax’s dynamic demolition development sector. (Barrington St., south of George St., looking through to Granville)
H/T: Anon.
How CBRM Police screwed an innocent bystander
Five months ago, Cape Breton Regional Police seized a computer belonging to Donnie Calabrese, a young self-employed musician, writer, events coordinator, and community volunteer. Here’s his account of what followed, posted today on his Facebook page:
On December 22, 2010 the police nabbed my computer. They were executing a search warrant on a case unrelated to me, in fact unrelated to anyone in my dwelling, and had to take all of our computers. Drag.
The fellows who came to the house were regretful. My plight did not fall on deaf ears.
“Yeah, this happens, we need to take all the computers. But, hey, call this guy (investigating officer) and they’ll probably have it ready for you in a week or so. We understand that this is not the computer we’re looking for.”
“Thanks guys.”
Hey, you know, sometimes folks get caught in that tricky realm of justice being served. With the prospect of taking it on the chin for the greater good, I bid these gentlemen adieu and began what would become my phoning ritual to the Cape Breton Regional Police.
At first I called all the time. Everyday. Surely they would not keep it well into the new year. “Hi there, I’m wondering if I could get it back soon–I’m doing this tour in the UK and it’d be great to have a way of conducting business while I’m there.”
“Not processed yet. Call back on Monday”
“Hey, I’m a free lance copywriter and I can’t work–it’d be really great if I had my computer back.”
“We’ll check with the tech guys. They’re really backed up.”
“I’ve lost all of my writing clients, I don’t have much to lose now, but it’d be great if I could still reply to communications from my various boards and committees that I volunteer on.”
“The investigating officer isn’t in now. Call back tomorrow.”
“Is there someone else I could speak to?”"No.”
Months in and in the face of futility, my inquiries became less frequent. I had a big hearted, bold legal advocate working on my behalf who has similarly become frustrated with this system. All the while, the police response has not changed. They are nothing if not very consistent in their community service.
“I’m going to check with the tech guys today.”
“Can probably get it for you at the start of the week.”
“I can sympathize with you.”
“We’re hoping to have it next week.”
So.
144 days later, the police have never contacted me, and I’ve not received my computer. I think the worst part is that someone our very own CBC Radio once called a community leader (that was me, really!) a young self employed musician, writer, events coordinator, volunteer [I'm sorry for this, it's a point I'm trying to make, but talking about myself like this really does make me uncomfortable] and proponent in civil society has now lost his faith in the police.
Mega drag.
I was always happy to cooperate with police, I’ve never had a negative run in with them. However these five months have been very hard–and to be jarringly frank, I don’t believe that anyone in our police service cares. They’ve sadly lost an educated, law abiding, citizen.
I know it’s a first world problem, but simply by virtue of you reading this on Facebook, you’ll understand that our computers are dreadfully important things (incidentally, I’ve borrowed this computer this morning to share my plight).
I’ve generally tried to be upbeat and private about this situation but I’m reaching utter despair. I thus ask you facebook friends for your help–your advice, your input, your letters to the Cape Breton Post, phone calls to the CBR Police–anything at all. The efforts of my wonderfully gracious volunteer legal advocate have likewise gone shrugged off. Often I’ve heard that in numbers we can make a difference. Maybe it is true.
Thanks all.
H/T: SG.
