Gas prices in Ottawa - has anyone noticed the change?

I think it was two weeks ago that I woke up and heard the CFRA business editor announcing that gas spiked overnight and was selling for $1.109 a litre. Don't get me wrong - I do not enjoy paying in excess of a dollar a litre, never mind $1.10 and up. I couldn't help but wonder why an overnight increase of four cents was headline news.

Not so long ago, buying gas in Ottawa was almost like a game. I can't remember the specific days of the week, but it wasn't uncommon for gas prices to go on a ferris-wheel like ride every seven days or so.

For example...

Take day one in the morning - gas was selling at most area retailers for about 77.9 cents per litre. By noon it might be 77.2 cents, and by dinner time it would be 76.5 cents. Come 11pm, it might be 74.9. On day two, the price would start out around 76.5, it would trickle down throughout the day to about 73.9. On day three, one could find gas selling for 74.9 and it would go down throughout the day. And so on, and so on. Usually around day five or six, given this week's starting point of 77.9 cents per litre, one could find gas selling for 69.9 cents. Rejoice! Fill up! Leave the gas station contented, knowing that on day seven or eight or so, the price would go back up to 79.9, only to go through the machinations over the coming week once again.

I always looked at the gas price trends with interest because of the somewhat fluid state of gasoline pricing. I would be fascinated because when I'd travel to eastern Canada, I couldn't help but notice that gas prices were somewhat fixed - there was no 'give and go' on a daily basis like it was back home.

We don't seem to have that give and go anymore. Sure, prices still move a bit from day to day or week to week, but not the way it used to. Maybe gas companies figured out that the so-called admin costs associated with constantly changing inventory prices cost them too much and affected the bottom line even in the slightest way. We all know that billions in quarterly profits isn't good enough anymore, so anything that cost the big evil empire more than -- nothing -- was simply unacceptable.

My point? Back then, for several years, it wasn't uncommon for prices to fluctuate up to 10 cents per litre, per day! Now a hike of four cents overnight is headline news. Not only that, but it's twice now in recent months that the petroleum companies like Esso, Petro Canada, Shell, Sunoco et al deem it necessary to announce that "gas prices will be going down 4 cents per litre tomorrow morning" for whatever reason.

Why?!

ExxonMobil posted net earnings in excess of $39 billion dollars last year. We're paying record prices at the pump and nobody's gone nuts in the middle east, no hurricanes have flattened refineries and - (this next bit is satirical sarcasm) no petroleum company has set a refinery on fire lately, giving valid excuses for the prices being as high as they currently are. Remember that southern-Ontario refinery fire that sent the price of gasoline over $1/litre? That's a long time ago now. Gas stations aren't closing due to lack of fuel anymore. We're still paying over a buck a litre and yet crude oil hasn't been at all-time highs in what - years, now?

What's going on?

I guess ExxonMobil is shooting for $50 billion this year and its competitors are only too happy to oblige by hiking their prices and padding their bottom lines.

We'll see. Crude's trading down about $1.50 a barrel today. Let's see what happens at the pumps next month.

Stanley Cup finals ticket purchasing challenges

I set myself up at 9:23am to access the capitaltickets.ca website in order to be prepared to join the mad dash for Ottawa Senators Stanley Cup final tickets at 10:00am. Instead of accessing the intended site, I was relegated to some "please hold" web page. It promised to keep trying to get me to my destination while warning me that I am not guaranteed tickets.

As the minutes ticked by I waited for the magical screen transformation - 54 minutes later, no such luck.

Maybe the phone will work. The lines must be so overwhelmed I can't even get a busy signal - all I get is thrown back to a dial tone!!!

OK - I'm almost resigned to the fact that I won't be able to attend the game without paying $1,000 for a ticket from the pigs... I mean scalpers outside ScotiaBank Place. Well, maybe not quite - I've made a $450 bid on a pair of tickets for game 4 on eBay. Fat chance I'll get them for under $500, but I'll try.

Maybe another shot at the phone number? Nope. Dial tone boomerang. Come on web site... Even TicketMaster wasn't THAT bad in the past. I often wonder exactly how robust capitaltickets.ca really is.

Follow-up: I finally got onto capitaltickets.ca at 10:35am. Surprise - no tickets available... not one. No wonder the site became available.

