Oct. 22, 2006: Various #2

Royal Bank balks at trust , Duncan Mavin, Financial Post, October 17, 2006
www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.ht
ml?id=e56047ca-adb9-495d-b789-60bb06e051b0

Royal Bank of Canada helped spark a volatile debate on income trusts last year by indicating some parts of the bank's business could be turned into a trust.

But yesterday Canada's largest bank provided a categorical statement it will not join in the latest wave of income trust conversions sweeping through corporate Canada.

[....] Income trusts pay out earnings to investors before any corporate taxes and have tripled in numbers over the past five years as investors look for income producing investments.

[....] The Bank Act -- the main law regulating the banks' behaviour -- does not permit the banks to convert their businesses into trusts. [....]

Perhaps if they went global .....

Related: Frost Hits the Rhubarb Oct. 13, 2006: Friday the thirteenth ... -- BCE income trusts, RIM's BlackBerry / Pearl, Jim Balsillie ..."Bell Globemedia, owner of The Globe and Mail and the CTV television network, along with an investment in Telesat Holdings Inc."

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2006/10
/oct-13-2006-friday-thirteenth.html




Can trust turn a frog into a prince? , David Berman, Financial Post, October 17, 2006

www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.ht
ml?id=e98922fa-90c8-4224-b8e4-c59c478c7c7f

[....] A new corporate structure, however, won't make up for a lousy underlying business. Pre-trust, BCE was widely regarded as a bet for suckers or investors willing to settle for a 4.5% dividend yield and little more.

One hedge fund manager commented last year that BCE was one of the riskier Canadian stocks, given the former monopoly's dismal prospects in an increasingly competitive environment.

It has been suffering from declining revenue in its local and long-distance telephone markets, thanks to the fact that the number of land lines has been shrinking steadily as more and more customers turn to alternatives.

Over the past four years, 600,000 local lines have been snipped, bringing the total down to 12.6 million at the end of 2005. There is plenty of room for further deterioration in this market. [....]

Greg Weston on Bob Rae , Greg Weston, posted by eliza99, 10/19/2006 08:24:32

www.canoe.ca/mb2/messages/cnewsf/12936.html

OTTAWA -- The good news for Bob Rae is that a recent Ekos Research poll shows he is the number one choice of ordinary Canadians to lead the Liberal party into the next election, his popularity for the Grit job presumably strongest among Conservative voters.

The bad news for Bob is that the closer he gets to the Grit ring, the more his creepy critics are going to dredge up all that nasty stuff about how he almost drowned Ontario in a sea of red ink during his four years as NDP premier. [....]

And so he should be proud, his accomplishments as premier showing clearly why this is the guy to run the country. For instance: [....]

Can't win department

MPs hand out compensation for Chinese head tax -- The federal government today began to redress the head tax once applied to Chinese immigrants, handing out the first of the $20,000 cheques to be issued as compensation. CTV.ca News Staff, 20/10/2006 12:45:54 PM
http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?newsitemid=
CTVNews%2f20061020%2fhead_tax_061020&feedname=
CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&showbyline=True

Vancouver MP and International Trade Minister David Emerson, along with Canadian Heritage Minister Beverley Oda presented the cheques in Vancouver on Friday afternoon. [....]

The Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality, however, said Ottawa had been too slow to address the issue.

"He only addressed point-six per cent of the head tax families -- less than one per cent -- of the head tax families that have survivors," the association's Sid Tan told The Canadian Press.

Not satisfied ... 400 survivors received cheques. When does the guilt geld end? There were 81,000 immigrants with descendants and $20,000 looks really good. They were fortunate to come to Canada, at whatever price. Enough!



A new line-up?

Search: Frost Hits the Rhubarb Sept. 10-16, 2006 -- Komagata Maru -- or Sept. 14, 2006: Komagata Maru ... Komagata Maru kin want amends -- Descendants of passengers on ill-fated ship call on Ottawa

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2006/09
/sept-14-2006-komagata-maru-global-drug.html




Stating the obvious ... the triumph of hormones over common sense

Single moms least likely to have stable income , CTV.ca News Staff, Updated Fri. Oct. 20 2006 10:11 AM ET

www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061020
/single_mom_061020/20061020?hub=Canada

[....] Between 1999 and 2004, volatility in earnings among single mothers aged 30 to 34 was almost twice that of two-parent families with a husband in the same age group.

[....] The two-decade study, part of the agency's Perspectives on Labour and Income, also found that income instability climbed for single mothers under 40 years of age between the years of 1984 to 1989 and the 1999 to 2004 period. [....]