Category: Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
Hicks on Biz columns from The Edmonton Sun
Stephen Mandel and Reg Milley, two fine civic leaders, are both stepping down.
Mandel, of course, as mayor after three terms. Milley is soon to retire as CEO of the Edmonton International Airport.
What we’ve seen during their watch – Mandel became mayor in 2004, Milley arrived in 2005 – is the greatest infrastructure sprint in Edmonton’s history.
And, just as important, they leave behind a powerful, positive attitude.
This urban region is close to a once-Utopian goal, to be in the Top 10 of the world’s best mid-sized cities.
From “good enough” to “yes we can!” in under a decade is powerful stuff.
Steve, please pass me the list of infrastructure projects completed during your mayoralty. But, before, a shout-out to the province and the feds, who poured cash into our catch-up. And oil sands development just might have something to do with our cash flow.
The envelope please.
Henday Drive – just about complete and stop-light free, ...
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The King & I Thai Restaurant
8208 107 St.
780 433 2222
Thekingandi.com
Food: 4.5 of 5
Ambiance: 3.5 of 5
Service: 3 of 5
Dinner for two, excluding beverages and tip: basic, $30; loaded, $60.
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Good news! Good news!
The King & I Thai Restaurant is back!
Not that the King & I ever actually closed its doors. But you might say it had been resting on its laurels.
Twenty-three years ago, partners Eric Wah and chef Hoa Chung opened the original King & I in a tiny space on the corner of 102 Street and Whyte Avenue.
With excellent Thai-fusion dishes not seen in the city before, plus a most welcoming atmosphere, the restaurant quickly attracted a large, devoted following.
Eric was sociable and plugged in – there to help out from the lowliest of charity events to catering for the Rolling Stones or the Oilers. Hoa happily stayed in the kitchen, cooking day and night.
But here’s the difficult part. And I think I know why.
Over ...
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Oliveto Trattoria
500 Riverbend Square (Terwillegar and Rabbit Hill roads)
780 435 6411
http://www.oliveto.ca/about
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Food: 4 of 5 stars
Ambiance: 4 of 5 stars
Service: 4 of 5 stars
Dinner for two, excluding beverages: Basic, $40; Loaded, $90.
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Restaurants are not necessarily complicated businesses.
Buy fresh everything, use it quickly, don't overcook, seek out quality at every turn, be generous in portions.
Don't overcharge.
Create an attractive décor with an overall colour scheme. Create a pleasant atmosphere with a maître d’ and servers who genuinely like their customers and want them to be happy.
Which is why, in a nutshell, the long-established Oliveto Trattoria in Riverbend Square continues to be a destination of choice for Riverbend and West End residents.
In addition to the ingredients above, Oliveto is consistent. My friends who took me to Oliveto's had been customers for years. It ain't rocket science. The ...
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Nothing is more irksome than the Keystone XL pipeline protesters calling our oil sands oil the “dirtiest oil on the planet” or Al Gore claiming there’s no such thing as ethical oil, only “dirty and dirtier oil.”
For two years, I have been reading everything I can get my hands on about the oil sands, pollution and technology.
I have reached quite the opposite conclusion of Mr. Gore.
If the technological advances in the oil sands continue at the current pace, if energy producers continue to invest in oil sands’ research at current levels, if provincial and federal regulators continue to raise the bar to ensure world-leading environmental standards, oil-sands oil will be one of the world’s cleanest energy sources.
If a proposed new factory or electricity plant put out a call for the best environmentally friendly fuel source – be it wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, natural gas or oil - our oil-sands oil will soon be competitive at a fraction of the c ...
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What is there about Edmonton, Alberta, Canada that represents the best of Canada, North America or world-class?
Here's the start of a list below.
If you'd like to add to it, please e-mail me at graham.hicks@hicksbiz.com or Facebook (Graham Hicks) or add a comment.If you have the source of your statistic, please include it.
I'd like to make this the "go-to" list for Edmonton's points of pride.
Last updated, April 27, 2013
PCL Construction, Canada’s largest construction company and sixth in North America, is headquartered here.
Stantec is a Canadian architecture, design and engineering giant, closing in on its goal of being in the top 10 North American construction service firms.
North American’s second largest energy park is Leduc-Nisku with 4,650 acres and another 3,000 acres in reserve by the airport. Its 600 companies are leaders in adaptive technology for oil extraction. Three-quarters of them sell internationally.
The deep bitumen extraction technology of choice, Steam Assisted ...
