This is probably the most difficult piece that I have ever had to write but I wanted my readers to know what is happening with The Thomson Report for the future.

I have decided to put the column to bed. I have been writing the column since 1989, twenty-two years.  I have some health problems that have to be attended to and at my age that is an important milestone.

It has been a blast writing “Rumours and Things” for all these years and when I look back at the archives I have kept of the columns, we did some neat things.  We chased a few scammers away and tried to keep the public informed on what was happening out there, what was new, what was rumoured and what was real.

Kelowna has been a very important stop in our lives and thirty-three years later it is still the place to be. We are so fortunate. I started my columnist journey in 1989 with Paul Byrne’s magazine Okanagan Business, now Okanagan Life. Five years later I went to three columns a week with the Daily Courier where I remained for ten years. They retired me. Nick Frost, the owner of Castanet called from his vacation home in Hawaii that same week and said he would be home soon and not to make any plans.  I was to meet him at the Coast Capri Hotel that Friday afternoon. I had never done anything like this before, writing for Internet. It was a challenge and a good one for me.  It kept me busy and at my age that’s a good thing.

I say goodbye for now as I look after some continuing health issues.  If we bump into each other, say hello, I'm always ready to talk to you and get the latest tip. You have been great to work for. I will miss you.

Editors note:  Castanet respects John's wishes to retire.  We are sad to see him go.  On behalf of Castanet and our viewers we would like to thank John for his tremendous dedication and contribution to our site.  Farewell John and best wishes!

Boosting entrepreneurial talent is critical for our country’s future. Successful CEOs and business leaders from across Canada will be taking an intensive program at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario.

Emil Anderson Construction has announced that President and CEO, Mike Jacobs has been selected as a participant in Quantum Shift, a unique leadership development program founded by Ivey and KPMG Enterprise and sponsored by TD Commercial Banking and the Globe and Mail.

Small and medium sized businesses represent more than 97% of independent businesses in Canada and account for nearly half of the country’s GDP.

Helping these firms grow and improve their productivity is essential to building a more competitive Canada. The Richard Ivey School of Business, KPMG Enterprise, TD Commercial Banking and the Globe and Mail realize this and for the eighth year they’re inviting a select group of entrepreneurs to participate in Quantum Shift, a rigorous week-long program to give them the tools to push their businesses forward as Canada’s economy continues to recover.

Employing more than 6 million Canadians, private businesses are a significant source of wealth and economic growth in Canada. One of their main challenges is growing from small, start-up firms into medium sized firms.

Quantum Shift helps Canadian business owners accelerate their companies. It’s for entrepreneurs who are past the start-up stage and who are ready to innovate. The program focuses on the following components of leading:

• how to lead an enterprise through exponential growth
• how to attract and retain the best employees
• how to uncover obstacles that may be limiting growth
• how to value a venture and use strategies for moving from business plan to financial proposition
• how to build a strong network of entrepreneurial peers to share best-practices

Over 300 successful entrepreneurs have attended Quantum Shift to date...

“When you’re a young company in a high growth phase, often the structures aren’t keeping up. This was an opportunity to step back and start identifying where the cracks are and how to set up your business to sustain growth,” said Heaps.

Emil Anderson Construction is involved in Road Building, Earthworks and Heavy Civil Projects throughout the province of B.C.; Road Maintenance in the Fraser Valley; and residential development in the Okanagan Valley. Recent Highlight projects include the Whistler Bobsleigh and Luge Sliding Centre, the Whistler Ski Jump and the WR Bennett Bridge/Campbell Road Interchange in Kelowna.

Mike has been a member of the Executive Roundtable for nine years.

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Launching during the Okanagan Spring Wine Festival, (April 29th to May 8th throughout the Okanagan), the group of Wineries along Summerland’s Bottleneck Drive Wine Route announce a promotion that will be certain to attract eager wine lovers.

Each month of the Wine Season – through October 2011 - a draw will be made from among entrants for a case of assorted products from Bottleneck Drive Wineries, delivered to the winner’s door anywhere in British Columbia.

