HicksBiz Blog
Okay, so we are expected to suck it up and take one for climate change.
Soon, Alberta’s middle class families will be turning over hundreds more dollars a year in a carbon tax – i.e. much higher taxes on gasoline powering our vehicles and natural gas heating our homes, and who knows what else.
This will raise billions of dollars, which will all be re-invested, Premier Rachel Notley promises, into ways and means of becoming a “carbon-free” province.
Here’s my problem: Notley’s criticism of past Conservative governments for “not doing anything” about climate change is totally and absolutely wrong.
Alberta – our research institutes, universities, energy companies and our unique Climate Change & Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) – was a global leader in reducing GHG (greenhouse gas emissions) well before Ms. Notley came to power, and continues to be a world leader.
Let me count the ways.
Up in the oilsands, most of the major ...
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This is a tale of how two different businesses, The Parkallen Restaurant group and the Burger Baron chain, react – or don’t react — to business conditions or unexpected circumstances.
On 109 Street, 10 blocks south of Old Strathcona, two generations of the Rustom family have spent decades building the original Parkallen into an excellent eatery with two parallel menus – one featuring up-scale, excellent Mediterranean cuisine, the other offering a wide range of pizzas.
Through circumstance rather than design, Joseph Rustom became the owner/operator of the recently opened West Parkallen Kitchen + Bar – a larger, less intimate space than the on-going South Side restaurant in a very different location – on 170th Street just north of 108 Ave.
A different location means different clientele, tastes and preferences. Rustom quickly realized the 170th Street location attracted customers seeking value and familiarity. The original Parkallen menu was simplified. A deli counter ...
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One by one, Edmonton's utopian dreams are crashing on the shoals of financial reality.
Blatchford was to transform the big, bad, City Centre Airport lands into the coolest, most environmentally friendly neighbourhood development ever.
Now Blatchford, developed by the City of Edmonton with no partners, is hitting the brakes for the simplest of reasons. It's costing too much.
All the cool stuff, the suck-it-away garbage removal, the artificial lake, has being removed from the plan. Edmonton City Council has been hit by sticker shock. The cost for Blatchford's district heating project have come in at around $200 million in upfront, non-recoverable capital costs. For $200 million, the city could buy 40,000 low-emission, natural-gas burning home furnaces!
Blatchford was all the rage, so hip, so trendy, until the cost to the city moved up to the hundreds of millions, with little hope of recovery. The technologies involved are still new and expensive. To deploy them at this point is asking for trouble.
...
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Everybody loves a deal. That’s why Groupon exists. That’s why restaurants have Two-For-One Mondays, Pasta Tuesdays, Half-Price Wine Wednesdays.
Until Sunday, March 20, thanks to Downtown Dining Week, almost every downtown restaurant of any repute is offering giant discounts — $15 per person for a two-course lunch, $28 for a three-course dinner, $48 for an “executive” (i.e. fancier) three-course dinner.
Of course the restaurant would be delighted to also serve you a cocktail ($13), a bottle of wine ($40), dessert ($8), a café latte ($4) and an after-dinner brandy ($15), which would certainly increase their meagre profit margin, slashed to the bone for Downtown Dining Week.
But if your goal is to get a fine meal at a deeply discounted price, to visit restaurants you otherwise couldn’t afford, move quickly. This window of opportunity closes down at closing time Sunday.
I’m delighted that so many top-quality restaurants have agreed to be a part of Downt ...
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Let's be realistic.
Alberta's oil will not get to "tidewater" on either of Canada's coasts, not for 10 or 20 years.
Those who believe fossil fuels are part of the climate change problem are winning the political battles in Ottawa, Quebec and British Columbia.
New or expanded pipeline proposals that need regulatory approvals will not get built. Environmental reviews, appeals, appeals of appeals - are now so time-consuming and so expensive as to make new pipeline construction near-impossible.
The only way increased production of oil - mostly heavy or diluted bitumen oil from the oilsands - can be moved is through existing pre-approved pipelines and rail lines. There's one realistic exception: New pipeline and new rail might be possible through friendly neighbouring jurisdictions.
Canada currently exports 3.7 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). The currently transport system is keeping up, barely.
Growth will still happen, slower than was predicted because of low oil prices, at an added 100,0 ...
