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A massive inbound to Canada travel campaign in the USA would be a great move. Pure export earnings for Canada. Help the airlines survive. Where we have capacity in the summer though, there isn't much slack in high season.

I know two friends last year who finally sold inner city towns they had been stuck with and rented out after they had moved on. The market got suddenly active and tight. Felt like lower end condos did in 2023, inventory was moving after years of stagnation. I suspected the first, single family...

Tariffs the USA brought in in the 1890s caused Canada's industrial and trade policy to orient away from the USA for 50 years. The USA is juicing their economy with huge deficits. Eventually that will need to end. It is clearly not. not when MAGA has declared that Canada is the out group, and...

You also don't need much imagination, to wonder where loyalties might lie, with at least 2 former MPs acting in the most helpful of ways to Pierre: and Premier Smith talking about a unity crisis and a referendum

I think people miss that Japan especially is/was a cash society, and didn't have the waves that Canada has had, replacing most cash uses. In absence of an Interac, there was room for a product to play 90% of Interac's role on the consumer side. I know Japan made a pro-tourism push in 2019-2020...

It is not a short term thing though. The Trump world's view and action on trade will cause a secular change to the economy. The deterioration of relations, likewise. The tools politicians (especially opposition ones) have are words. So it shouldn't surprise that mirroring the conduct and words...

That would be super easy to do credit, if that was all it was: charge an amount, spit out a paper validation. Transfers with multiple taps, fare capping, harder. I am not sure if debit stores a local record that is the equivalent of 'I have at least $20 in me'.

Interestingly, Angus Reid is also releasing sub-regional numbers this time around. The sample is large enough to show that big things are happening in Calgary. For the Calgary CMA (and if it had an margin of error, that would be ~8%, with a 145 sample): Vote Intent (support + Lean Decided...

A move like that, likely you and your comparables were in a very illiquid market. Once some comparables hit the market, the assessments move. Could also be zoning like multiplex rules? A lot which had disadvantageous influences, like being on a corner might all of a sudden be a prime target for...

Then it comes back around to, for Calgary, is a stored value card, with its constraints, better than paper passes and tickets? I'd argue it isn't. Which then you try to implement a cloud linked card, and it turns out that is really hard to do well.

It makes me wonder about tap for credit and debit cards. Prepandemic, the cards would have a certain balance on it that would be trusted for tap, a certain dollar amount, or number of transactions before the card would refuse the tap. I know some cards massively increased their tap limit during...

This is what makes the system work. It doesn't (or didn't) have accounts with cloud account integration, and features like automatic top-ups in the background, protection against card loss (being able to move a pass product or balance between cards using the cloud), moving balances between cards...

Funny thing with fare capping and cross agency trips. Presto hasn't figured out how to do it using machine logic within their system. So they run a manual report and fix the accounts every day. These things are hard!

Classic procurement issues for Presto, over spec'd, low bid, focused on capital costs not lifecycle costs (even worse, the province was paying for the IT capital, and the municipalities pay for the operating), so end up with huge mismatch and lack of a single decider. For Toronto especially...

It really depends on whether a record is being updated in one place (on the card alone) or two places (card, reader/offline datacentre) or three places (card, reader, live data centre) and whether you trust the record on the card alone, or if you wait to reconcile with the stored record either...

Cash handling is expensive. While Calgary handled ticket books and monthly passes via convenience stores, the TTC sold tokens and Metrocards (monthly passes) with bespoke machines. Even with the high cost of Presto, for Toronto alone getting transaction costs to 3% from 5% is close to $50...

The city is. The mayor is not. The city takes direction from council, and despite council's tone, the motions the city has passed is to deliver this project according to the project agreements.

The % of users using cash fares was realllllly low. Calgary pushed a far higher percentage of users to concessionairy fares than most systems. Calgary decided to make passes make sense for commuters. This is not true in a lot of places. Calgary used ticket books. Most places didn’t. Money is...

Those didn’t happen to include the eventual full roof and ring replacement. And upgrading the roof to support modern concert loads. Building out concourses. Washrooms and concession upgrades.