To enter, contestants simply pick up a Bottleneck Drive “rack card” at the Summerland or Penticton Visitor Information Centres or any of the 12 wineries, and have the card stamped while visiting at least 5 wineries along the route. The stamped card can be entered in the draw box at any Bottleneck Drive winery. It’s that simple!

Since its inception in 2008, Bottleneck Drive has become a very popular Okanagan Wine Route, attracting thousands of visitors annually to a wide selection of award-winning wineries in settings of spectacular beauty along the back roads of Summerland. They look forward to welcoming you there!

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The Target Corp. of Minneapolis has gone to Supreme Court in Ottawa as of yesterday hoping to win the right to use its name in Canada. This is after they formulated their deal with HBC to purchase up to 200 stores from Zellers Canada.

The U.S. retailer is asking the court to impose a preliminary injunction against Toronto retailer Isaac Benitah and his company Fairweather Ltd.

Benitah purchased the name from the closing of the Dylex Company a number of years ago. He has one of his Target Apparel stores in Nanaimo.

This is a very important decision to the Target Stores for their operations in Canada beginning in 2013.

Target has 1752 stores in the U.S. and the new president of the Canadian division said that Canada was a very difficult and challenging area to find high-quality locations in significant economies of scale. It has taken Lowe’s four years to open 24 stores here.

The remodel of the stores they take from Zellers are going to take about $10 million each to make the changeover from Zellers to Target. The company is busy trying to determine which sites are appropriate. There are four stores in the Okanagan.

Target has not said how many formats they will operate in Canada. It the U.S. there is a SuperTarget which carries a full grocery assortment. Canada, according to those in the know, will be a site by site decision .

Right behind the Polson Place Mall is the place where Kal Tire is building their new world headquarters. It will be a building housing three hundred staff and their many companies from all over the world. Greyback Construction of Penticton is the builder.

Kal Tire is a wholly-owned Canadian company that from its beginnings in Vernon has grown to become Canada’s largest independent tire dealer. For over fifty years, Kal Tire has expanded steadily. The customer base has grown to over 174 company owned branches, 54 independent associate dealers, 11 mining/industrial/commercial locations, 10 retread facilities, 1 OTR plant and four warehouses.

The company was started by Tom Foord in Vernon in 1953, serving the Canadian logging industry. The company moved into the mining business with Copper Tire in 1968 and opened a small OTR retread plant serving the gold, copper and silver mines in the interior. The 1990s was a big expansion time for the Kal Tire as they took a major presence in the oil sands in Alberta. These operations have the largest fleet off 400-ton dump truck in the world. Tire for these monsters start at $50,000 each.

Kal Tire bought a majority stake in Alfreto; Derbyshire England based OTR Tyres creating the world’s first Global Earth Mover Tyre Service company tyre. The company does business in Africa, South America, Mexico, Chile, and Ghana. Kal Tire has locations across Canada and in the Northwest Territories.

Here is a company we should all be proud of in B.C. Their accomplishments are too numerous to mention but their superior service for their customers has made them a model to be studied.

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Canada has become the hot property for the world’s retailers and the commercial real estate industry is scrambling to find the locations these businesses need to make the move into Canada. A strong domestic economy has increased the need for retail property.

With the move by Target Stores after ten years of rumours and stories about their takeovers of the Zellers stores, it was imminent when the Minneapolis based discount retailer made the move last fall to purchase at least 150 of the Zellers stores across the country. There are four Zellers stores in Kelowna, Penticton, Vernon, West Kelowna and Salmon Arm and some of them or all of them will become Target Canada stores. That information is still a secret as the company plans their move into their first international operation.

One of the most successful U.S. retailers to come into the Canadian has been the TJ Maxx Corp who bought the Toronto chain Winners a number of years ago. Currently the fourth Winners store is being built in West Kelowna. TJ Maxx decided last year that it was time to bring another of their brands into the country and announced that Marshalls would develop at least 100 stores across the country. The first three are open in Toronto. Always had good luck with those stores for summer clothes.

Meanwhile the likes of Walmart, Canadian Tire, Real Canadian Superstore have begun to change things as far as their marketing strategies for the future. The players from the U.S will affect all three of these merchants and they’re very capable of competing.

