It’s always nice to be recognized, which is exactly what we at the Eagle aim to do with our Best of Cochrane survey, now wrapping up its third year.
Each year gets better and better, with more businesses and services to choose from and more people casting their ballots.
In the end, the Best of Cochrane is a great way for local business owners, organizations, professionals and everyday Cochranites to raise the flag of their favourite everything this town has to offer – restaurants, menu items, vehicle repair, gardening spot, local representatives…even the best place for a first kiss.
If this survey had launched about a decade ago, it would have been interesting to see how different the results would have been, and that’s a testament to the unabashed growth Cochrane has seen over the past nine years.
The Town of Cochrane has stats on business licences that go back to 2006. Nine years ago, there were 814 registered businesses in Cochrane, 347 of which were home-based businesses.
Now, there are 1,041 businesses, with 462 being home-based.
Cochrane’s Bethany Care Centre holds business licence number one.
We are growing. In 2006 our population was 13,760. So, in the past nine years, the number of residents has grown by 67.7 per cent, while the number of licensed businesses has increased by 27.9 per cent.
Congratulations to all our winners; we’re sure we’ll see you and many others on our list again next year.
On a very different topic, what is going on with the price of gasoline?
On Friday, June 12, at 10 a.m., the price at the pumps was $1.16 a litre and the cost of a barrel of crude was $59.96US.
By comparison, in June 2014, the price of gas was $1.24 a litre, while a barrel was running at $115US a pop. How does this make any sense?
Crude oil has dropped by nearly 92 per cent, nearly cut in half, yet the price of gas has only dropped 6.9 per cent.
None of us at the Eagle are energy experts, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that Canadians are being charged a far higher markup for gasoline during the past half a year.
Why do so many politicians on both sides of the fence fail to understand that actions speak so much louder than words?
To be fair, Alberta’s new NDP government did deliver on some of its campaign promises during its throne speech June 8, including raising corporate taxes and increasing income taxes on those making $125,000 or more.
But there were a pair of questionable developments over the past couple of weeks.
First, Alberta’s new energy minister, Marg McCuaig-Boyd, a former educator from Fairview, Alta., has been provided an interesting new chief of staff.
A chief of staff is someone who acts as the coordinator of all supporting staff and is a personal assistant and/or secretary to a high-ranking individual, like a minister.
Energy Minister McCuaig-Boyd’s ‘right hand man’ is now Graham Mitchell, a Toronto resident who has lobbied against the very sector he has now been hired to represent.
Mitchell was the executive director for the Leadnow Society. Some of Leadnow’s current campaigns include, ‘No climate science? No real debate? No legitimacy for Energy East pipeline,’ ‘No bailouts for big oil’ and ‘Stop TransCanada’s fake grassroots PR campaign.’
Albertans can certainly make up their own minds on whether they are pro- or anti-oil and gas, but why would a government assign someone who is clearly the latter to a position where they must have a respectful working relationship with the energy sector?
The second development was that the NDP took a step back from its election promise to include in its first budget the new cancer care centre in Calgary.
Under former PC premier Jim Prentice, the centre was scaled down from its original plan, with a $400-million facility expected to open by 2020.
During the election, Premier Rachel Notley said if elected her NDP government would reverse that decision right away, but have since hit the brakes on that declaration.
Health Minister Sarah Hoffman has said ‘now that she is actually the minister, she has a little bit more information than she had as a member of the opposition,’ and that the NDP must make an ‘evidence-based decision.’
Exactly. Now, if only voters would realize this simple fact and stop buying into what candidates promise them on the campaign trail.
