The South Bayview Bulldog

This is the new genre of rental units coming on the market in Vancouver — just 270 square feet of space for something like $750 a month. As you can see, the bed is of the so-called “Murphy” type which folds into the wall. This unit has a shower but no tub. The promoters call it “seriously chic.”

The history of our national flag is rich and interesting. We all know the Maple Leaf Flag, our official national banner since 1965. We’ve had four other national flags since Confederation (1867) and three of them are here. Upper right is the Canadian Red Ensign bearing the royal arms of Canada. This served as our defacto flag (or unofficial flag) from 1922 to 1957. A similar flag (not shown) in which the three maple leaves on the royal arms are red not green served as the defacto flag from 1957 to 1965. Lower left, an interesting and little-remembered variation on the red ensign used from 1868 (one year after Confederation) which carries the royal arms of the four original provinces. We should make you guess but they were Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. PEI joined in 1873. The west was just un-populated territories. The 1868 flag was our defacto flag until 1922 and the islanders just had to suck up their absence from the coats of arms. This leaves only the Union Flag (lower right) which was the official not defacto flag of Canada since Confederation. The de facto versus official is a reminder of our colonial status in earlier days. The British understood they had to give Canada an identity of some sort. The defacto flags were flown everywhere and were the flags under which Canadians went to war in 1914 and 1939. There is an excellent exposition of Canada’s flags on Wikipedia.

They were delivering the Yellow Pages on South Bayview today. You have to feel sorry for them. A lot of merchants say they don’t know what to do with them. Or that they’re simply going to throw them out. It’s an interesting comment on the times that the City of Seattle last year passed an “unnecessary phone book” registry in response to the Yellow Pages deliveries.

You may not have heard of Melanie L. Aitken. She’s the Commissioner of Competition of the Federal Competition Bureau and she’s turning out to be one tough cookie when it comes to the asterisk and fine print in advertising. Aitken oversaw the recently decided case in which Bell Canada’s paid a $10 million dollar fine — the maximum — for what the bureau believes was misleading advertising. And those who follow the news will know that Aitken is writing a regulatory agenda that will impact a wide spectrum of businesses ranging from banks to credit card companies to real estate boards. Here is a very readable National Post summary.