Superstore has moved into a area for them as it opens stand-alone Joe Fresh stores with one of the first being in Vancouver. The company also announced that the man who created the Canadian chain Club Monaco sold to Ralph Lauren.

Joe Fresh Style tycoon Joe Mimran has been appointed head of general merchandise at Loblaw, meaning he’ll be overseeing the non-food items, such as books, electronics, home decor and furniture, toys, home furnishings, electronics, sporting goods, books, toys and hardware.

The style line has become a large profit centre for the chain.

Over at Canadian Tire a new approach to advertising what they are all about and they are happy with the results. Canadian Tire is one of Canada's most-shopped general retailers, offering everyday products and services to Canadians through more than 1,200 retail and gasoline outlets from coast-to-coast.

This has been a Canadian institution since 1922 and has always been a leader in items like auto, paint, sporting goods and always bragged that Canadian shoppers were only fifteen minutes away from a Canadian Tire store. It has fought off a lot of competition over the last few years and with the addition of Mark’s Work Warehouse. Mark’s is one of the country’s leading apparel retailers, operating 378 stores in Canada. Under the Clothes That Work™ banner, Mark’s sells apparel and footwear in work, work-related, casual and active wear categories. The addition of Mark’s has added a new marketing thrust for the retailer to build on.

Target Corp.’s impending entry into the retail landscape in Canada won’t fundamentally change the way Canadian Tire Corp. does business, according its corporate chairwoman.

"There’s no question that the competitive environment is going to change," said Maureen Sabia, who has been on Canadian Tire’s board for more than 15 years and its chairwoman since 2007.

I know you have always wondered what makes owning a Tim Hortons such a profitable business, and believe me, it is a lot of hard work for those that own these franchises.

Right now there is a most difficult court battle in Ontario between a small group of franchise operators and the company. It’s all about a $1.95 billion class action suit about the company taking out the deep fryer and changing the bakery into the same as your local grocery store “par baked” items manufactured in a plant in Ontario. The baked goods come to the Tim Hortons in your neighborhood via truck. The preliminary hearing will be in August.

While all this is going on the company has filed some information which is unavailable to the general public:

• Frozen goods have not been bad for their businesses it would seem.
• The average Tim Hortons over a period of seven years earned approximately $1.5 million in gross sales and profits have moved to $265,000 per franchise although there are some stores that do gross more.

Just a few weeks ago I read a story in MacLean’s magazine about the problems Tim Hortons was having with the lids on their coffee cups. They were difficult to drink from, spilled and dripping occurred. Head office said they were testing new lids in some U.S. stores at the present time. Hard to believe isn’t it? The number one player in the fast food league and it has a problem that you would think could be solved quickly but it doesn’t work that way.

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I haven’t written about this before because it came as quite a shock when the CBC announced that Calgary’s Brett Wilson had been dropped from the program “Dragon’s Den.” It happened a few weeks ago and the network said he had been dropped due to contract problems. I must say he was one of the reasons I watched the program. It was all about Wilson using the names CBC and “Dragon’s Den” when promoting the companies he had invested in.

Sony owns the international rights to the TV program.

Wilson, if you watched the show at all, was the main investor on the program with fifteen deals and over $3 million invested. The Calgarian had made more deals than any Dragon in the eighteen countries where versions of the show exists.

He may have left the Dragon’s Den, but the Calgary entrepreneur and philanthropist Brett Wilson still thrives on risky business. Hence the name of his newest television series, Risky Business, which will premiere on Slice network in the fall. In this latest reality show Wilson, 53, is out to turn ordinary people into successful high-stakes investors, with couples putting their life savings on the line by investing in entrepreneurs with offbeat, high-risk business ideas.

The concept is a twist on a British series called Beat the Bank.

Each of the 13 episodes will feature two entrepreneurs, both looking for capital and promising big returns. That week’s couple will then chose which pitch to invest in.

As the duo stakes their life savings on one investment, Wilson will invest in the other. At the end of each episode, shot over 30 days, it will be revealed how each investment performed.

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After 62 years the legendary Sher-Wood hockey sticks will no longer be made in Sherbrooke, Que. The quality of the sticks produced by the company was famous around the world. This was a tough decision for the Canadian company who phase out the last 25 per cent of their manufacturing done in the Quebec City. The company now shifts all of their manufacturing to Asia.

