If Winnipeggers had a Merry Jetsmas a year ago, is there any doubt they'll have a Merry IKEA-mas this Dec. 25?

After decades of pent-up demand, one of the most-anticipated retail openings in the city's history finally occurred at 9 a.m. Wednesday when IKEA threw open the doors to its nearly 400,000-square-foot store on Sterling Lyon Parkway.

The more than 1,000 shoppers were greeted by thunder-stick-wielding IKEA workers as they went up the grand staircase to the showroom floor.

And then they shopped. Oh, how they shopped.

Terri Seguin drove from Sioux Lookout, Ont., with two friends on Tuesday afternoon to be among the first 1,000 shoppers when they arrived in the IKEA parking lot at around 6 a.m. Within an hour of the store's opening, they had loaded up a couple of large shopping carts with chairs, shelves, a dresser and plenty of cushions.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ikea-puts-it-together-for-city-181324431.html

OTTAWA -- The Canadian Museum for Human Rights believes it can raise nearly $3 million a year from visitors once it opens its doors in 2014.

The CMHR's five-year corporate plan for the years 2012 through 2017 was tabled in the House of Commons last week. In the report, the museum estimates how much revenue it expects to raise from admission, the gift shop and food sales.

Those figures are $1.5 million annually from admissions and museum memberships, $600,000 a year from food sales, $700,000 a year from the gift shop and another $100,000 from miscellaneous donations.

"We did some benchmarks to allow us to start to project," said communications director Angela Cassie

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/adding-the-numbers-181324381.html

Open every day of the year — including Christmas — OLG Brantford Casino is a sensory experience.

Rows of slot machines flash millions of bright lights in every direction. Strains of music compete with each other. There's music on the overhead radio. Robotic music streams from of the games.

In the poker room at the back, players huddle at the tables in groups of 10 under low lighting, their faces fixed in concentration. The clicking sound of chips fills the room.

This is an entertainment hub, the OLG says. And it could be Hamilton's future.

Currently, Hamilton has 801 slots at Flamboro Downs through the Slots at Racetracks program, which the province discontinued this year. By late February, council will have to tell the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation whether it welcomes gaming beyond the downs.

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2012/11/28/hamilton-inside-casino.html

NEW YORK, N.Y. - In the middle of the night, as most of New York slept, something big and bright lit up the Manhattan skyline for just seconds — a tightly kept secret to all but a handful of people. It was a tiny test for the huge public surprise four days later: the flipping of a switch at the Empire State Building to turn on its dancing new LED lights. They burst from the skyscraper while synchronized with R&B star Alicia Keys singing "Empire State of Mind" on nationwide radio.

The LED system has "16.7 million colour possibilities, in digital combinations of ripples, sparkles, sweeps and strobes," says Phil O'Donnell, of Burlington, Mass.-based Philips Color Kinetics that's responsible for the system and worked with a resident lighting designer. "It's the sum of all possibilities — a huge palate."...        ...The lights are part of a larger effort to modernize the 81-year-old edifice that is undergoing a more than half a billion-dollar renovation that includes making it "green." The computerized LED system will cut energy consumption by more than half, while delivering light and vibrancy superior to the old floodlights, which have huge timpani drum-size lenses that had to be changed every so often, O'Donnell said.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/travel/empire-state-building-surprises-ny-with-new-led-spectacle-----synched-with-alicia-keys-on-radio-181321951.html

TORONTO - The Canadian dollar was little changed Thursday amid hopes that American politicians are inching towards a deal on averting the so-called fiscal cliff that would result from the imposition of big spending cuts and tax hikes next year.

The currency slipped 0.01 of a cent to 100.81 cents US on top of a gain of about 1/3 of a US cent on Wednesday.

Traders also took in better than expected Canadian trade data and an upward revision of third-quarter U.S. economic growth.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/loonie-flat-amid-better-than-expected-us-growth-fiscal-cliff-optimism-181357311.html

(A complete article published originally in the WFP, Nov.  '22)

Ottawa  — (By Canadian Press.) — The Canadian Good Roads association's request for a  Dominion grant of $20,000,000 toward aiding- the provinces in the construction of highways, as a supplement to the grant of a similar amount made in 1919, and which Is almost expended, is being pressed upon members of the government here by association officers. The association is also asking 'for an extension of the time limit in connection with the errant made' in 1919 for those provinces which have so far been unable to take up their full allotment. In connection with the campaign for the additional grant of $20,000,000 it is stated that a national conference will be called early in the year, to which all interested bodies, including tourists' associations publicity bureaus, boards of trade, and the provincial governments, will be invited to send delegates. This conference will be held either in Montreal, Ottawa, or Toronto. The actual meeting place will be decided upon at the next meeting of the executive of the Good Roads association. This conference will also consider ways and means for a worldwide publicity campaign for the purpose of fostering tourist travel W Canada, encourage Canadians to travel in their own country and to educate the people of the United States to the advantages of visiting Canada.