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BY GRAHAM HICKS ,EDMONTON SUN
Wave goodbye to the bitumen upgrader.
Hold a funeral for the giant “pre-refineries” that, until 10 years ago, were still expected to dot Alberta’s Industrial Heartland around Fort Saskatchewan, each employing thousands of construction workers for years on end, each pumping $7 billion or more into the Alberta economy.
Upgraders are so dead that oilsands giant Suncor has walked away from a staggering $3 billion – that’s 3,000 million dollars – it had already invested in its on-site Voyageur upgrader. Suncor officially cancelled the project last week.
New Suncor President Steve Williams couldn’t justify spending the additional $7 billion needed to complete the upgrader, not with better “opportunity costs” elsewhere in the oilsands, i.e. using the $7 billion to expand bitumen production.
Upgraders made sense right up to the building of Shell’s Scotford complex in the late ‘90s.
Running molasses-like b ...
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“Make Something Edmonton” works as an Edmonton slogan.It may be generic, but it keys in on the essence of Edmonton.We do make things happen in this city and region. (References to "Edmonton" in this column means "Greater Edmonton." We're all in this together.)As slogan originator Todd Babiak points out, there’s no aristocracy here. We’re not glamorous, but we’re not phony. An urban “barn-building” culture means we get things done.The trick will be to spread the “Make Something Edmonton” expression beyond the downtown artisan community, to make the attitude expressed in that slogan a point of pride in the entire business community.Make Something Edmonton isn’t wishful thinking. It's reality.The git-‘er-done attitude and accomplishments of our entrepreneurs over the past decade has been remarkable. And in researching the “git-‘er-done” success of Edmonton, surprises have emerged.Mayor Steve Mandel has brought all the players onto the same page and pointing in the same direction. Before his watch, we squabbled e ...
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We still don’t know how it all started.But we do know.Most of us have driven through white-outs, knuckles as white as the pelting snow, intensely aware that the slightest mistake on the steering wheel could send our vehicle caroming out of control with just a few thin strips of metal between us and eternity.In our imaginations, a massive ghost truck looms out the whiteness.There’s nowhere to go but straight into its headlights.RCMP still truly don’t know how it all started at about 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 21, not until every collision report is complete and every driver and passenger interviewed.On the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, 20 kilometres south of Leduc, 50 kilometres north of Ponoka, just past a rise, in the midst of a white-out, heading north, one vehicle must have collided with another.Vehicle after vehicle came over that rise, sliding helplessly into other vehicles – sedans, SUVs, pick-ups, bigger trucks, tractor-trailers, fuel-tankers, buses, cattle-liners.The lucky ones, about half of the 85 ...
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A few weeks ago, every mad dog in that online kennel known as the Hicks on Biz comment section was taking a chunk out of my sorry rear for the suggestion, the mere suggestion, that Alberta Premier Alison Redford was a pretty smart political cookie.Well, after that provincial 2013/14 budget announced on March 7, I apologize.The mad dogs were right.Her fiscal course for the coming year was politically expedient, but not what was right for Alberta.Redford took the easy way out.The 2013/14 budget was a watershed.Redford and her Conservative government could have introduced new taxes and at the same time kick-started the Heritage Fund.She had the perfect storm. The Alberta public was ready to accept short-term pain for long-term gain.Martha and Henry, Ralph Klein’s “severely normal” Albertans, have finally realized we can’t spend every penny of oil royalties and never save for tomorrow. With minimal new taxes and much the same spending, Redford could then have diverted 30% of oil revenues into savings, as envision ...
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Curling is Canada's most peculiar sport.The Tim Hortons Brier, entering into its final playoffs and championship games Saturday and Sunday at Rexall Place, is expected to sell at least 200,000 tickets.It will have been televised its entire eight-day run, on Canada's most watched sports network, TSN.The Brier, says Canadian Curling Association events director Warren Hansen, will cost $3 million to $4 million to produce.It will earn, from ticket sales and sponsorship/TV revenue (including government incentives) $4 million to $5 million.Most sports with such a big audience, as a rule of thumb, split net revenues on a 50-50 basis with its performers, i.e. the athletes.But the Brier will spend just $500,000 on the 12 teams. It will cover all their expenses, and provide prize money for the winning teams.That's 10% of net revenues in this case, not 50% as in other major professional sports.Curlers, even at the Brier level, are not fully professional. The sport is an income-producing hobby. "In a good year," says for ...
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