Sher-Wood is manufactured in China because the cost of production is lower and that’s where all the sporting manufacturers are for hockey equipment.

The wooden stick business was out-sourced about five years ago and China is producing composite sticks for less money and the quality has proved to be superior.

The great names like Bauer and CCM still exist with most of their product being produced off-shore.

As consumers fret and complain about the ever-rising cost of gasoline, economist Jeff Rubin has a deeper concern. Canada could very well be heading into another economic downturn as the cost of oil and prices at the pump continue to surge to the highest levels.

Is there a coincidence that gasoline for your car jumped five cents the day before you began to travel on your first holiday weekend in spring? Of course not. There was nothing in the world to make the price of petrol rise except the need for more profit in the oil industry.

Meanwhile, household budgets were further pinched by grocery prices, which rose 3.1 per cent, led by a sharp 15 per cent increase in vegetable prices. Statistics Canada cited reduced supply due to poor weather in Mexico and the southern US as a reason.

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Do you have a water cooler in your home or office and have you ever tried to get them fixed? I have been buying water and having it delivered for years from Canadian Springs. They have a repair division but they don’t fix Sunbeam Water Coolers. Now where do you go?

So I started to ask people if there was such a service in this city and I came up with a name. Steve Gooch of Dominion Appliance Service. Steve for many years was the service representative for three companies that made water coolers. I told him the make and that I had a broken tap. He came up the next morning and installed a new tap. It works perfectly.

Put this phone number in your list of repairmen because he does all appliance repairs: 250-769-2330. Good guy.

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Every new commercial opportunity coming to town looks where for space for the their operation? Of course, Harvey Avenue. I went over to the corner of Cooper and Harvey the other day to talk to the owner of the corner that is for rent in one of the busier traffic spots in Kelowna. He is the pizza man Tony D’Anzica.  If you like the best pizza pies then you have tried Tony D’s. The 5400 sq ft location is prime, and veteran real estate/developer Gordon Anton is handling the sale. I talked with him and he said there was a lot of interest in the site.  He gets at least two or three calls a day. Call Gordon at ReMax:  250-717-5000.

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I don’t know what this means to Canadian Wal-Mart stores but the American stores are running a campaign that is hammering home its low-price message with a new ad campaign in a bid to bring back customers who no longer trust it to save them money. The campaign bears the slogan "Low Prices. Every Day. On Everything" and features five 30-second commercials, including ads featuring an Easter egg hunt and a customer asking for a price match.

Wal-Mart is restoring thousands of items it had stopped carrying in a bid to clean up its stores.  This includes items from fishing supplies to snowblowers, and has returned to its "Everyday Low Prices" roots.

I believe their 324 stores in Canada are doing quite well and with the announcement this year of forty new or remodeled stores in this country things seem to be going well for the discounter. The company will increase their presence in this country with the remodeled stores being changed to super centres.

All this means one thing - Wal-Mart Canada is preparing for the onslaught from Target Stores when they enter the marketplace in 2013. Target has succeeded in the U.S. by matching Wal-Mart price for price for identical items, then in turn added to the retail mix in their home décor and apparel lines.

Photo: Contributed

It’s a go.

The sixth tower at Landmark Centre will, over the next two years, head to the sky with seventeen floors and 230,000 sq.ft. of commercial space. Building six will be located directly across from building four.

The new building will be equipped with the second power plant as we find in the other buildings which allows technology companies to have continuous power no matter what happens to BC Hydro. There will be a full basement and next door a 436 stall-parking garage.

It is a Stober Construction project.

When asked about the tenant picture as far as the new building is concerned I was told that Landmark Centre was very steady during the recession with very few changes taking place. Many of the present tenants are looking for more space. A number of major businesses are in negotiation for the space in the new building.

The contract for cement work will begin as soon as the basement is ready and should take about two months. Fintry Contracting is doing the work.

This entire development started in the ground in 1989 and has become the business community of the city. With the sixth building there will be a total of 750,000 sq.ft. of commercial space.

There is space for a full coffee shop and Tapas bar in the project and they are not sure yet about a gym or any other retail that may be included in the tower.

