Briefing highlights
- Rona takeover approved
- Please don't wear red tonight
- Video: How to build a perfect to-do list
An asset and a boost
Rona Inc. is no longer an “important strategic interest,” as Quebec’s former finance minister once deemed it.
Now it’s a tool for “strengthening the middle class.”
It’s amazing how our own home-grown hardware store chain, having long been chased by its U.S. rival Lowe’s Cos. Inc., has been caught up in politics.
First, in the summer of 2012, Raymond Bachand, then the finance minister in Quebec, tried to ward off Lowe’s by claiming that Rona was a strategic asset.
Fast forward to today, as the deal was blessed by Navdeep Bains, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, having passed the Competition Bureau yesterday.
The antitrust folks studied the markets and found that the takeover is “unlikely to result in a substantial lessening of competition in retail home improvement in any local market in Canada.”
The Minister said Quebec was involved in the decision, and he’s pleased by the Lowe’s pledges to Canada. But he also said this:
“A more innovative Canada includes competitive Canadian companies that are connected to global value chains and contribute to growing our economy and strengthening the middle.”
We get it. It’s long past the election now, folks. We can stop with the middle class bit.
The red scare
The next thing you know, Canada’s Treasury Board will be telling Santa Claus he can’t wear red.
I appreciate why the use of the colour will be limited going forward, but it’s enough to make any Canadian blush.
As The Globe and Mail’s Bill Curry reports, the Liberal government has a new policy on federal advertising communications rules to deal with issues of partisanship, and among other things will send certain campaigns to Advertising Standards Canada for independent reviews.
But also part of the change is limiting the use of red, the colour of Canada’s Liberals and one of our official colours for about nine decades, in the tens of millions of dollars in annual ad spending.
It’s okay when it comes to the use of the Canadian flag, and for groups that have always used red, such as the Mounties.
Oh, come on. Red is our colour.
It’s the dominant theme of the flag. It’s the colour of the RCMP uniform. It’s the colour of the Tim Hortons logo, for God’s sake.
Just Google “Canadian things with red,” and you’ll see what I mean. (Ignore the fact that Target Corp.’s logo is red, and it decided it didn’t like us very much after its short visit.)
I’m sorry for the Tories that our ancestors chose red, but that’s the way it is. Obviously, blue is now out of the question, and orange is too vague, like it can’t decide what colour it wants to be.
Seriously, the new rules are taking things too far.
But for now, it’s like the Beatles put it: Please don’t wear red tonight.
A scene I'd love to see ...
