Archive 1997-2016
By Craig Babstock
Young people seeking employment in Ottawa now have a few more options besides flipping burgers and pumping gas.
When Statistics Canada recently released the employment figures for 1998, it announced that the labour market for youth expanded by 143,000 positions, a seven per cent increase, making it the best year in two decades.
By Jen Ross
The Y2K bug is a boon for business. As the world spends an estimated $2 trillion fixing it, one wonders if the so-called blunder was entirely accidental.
Here’s my theory: The Y2K bug is part of a plot to boost business both by forcing people to upgrade or replace computers and electronics and instill fear, prompting consumers to buy freeze-dried goodies, generators and a whole array of things they wouldn’t otherwise need.
Merchants on the Sparks Street Mall feel their Christmas will be a little merrier this year.
For the first time in more than a decade, the Sparks Street Mall has decorations and merchants hope they can cash in on the holiday atmosphere.
Sam Elsaadi, of La Mode Hair Studio on Sparks Street, says it’s about time something was done to attract potential customers to the street.
A Centretown business association says new parking meters installed along Bank Street may eventually drive customers away because of increased parking enforcement.
“We’re spending tens of thousands of dollars promoting parking while at the same time we have this overzealousness on the part of the enforcement,” says Gerry LePage, executive director of the Bank Street Promenade, a local merchants’ association.