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According to a recent article, your clothing bill is about to go up by 10 percent, with some of the increase happening this spring and the rest by the end of the year.

On an inflation-adjusted basis, overall clothing prices have declined over the last 10 years as lower-cost raw materials and goods from low-labor-cost countries like China flooded the market. But in more recent months, both material and labor costs have been escalating.

Advertisement and materials make up to 20 to 50 percent of the cost of clothes, with labor accounting for much of the remainder. And with the worldwide recession improving and inflation climbing in countries like China and Vietnam, wage rates are also heading north.

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The Osoyoos Celebrity Wine Festival launched its 2011 festival. The festival of food and wine pairing events hosted annually by actor/director Jason Priestley and friends, has added new events and this year features Juno award-winning, country music star and actor from CBC TV's Heartland, George Canyon. Canyon will play an acoustic set at the Celebrity Wine Auction and Beach Party at the Walnut Beach Resort on June 10.

Priestley is one of the owners of Black Hills Winery, which is a co-founder of the Festival. Each year, Jason extends an invitation to his Hollywood friends to join him in Osoyoos for the weekend, creating a unique opportunity for festival-goers to rub shoulders with celebrities from the Film and Television industry while enjoying the South Okanagan's finest wines and food pairings created by the region's top chefs and winemakers.

The 2011 Festival runs June 9 to 12 and starts with a new event, the Sunset Sabre Soiree at Spirit Ridge Resort. Celebrities and winemakers will sabre off wine bottles while guests taste the finest sparkling wines from the region. Saturday night features The Vinos a red carpeted awards ceremony and contest for the best wine commercial on B.C. Wines, held at the Watermark Beach Resort. Amateur and professional filmmakers submit entries and compete for cash and wine.

Tickets to events can be purchased on the Festival's new website.  The website was developed by Okanagan's Pulse Group and features full details on events and links to last year's hilarious entries for the wine commercial film festival.

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I always have such pleasant memories of The Greenery when it was out on Rutland Road and we were just starting our yard from scratch. With the opening this year, the Segler family are celebrating their thirtieth year in business. In 1994 the business was moved out to a new location on Dilworth Drive.

It is a much larger space with 2.5 acres of greenhouses that grow crops year round.  They are always ready for the next season.

We bought our cucumbers and tomatoes at the Rutland Road store for years and they were huge and tasty. I miss that too. It was fun in the old location with me pulling the cart and my wife buying plants.

The new location is bigger, carries more product and is a sight to behold when they open the doors to start the new season.

They grow good things and they are ready for our weather changes.

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I received this e-mail the other day from a reader and it brought back memories of the same scam that went through the Internet a couple of years ago. People are receiving e-mail that look official with a phony bank logo and everything. Banks do not send e-mail in this fashion.

“We received a fraudulent and e-mail from someone claiming to be the Royal Bank. It just said, 'Message for customer' and then asked us to verify our account. We did not do that but we did call the Royal Bank and they said it was fraudulent because they would never ask for us to verify our account. I just thought people should know about this and thought you might already have heard about these type of e-mail.  We have had similar ones from the BMO bank too and we don't even have an account with them. I hope there is some way of letting the public know about these. Thank you for your column - I read it all the time.”

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Twenty years ago Mike and Debbie Shannon came from Calgary to Kelowna to start their business, RPM Automotive on Harvey just west of Kirschner.

The have just increased their working space to seven bays and more parking for cars as they move across the lot to the other side. This leaves some space available for someone in the automotive field to re-establish their business on the busy Harvey Avenue corridor. The Shannon’s also added a seventh mechanic to their roster to service their steady lineup of customers.

Mike and Debbie have established a good atmosphere in their service centre with their policies of personal service. I personally like the way the staff takes an interest in your problems and gets the job done. It is a busy operation and a successful one.

I was watching the news on Global Vancouver the other day when they started to discuss the coming of Target stores to Canada. Their question to the guest was about rumours that Target would be charging more for goods in the Canadian stores than they would be in the store in Bellingham, Wash.

Please, don’t start these rumours because no one in this country, and I stress no one, knows what will happen with pricing when Target opens their first stores in 2013. No one. The way prices are going in the cotton world who knows anything about what they will be charging for jeans two years from now.