Restorative justice good for offenders, not for victims

A new face is heading our city police service today, and it seems that it is his wish to "hit the ground running" as soon as is humanely possible. New Police Chief Vernon White announced yesterday that he has two issues that he seems to want to work on right away: 1) re-examining the City of Ottawa crack pipe distribution program and, 2) doing something about enhancing (I think) the "restorative justice" program.

First of all, Chief, once you "educate yourself" on the crack pipe program, remain true to the one code you are sworn to uphold: the Criminal Code. This federal law makes it a criminal offense to possess or distribute drug paraphernalia. How the City of Ottawa and its saintly program has managed to duck under that radar for so long, I have no idea. Perhaps I should convert my computer sales business into a custom crack pipe discount warehouse while the going's good... the margins have to be better in that business!!!

I digress - I have been fully opposed to spending precious municipal dollars on what the Criminal Code defines as criminal activity while watching City Council annually cut services, raise user fees or property taxes. When I heard that Chief White would try to do something about this "program", I was overjoyed.

There was, however, a hitch in my appraisal of Chief White's arrival. Details are sketchy but it seems that he is a fan of the "restorative justice" program. As far as I'm concerned, this so-called program is great for people who are embarking on the first leg of their new journey in crook land and is horrible for victims of their crimes. Why?

About two years ago we started noticing that small quantities of money were disappearing at the agency where I work. For years we stored a petty cash wallet in a drawer, and for years we had no problems whatsoever. I had been to the bank to replenish the money supply one Friday afternoon and it wasn't until the following Thursday that I needed to grab some cash to pay for a small expense. I think there was $15 in the wallet and I could have sworn at that very moment that there should have been closer to $300.

Did I forget to go to the bank? No, the cheque cleared. Hmmm... what could I have purchased? I couldn't remember. I waited for the weekend to pass and for my director to return from two weeks of holidays on the following Monday. I sheepishly admitted that I must have made a few hundred dollars disappear - who else could I blame?! Because I had been employed by the same agency and boss for the better part of seven or eight years, I was allowed to remain employed (!) and asked to be more careful... or something along those lines.

A few months passed and all was forgotten until it happened to dear old boss. She had replenished the money supply one day, only to have it vanish on her watch some other day. It was nice to see that I hadn't lost or squandered the money after all. Some detective work later I discovered that my hidden margarine tub that once held pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters had nothing but pennies in it (banks hate taking loose change in deposits so I hang onto whatever's left and roll it once annually.) We started to suspect our cleaner so we "seeded" the wallet with $80 before leaving for the night and - lo and behold - only $10 remained the next morning.

To make a long story short, the work logs the cleaner himself maintained and the in/out alarm records made it very much an open and shut case. The detective who took the report told us that the case should be a slam dunk based on a number of reasons. Unfortunately, because the cleaner had no previous record, he apparently was a prime candidate for this "restorative justice" program. The result? No guilty plea, no guilty verdict. All that was required of him (more or less - I wasn't there so I cannot be sure) was that he write my organization a letter of apology and that restitution be made. We received a cheque from a local law firm that covered 40-50% of what was actually taken.

That's not the end of it.

Despite assurances from a detective that the thief had been caught and despite the fact that an admission had pretty much been made, acknowledging that something wrong had been done, the company contracted by the City of Ottawa refused to dismiss the employee. Their position was that because there was no conviction, there was no proof that something untoward had been done. Even worse, the City refused to immediately terminate the company's contract despite numerous complaints about quality of work done and a theft!!! That's a story for another day.

The bottom line is this - the new Chief of Police may think that the restorative justice program needs additional attention from the powers that be. I suggest to the Chief that he speak with some victims of crime who have essentially been slapped in the face after having the person who committed a crime against them let go with little more than a promise of "I won't do it again".

Now that I think of it, I'll try calling the Chief myself and see what he has to say.

More to come...

"Pigeons" seem to have flown the coop!

That didn't take long. Despite Mayor Larry O'Brien's politically incorrect attempt at encouraging people to stop encouraging local panhandlers - Ottawa's sidewalks are a little less encumbered these days. It seems that the population of beggars has been relocating.

Have we sent them to Perth by bus?

According to various media reports today, panhandlers are complaining that they aren't making any money. Police officers who regularly hand out tickets of aggressive panhandling have had a hard time finding people to fine in recent weeks. For those who remain and are whining about their shrinking "income", I've got a solution to these people - find real work.

