BC Business
Billions spent on saving a few bucks It may not be as glamorous as other billion-dollar industries like tech and film, but Canadians spend $30 billion every year on used goods, according to the website Kijiji. A new report released Thursday says that, at $30 billion, the used goods market is about 15 per cent the size of the new goods market, but unlike the latter, where money flows out of Canada (more than 80 per cent of new goods bought by Canadians are imported, the report says), used sales keep those dollars in the country. The Kijiji Second-Hand Economy Index can be viewed here.
They don’t make them like they used toB.C.ers, or at least 20,000 of them, would rather BC Ferries went back to its old ways—as a Crown corporation under the B.C. government. The Change.org petition, which has 20,000 signatures supporting the move, will be tabled in Victoria this week. “We’ve been asking for three things, reduce the fares, restore the service, and put BC Ferries back into the ministry,” Jim Abram, one of the petition organizers and Strathcona Regional District chair, told the Vancouver Sun. The B.C. Liberals turned BC Ferries into a (heavily government-subsidized) private entity in 2002. (via the Vancouver Sun)
Get a taste The Vancouver International Wine Festival is currently underway, running until March 1. This year’s theme? Australia. For more info, go here. And for a peek inside the festival’s glamorous sold-out gala, which raised $117,000 from more than 500 guests, check out BCBusiness‘s photo slideshow.