(Is Yanks still the term of derision from Canadians talking about Americans? Haven’t chatted with my Uncles in several years. Don’t know if it was them talking or the beers.)

This whole thing is about a shining knight with money to bail them out with public money. Up here in Quebec things are a bit different, and Paul is right Quebecor is the crown jewel of the Quebec identity and it will not fall. Not to worry the shareholders will still get their money at the end of the day. Penny stocking is great for many.

Just that they seem to be getting a bit of resistance here and there, and while it has been over 10 years since the old man kicked off, I have to wonder if Erik might be still harbouring a bit of …resentment (and a fair political base) himself.

After all, the old man did pit one against the other, finally anointing the “wild” kid (with the same philosophy and law degrees as Dad) in preference to the dutiful kid, who virtually grew up tending the Quebecor fields (and is still, I think, COO). Just a little bit of Esau and Issac going on, yes?

Personally I’d like to see the daughter (Anne-Marie?) take over- she has a completely different attitude towards raising money.

As far as the caisse goes, well, they’ll squawk, but ultimately I think they’d no more allow a Quebecor, Lavelin, Jean Coutu or Bombardier to fade than the Japanese government would allow Toyota to collapse.

To “It’s Alive”: The rise of the loonie has been going on for quite a while- four or five years. It gained a lot of publicity lately when it reached parity through a rapid rise from 20% to equal, but nonetheless, it has been a very visible path since the Iraq thing started. Equally unnoticed during most of its climb is that ink on paper has been increasing. A $2.25US standard comic is now $3.00, a $6.99US book is now $8.99 or more.

There’s lots of shenanigans in routing the print shop (I actually do have an insider) regarding “American” print jobs being produced in Quebec, despite Quebec being more expensive for Quebecor due to union regs and such. This is where Quebec politics plays a heavy role. The rise of the dollar has certainly exacerbated the situation due to locked-in US dollar contracts, but there are SO many factors involved, that frankly the exchange shouldn’t make all that much difference. After all, the physical cost of manufactured comic is something around 1/10 of retail. US dollar cost per piece grows from 30 cents to 40 cents? Retail price grows to match.

There’s one price factor that far outweighs the dollar: Timber prices. With the shrinking print market, and the moribund housing industry in the US, big loggers are (not quite) going begging for work. Happens I have a managed woodlot that’s due for harvest, but there’s no way I’m going to have it cut, not with where the market is nowadays.

Frankly, I don’t know what the effect has been at the paper mill, they may actually be increasing prices due to a higher overhead to production ratio, but whichever way it’s going, I think that timber fluctuations far outweigh dollar fluctuation when it comes to book costs.

But that’s a whole other load of stuff to consider…

I think they’ve been on thin ice for a long time.

Anyways, financial staggering is hardly new to Quebecor. Last time around it was Quebecor’s cable TV - TV network division that was the problem. QuebecorWorld was financially solid, and saved that day.

You’ll note that the bridge financing of $400,000,000 spoken of in the recent round of stories has 200 coming from an outside source, and the rest coming from Quebecor. It would appear that the parent company isn’t too strapped for cash nowadays. The shoe’s on the other foot.

There is a big consideration here: There are four companies in Quebec who, while not necessarily associated with the nationalist/separatist political movement, are held up by whatever government is in power as examples of Quebec’s ability to stand on its own as a nation. Quebecor is one of them. They’re not just heralded as successes, they’re symbolic of nationhood. It would be unthinkable for the Quebec government to let any of them fall.

There’s an organisation here that manages the provincial pension fund, and it has never shown any hesitation to dump money into a flagship company in trouble. Depending on what government is in power, they can be very strict or quite loose with funding. Unfortunately for Quebecor, the current government isn’t the one who just opens the bag and says “take”.

Nonetheless, “Le Caisse de Depot” will NEVER let Quebecor fall. If push comes to shove, and Quebecor goes to the Caisse, we may see the end of Pierre-Karl Peladeau’s rule at the company, but it won’t be allowed to fall. I see Pierre-Karl’s solid, stolid brother Erik as the possible successor.

By the way, that pension fund (last I noticed it had something like 30billion in assets) was once headed by Quebecor founder Pierre Peladeau.

Quebecor and the Peladeau family’s trials and tribulations have been a virtual soap opera here in Quebec for several decades. This latest round of problems is seen within the province as pretty much same old, same old. It only gets really interesting when the government starts making noise.

If one huge North American printing company can dominate the industry, and then start to have financial trouble, what if one huge North American distribution company has the same trouble one day? Ah, that’ll never happen, ha ha..

hmm. Time to develop an scenerio to accommodate alternate printers AND alternate distributors.