How Expensive Are Toronto’s Fast Food, Street Food, and Restaurants?

My Last Video on Food Prices

I recently did a video on restaurant menu prices, fast food and street food prices in Toronto. You can watch this video by clicking the link on the top left of this article. What’s striking is that even after being a world-class city that ranks higher in various different global ratings, including one of the top ten cities most liveable on earth, Toronto’s food prices are still affordable and cheaper than those other most liveable cities.

In Toronto, you will find a Big Mac at McDonald’s at $5.49 Cad ($4.35 USD) and french fries at $1.49 Cad ($1.15 USD). At Subway, daily deals are $4.00 Cad ($3.19 USD) a sandwich and an Italian Hero Panini is $4.99 Cad ($4 USD).

A slightly upscale fast food chain called Hero Certified Burgers serves beef burger combo made without hormones & antibiotics for $17 Cad ($13.50 USD) that includes 2 4 oz. burgers, 2 ultimate fries and 2 drinks.

Chinese restaurants serving combos between $8 - $10 Cad ($6.35 - $8 USD), which are more than enough for one person and even 2 people can survive on it if you order another extra item a la carte.

Dining at an upscale restaurant (not super upscale) would cost $30 - $50 Cad ($24 - $40 USD) per person, which is still very cheap and reasonable. Similar dishes in another world-class city that’s on the top ten list would easily cost $80 - $100 Cad ($65 - $80 USD) per person.

The video has a variety of example items that you can watch and you can subscribe to my channel by going to my home page here: www.youtube.com/adawn

Canada Is Back In The Top 10 Of The Least Corrupt Countries

Canada Least Corrupt

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) tracks corruption worldwide and their 2007 Index was just published recently. 2007 CPI looked at 180 countries (the greatest country coverage so far) and collected corruption related data carried out by 14 expert opinion surveys. Canada is back in the top 10 of the least corrupt countries.

 In 2006 Canada fell out of the top 10 of the least corrupt counties. Critics argued that sponsorship scandal had a major role ranking Canada out of the top 10. I am glad we are no longer in the same ranking as 2006. Canada has always been a corruption free country and congratulations to Canada for maintaining this achievement. I expect Canada to rank even higher on the list in 2008.

Let me give you the top ten 2007 least corrupt countries with their score:

• Denmark 9.4

• Finland 9.4

• New Zealand 9.4

• Singapore 9.3

• Sweden 9.3

• Iceland 9.2

• Netherlands 9.0

• Switzerland 9.0

• Canada 8.7

• Norway 8.7

If you would like to find out more, please visit Transparency International website at http://www.transparency.org. 

First Published: Oct 1, 2007 ADawnJournal.com 

New Airline Foreign Ownership & International Tourism

Canada Introduces New Airline Foreign Ownership Rule

The Canada Transportation Act will go through a few amendments and one of them includes foreign ownership limits for airlines. This amendment will increase the foreign ownership limit of airlines to 49 percent (from 24 percent). This change will open up more competition in the Canadian skies and is definitely good news for travellers, both foreign and Canadians.

Airlines Will Not Be Allowed to Bump Passengers In Canada

Another change is coming to the industry under a new passenger Bill of Rights in the wake of United Airlines bumping off a passenger and causing serious injury. Passengers who have purchased tickets cannot be barred or bumped from planes just because airlines oversold tickets. Those who are agreeing to be bumped off voluntarily will have minimum levels of compensation.

Some other proposed changes under these new acts will be to create clear standards of treatment and compensation, such as lost or damaged luggage, delays while siting on the tarmac, voluntarily giving up a seat, etc. These new legislations are expected to take place in 2018.

International Tourism Increases in Canada

Canada’s fifteen-year tourism slump since 9/11 seems to be coming to an end. A recently published report by RBC Economics Research reveals that more tourists are coming to Canada and one in five tourists are coming from other countries than America.

The falling loonie is making visits to Canada more attractive from foreign countries. For example, tourists from China and South Korea were up 23 percent last year. Also, tourists from Mexico and the UK increased sharply, especially from the UK—which stayed at an eight year high last year.

Mega sites like the New York Times and Lonely Planet both currently have Canada on their list of top places to visit for 2017.

CI Financial's Unsolicited, Hostile Bid

CI Financial announced yesterday an unsolicited hostile offer to acquire all of DundeeWealth Inc for $20.25 per Dundee share. This offer follows the news last week that Dundee Wealth had reached a deal with Scotia Bank to sell Dundee Bank for $260 million and 18% of Dundee Wealth for $348 million (27.3 million shares at $12.76 each). Scotia’s offer represents a 5% premium to Dundee’s share while CI’s offer represents a 52% premium.

Not all CI’s bids were successful in the past. Let’s look at both successful and unsuccessful bids.

Successful Bids

CI bought the followings in the past:

1999 - BPI Financial Corporation

2002 - Spectrum Investment Management Limited

Clarica Diversico Ltd.

2003 - Assante Corporation

Synergy Asset Management Inc.

Skylon Capital Corp.

2004 - IQON Financial Management Inc.

Synera Financial Services Inc.

2007 - Rockwater Capital Corporation

Unsuccessful Bids

2000 - Mackenzie Financial Corporation

2005 - Clarington Corp.

Amvescap PLC(AIM/TRIMARK)

The major shareholder of Dundee Wealth is Dundee Corporation. Dundee Corporation owns 55% of the outstanding shares. Ned Goodman and his family created and still operate and control Dundee. It is unlikely that they would give up full control of Dundee Wealth (to CI) but they seem to be comfortable giving up 18% control to Scotia. I will be surprised if this bid turns out to be a successful bid for CI. Whether this bid becomes successful or not, one thing readers can be assured of is that this will not be the last bid attempted by CI Financial as CI has a history of making hostile (and friendly) bids for financial companies.

First Published: Sep 26, 2007

China’s Plunging Foreign Reserves

Yuan Continues to Outflow

Chinese currency remains worrisome to the global economy as Yuan continues to outflow causing declining foreign exchange reserve. As the Yuan is losing value, Chinese consumers are rushing to exchange them for U.S. dollars to preserve their value.

As there is a limit of exchanging Chinese currency annually to $50,000, consumers are trying to get around this rule by buying other tangible assets such as real estate, fine art, expensive wine, and so on. Another popular method to get around this rule is to use the quota of other people who have room and sometimes paying to use their quota.

The Chinese government is intervening in the market to stop rapid depreciation of Yuan by selling dollars and buying Chinese currency. However, this intervention is causing the plunging of the foreign exchange reserve. Chinese authorities are assuring everyone that there is nothing to worry about and these fluctuations are normal economic conditions.

January data shows that the foreign reserve declined by $12.3 billion to $2.9 trillion. Also, debt is rising rapidly and growth in GDP is slowing down. And there are more things to worry about as President Trump made it a priority to balance the trade deficit with China. China has been running trade surplus with the rest of the world persistently for the last decade. The USA had a trade deficit of $347 billion in 2016.

A declining Yuan, slowing GDP, and rising debt will likely contribute to bigger surplus as exports to China will suffer the most from all these.