Skip to main content

Canadian Data points & a Play:

Yesterday, Statistics Canada disclosed the March 2011 construction permit demands:  Up 17%.  This morning StatsCan announced that 58,000 jobs were created in Canada, of which about 13,000 were full time (BTW, for US readers that’s about equivalent to NFP printing 600,000 jobs – we know the market this morning is “hoping” for 185k).

The recent (this week) commodity price weakness will probably not change anything, being a metal & energy producer Canada is used to the wild gyration of commodities, and the productions companies of these goods, are well aware that nothing moves in a straight line.

A friend involved in the real estate segment was amazed by the construction boom in Ontario (where the majority of new construction permits were issued) where the $1,000 +sqf condo market is out of control.  This “ultra” luxury segment in Canada is being overbuilt and in their estimation will end in tears for someone.  Speculations are that rich investors are buying Canadian property as a hedge.  Bottom line Toronto is starting to behave like Vancouver, where rich foreigners have been buying bolt holes for years.  Implications for the Canadian real estate market are positive if foreign investors continue to look at Canada as a safe haven.


OK, enough crazy talk, last night I saw: À toi pour toujours, ta Marie Lou by Michel Tremblay, a giant among Canadian (Quebecois) playwrights.  First produced in 1971, when Tremblay was 29 years old, it is both fantastic and dated.  Fantastic because the word play between the four actors is impressive.  Only  a decade after the  quiet revolution which marketed the ending of the control of society by the Catholic Church, it is set in a poor blue collar household.

What intrigued in Tremblay’s play 40 years ago was his use of verbal iconoclasm to shock audiences.  Of course today its sounds a little more vulgar and not very shocking (although we are not so removed, as French Canadians, not to understand the social subtext), at the time, my guess, would be that nervous laughter greeted many scenes, whereas as today amusement seem to be more prevalent.  Tremblay’s thematic limits his characters’ verbal abilities since it is set in a poor blue collar household.  Despite these language limitations this meets all the criteria of a true Shakespearian tragedy, and the wordplay between the actors is truly impressive. 

Despite these “modern” limitation, the thematic remains valid today.  The play speaks of the human condition among the more desperate segment of the population. All four actors did a fantastic job, but then this is one of Quebec's most beloved play... you expect no less.  They were however let down by the direction and the staging which at time made the charter talk to the back wall of the stage -- I'm not deaf, but I could not quiet understand what the characters were saying, and the presence of water on the stage, just didn't get that.  Still a must see!

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b) ground beef requires process
Post a Comment
Read more

21st century milk parlour

When we first looked at building our farm in 2018, we made a few money-saving decisions, the most important is that we purchased our milk herd from a retiring farmer and we also purchased his milking parlour equipment.  It was the right decision at the time.  The equipment dates from around 2004/05 and was perfectly serviceable, our installers replaced some tubing but otherwise, the milking parlour was in good shape.  It is a mature technology. Now, we are building a brand new milk parlour because our milking cows are moving from the old farm to the new farm.  So we are looking at brand new equipment this time because, after 20 years of daily service, the old cattle parlour's systems need to be replaced.  Fear not it will not be destroyed instead good chunks will end up on Facebook's marketplace and be sold to other farmers for spare parts or expansion of their current systems. All our cattle are chipped, nothing unusual there, we have sensors throughout the farm, and our milki
Post a Comment
Read more

So we sold surplus electricity one time last summer...(Update)

I guess that we will be buying an additional tank for our methane after all.   Over the past few months, we've had several electricity utilities/distributors which operate in our region come to the farm to "inspect our power plant facilities, to ensure they conform to their requirements".  This is entirely my fault.  Last summer we were accumulating too much methane for our tankage capacity, and so instead of selling the excess gas, that would have cost us some money, we (and I mean me) decided to produce excess electricity and sell it to the grid.  Because of all the rules and regulations, we had to specify our overall capacity and timing for the sale of electricity (our capacity is almost 200 Kw) which is a lot but more importantly, it's available 24/7, because it's gas powered.  It should be noted that the two generators are large because we burn methane and smaller generators are difficult to adapt to burn unconventional gas, plus they are advanced and can &qu
Post a Comment
Read more