Not all panhandlers and beggars out there are homeless as they purport to be. Those who spend days in the blazing heat or frigid cold "patrolling" intersections or Queensway off-ramps where they can hold motorists at red lights hostage are clearly able to withstand the physical demands that come with standing on their feet and walking in circles for hours.

There's no work out there, you say? I work for an agency that provides services to seniors in order to help them maintain their independence by continuing to live in their own homes - with a little help. Not a season goes by where we could use addition snow shovellers or grass cutters. There are dozens of agencies just like mine, where a little physical labour goes a long way towards improving people's quality of life, not diminishing it. These jobs can pay upwards of $20 an hour for anyone willing to put in the time and effort. Take a walk through Bayshore Shopping Centre or any other area mall - one cannot walk 100 yards without seeing help wanted signs in the window.

Yes, I know - there are people who truly cannot work due to a disability or some other reason. I just cannot believe that these so-called "travelling and hungry" people (who never seem to move on, by the way) are one of them.

That is why Mayor O'Brien recommends that those who have been predisposed to "feeding the pigeons" should give money to local food banks, homeless shelters or other well-deserving charitable organizations. He's 100% right on this one, for it is those agencies who can help those who truly need it, not those who choose some alternate lifestyle, unwilling to conform to the "norms of society".

If for some reason I do decide to seek out public office some day and some opportunistic opponent falls upon this blog - this entry in particular - bring it on... try to make me look like I care not for the downtrodden. The bottom line is that this city is rife with social services ready and willing to help those who need it. THAT is where public dollars and dollars from citizens of this great city should be going. Not into the hands of many who have readily admitted that the loonie or twoonie given to them goes straight to feeding some drug habit.

Just ask anyone who comes out of a rehab centre and has seen their lives transform in front of their very eyes. Those on the street would glare at me with vicious looks if they knew I wrote this - but those who once did live on the street or "worked" on the street and turned their lives around would agree with me 100%.

Fix the core problem and all the little problems disappear. Don't feed the "pigeons".

Capitalism going too far?

I'm for capitalism. I'm against communism. That's a given.

This morning, however, I'm starting to wonder how much longer those ideals will hold up. Sure, it's most likely that they will until I'm pushing up daisies, as a high school law teacher of mine used to say, but a news report this morning made me think twice about the concept of open markets.

Which oil company it was, I cannot remember - it was 6:50am when I heard the news report. This monolith reported net earnings for Q1 of 2007 as being in excess of $700 million, some 31% higher than the same quarter in 2006. Not so long ago I ranted about TD Canada Trust reporting record earnings throughout all of fiscal 2006, rather annoyed at the way in which the bank so gleefully announced how competitive it was becoming in the world market. My conclusion was that competitive for TD Canada Trust meant how great investors (read: shareholders, not customers) are seeing their holdings perform.

Why be annoyed at record profits? They come at a time where prices at the pump are at all time highs. The last time we paid in excess of $1.10 a litre at the pump was when Katrina hit the refineries in the Gulf Coast. There were no hurricanes of consequence in recent weeks and/or months and the world market and politics are relatively stable at the moment. Bank profits have skyrocketed while new bank account fee revisions see clients pay ever increasing user fees for ever decreasing levels of customer service. Finance Minister says lower rip-off ATM fees? Banks respond by saying that they will reduce service levels. As if $50 million dollars in a multi-billion dollar industry means anything to the bottom line.

Make customers happy? Humbug. Screw the customers - our shareholders demand record profits quarter after quarter. If the shareholders become unhappy, compensation packages for bank and oil company executives could shrink... jobs could be lost. Wouldn't want that to happen, CEO? No problem. Jack up the prices... people won't stop driving - they can't. People won't stop banking - they can't.

These two industries have us by the proverbial you knows. They don't care what the client thinks... because the client has no choice but to continue buying product or using the service. Is the year where we see banks and oil companies settling for no less than $10 billion in annual - or quarterly profits all that far away?

Today, I doubt it.

Why is that day perhaps not all that far away? Because if the banks and oil companies decide as a collective that that is what they want, they'll get it. Why? Because they can.

And that's why I sit here today, wondering if capitalism is going a bit too far. I hope not... but I can't help wondering.