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Moose Factory
Calgary Trail, Edmonton
Food: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Service: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two excluding drinks and tip: Basic, $40; loaded, $70
There are restaurant owners who work hard at being contemporary, sending chefs to Vegas to copy the trends.
And then there’s that rare animal, the restaurateur who knows, without consultants, without disturbing long-time customers, how to evolve with the times.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tom Goodchild and his Moose Factory Prime Rib & Steak House.
I have driven by the Moose Factory on Calgary Trail a thousand times, but hadn’t been inside for a decade.
What a delightful surprise. Combining atmosphere, service, food and value, The Moose Factory is – full stop, end of discussion - the best steakhouse in Northern Alberta.
One shouldn’t be surprised. Owner Goodchild may be well into his senior years, but the founder and guiding light of both the Moose Factory and the 10 Sawmill ri ...
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What was Daryl Katz doing, selling his Rexall drug store chain upon which he built his current fortune, for $3 billion to American pharmaceutical giant McKesson?
It’s about being where the puck is going, not where it is. It’s about long-term vision, strategic transformation and deliberate disruption, about Katz becoming a global business player, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg.
In the drug retail business, Katz sensed the time to exit is now, while the going is still good.
Rexall is primarily a bunch of drugstores, but the North America drug business is increasingly consolidating into “vertical integration”.
The same mega-companies, i.e. McKesson, manufacture, distribute and retail drugs. Katz didn’t see himself in drug manufacturing and distribution. He saw the storm clouds on the horizon if Rexall continued as only a drug retailer. Obviously he was offered good coin to sell to McKesson.
Buying the Oilers in 2008, ...
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Two years ago, the Weekly Dish went searching for the best fast-food burger in town.
The Harvey's Angus Burger finished on top at 4.5 out of 5 Suns, pursued by the A&W Poppa Burger (4.25 Suns). Then came the pack: The Fatburger Baby Burger (3.5 Suns), a Burger King Double Whopper (3.25 Suns), Wendy's Bacon Deluxe Single (3 Suns), the McDonald's Quarter Pounder (3 Suns), and Dairy Queen's Grill Burger (2.5 Suns).
Edmonton has since experienced an American burger invasion. Three franchises -- Five Guys, Smashburger and Carl's Jr -- have moved into the 'burbs.
St. Albert's Jack's Burger Shack has made a name for itself, as has the two-outlet Rodeo Burger. Alberta's Burger Baron group started way back in the '60s.
Part II of the War of the Classic Burgers, the rules: The venue had to be a burger joint, had to be fast-food The burgers had to have bacon and cheese with one big meat patty or a double. If there was a signature burger, that's what we ate.
Have prices ever jumped! Burgers in 2014 wer ...
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In Northern Alberta, “diversification” is near impossible.
At least 30% of the $306 billion that moved around Alberta’s economy in 2014 (the last year for which the province has these numbers) came directly from oil and gas production.
CAPP – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers – pushes that figure up to 42% when including energy-sector dependents like oilfield maintenance, fabrication, accounting, legal services and so on.
It’s pie-in-the-sky, quite ridiculous to suggest – as have several of our current provincial cabinet ministers – that Alberta can transition away from gas and oil production, yet maintain our quality of life.
The answer, articulated so well by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and badly articulated by Alberta’s current New Democrat government, is that “diversification” should be primarily directed to the industry that we are really, really good at.
The production, transportation and end-use of fossil ...
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Pampa Brazilan Steakhouse
9929-109 St.
780-756-7030
pampasteakhouse.com
Mon. to Fri. 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. (Friday, 10 p.m.)
Sat. 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Sun. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. (brunch), 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Food: 4.5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
There are days I feel so sorry for vegetarians.
Like the February 18th fifth anniversary party and YouCan Youth Services fund-raiser at the Pampa Brazilian Steakhouse. Guests feasted on leg of lamb, pork sausage, parmesan-crusted pork loin, bacon-wrapped chicken thighs, rump roast … and that was just the beginning.
Pampa celebrates meat, in all its glory. If the Noorish and Padmanadi restaurants are nirvana to the vegetarian/vegan set, Pampa is heaven come to earth for meat-lovers.
Five years ago, Edmontonian Oscar Lopez combined his love of Brazil’s steakhouses – born from working in that country, his hospitality background, his freshly minted University of Alberta MBA, his B ...
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