Target, when they make the move into the Canadian market will be priced according to the marketplace. It would be silly to be talking about prices at this time.

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I was working away at my computer after being sick for a few days and all of sudden I had some problems with the computer I couldn’t seem to solve. I immediately called my IT man Gary Scott at Scotteck Computer Services. He was also sick but he could, through his service, look into my computer and see what was wrong.  It took a couple of minutes and then I was back to work. Gary comes out to the office as well when I have problems and gets them solved for me. I can make it all work but I don’t pretend to know a lot about the whole process. You can contact Gary Scott at Scotteck  at 250-212-1695. I highly recommend him.

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I was in Original Joe's restaurant in Vernon last week and it was busy. It was the first of the Calgary chain to open in an Okanagan location. There is also one in West Kelowna and one being built in Kelowna on Pandosy where Liquidation World formerly had their store. I was really impressed with the Polson Place store in Vernon because the restaurant was full and there was a lineup at the front door waiting for spots to open up. They have a real comfort food type menu and both my wife and I had pulled pork sandwiches.

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Ferrara - The successful European Flavors project, aimed at promoting the taste and quality of European fruit and vegetables, kicks off in Canada for its second three-year activity cycle which is scheduled to end in 2013.

The European Flavors project is therefore bringing European fresh fruit to Canada.  This will include pears, kiwifruit, oranges and plums, with a view to promoting their consumption and raising awareness of production methods that use integrated crop management to protect health and the environment.

As part of the European Flavors project, a programme of high-profile communication and promotional activities will be carried out in retail outlets throughout Canada.

Italy currently exports an average of around 10,000 tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables each year to Canada, where there is continuous demand over the last five years for flagship products such as pears, oranges, kiwifruit, apples and grapes.

Canadian consumers will be able to appreciate the extraordinary sensory characteristics and taste of Italian fruit and vegetables by means of tasting sessions and sampling events which will be scheduled in various cities throughout Canada.

“The Canadian market,” declared Diego de Luca of Alegra, “is extremely interesting in that it offers us the chance to fully promote our offering of fruit in all segments, from the smallest to the largest sizes, always with great emphasis on quality.”

Product qualification is also the central theme of an activity launched by Oranfrizer in Canada to boost sales of the Sicilian blood orange, focusing on both fresh fruit and freshly squeezed juice.

“We are carrying out an important programme to raise the profile of the blood orange throughout the world,” declared Salvo Laudani of Oranfrizer, “in an endeavour to make the values of this extraordinary product perceptible, both from a sensory and taste viewpoint and from a nutritional viewpoint.

“The Sicilian blood orange,” concluded Laudani, “is a specialty product with a strong regional identity, which is an important value for an ethnic market such as that of Canada.”

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I am following up on whether the Bread Garden chain will build a restaurant in Kelowna. We were originally told that the Bread Garden was a long time favourite of the lower mainland. The chain is now owned by American owners and they said that two new locations would be established in the Okanagan in Kelowna and Vernon.

Their real estate people have been here and have looked for space but I do not think they have found anything suitable. It is hard to get them to confirm anything at all, although like every food seller that looks at Kelowna, they want to be on Harvey Avenue and that is almost impossible.

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It’s not that many years ago that Valley First had plans for a financial centre in Rutland and then for some reason the President at that time Harley Bidlecombe cancelled those plans.

Now that is all changed and the new President Paulette Rennie gave me the word that the new centre in Rutland branch will be under construction in the summer of this year and will be ready for customers come December. The Valley First Place will be built on the corner of Highway 33 and Rutland Rd.

It is a high traffic area and a perfect location.

The Financial centre will have a large full service branch with retail and commercial banking, wealth management and insurance service on site. The long time Rutland insurance group Don Stobbie Insurance will move to the new building.

Valley First is a division of First West Credit Union, B.C.'s third-largest credit union, which has 37 branches and 29 insurance offices throughout the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley, Kitimat and Okanagan, Similkameen and Thompson valleys. First West has approximately $5.6 billion in assets under administration, 167,000 members and 1,150 employees.