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Walt Heaslip is a pretty happening 92-year-old: He makes his own wine, walks two hours a day and is quite the charmer with the ladies.

As a retired police officer, he was even featured in the Toronto Daily Star in 1947 for foiling a counterfeiting plot, and has the article framed on the wall of his Burlington home to this day.

Although he’s still spry and lives with his son and daughter-in-law, the former World War II flight instructor is admittedly getting up there, so he enjoys a bit of company and conversation to stay mentally active, and could always use some help around his basement apartment.

Enter Christopher and Lori Paton.

The married duo and high school sweethearts run a franchise in the Oakville and Burlington area called Nurse Next Door Home Healthcare Services, which is right up Heaslip’s alley for his lifestyle needs.

The Patons and their team of caregivers offer seniors everything from simple companionship, errands and housework, to complete medical and health-care assistance – all in the comfort of the client’s home. Heaslip, for instance, is most comfortable sticking to a routine.

He likes to have a good gabfest when he goes for strolls or while eating his usual Subway sandwich at lunch, and sometimes he needs a hand with a bit of laundry and groceries.

"These people are so good to me. They make my life so great," says the nonagenarian, their longest customer to date since launching the franchise west of Toronto last fall.

Even in a recession, the aging population is creating business opportunities in the home-based health-care sector, especially since plenty of seniors like Heaslip have no interest in spending their twilight years in a nursing home and are determined to remain as independent as possible for as long as they can.

The sector is considered a major growth area ,with 13 per cent of Canadians today over 65. In the next 20 years that figure is expected to nearly double to 25 per cent.

So when Heaslip’s family saw the flyer for the Nurse Next Door service they called right away.

"They changed my life. I was kind of lonely before. My family works long hours," explains Heaslip.

The service is 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 30 franchise locations across Canada, with several more coming to the Greater Toronto Area this year.

The upbeat Patons certainly never expected to be in the homecare business – let alone driving around in a pink floral Mercedes – at the mid-point of their careers. But when Lori Paton’s mom was diagnosed with cancer just over a year ago, she started to do some investigating that literally changed their lives cash loans with bad credit.

A registered nurse who was working in national sales for a medical device company, Lori started hunting for home care to help out with her mom’s illness and recovery.

"I just wasn’t comfortable with the options out there," she recalls.

She stumbled upon Nurse Next Door on the Internet but unfortunately it was only available out west at that point. Still, the Patons liked the company’s culture and philosophy, along with the offerings – and noticed that on the website they were looking for franchise partners in Ontario.

At the time Christopher was an automotive engineer with 15 years under his belt at an auto manufacturer.

They decided to go out and meet the company founders in Vancouver early last year and soon quit their jobs, despite tough economic times and the fact that there are hundreds of senior care competitors cropping up across the country.

"We were both turning 40 last year and decided if we were going to make a move, this would be the time and the opportunity to do it," says Christopher.

They now have 25 clients with varying needs and 39 thoroughly screened caregivers.

"My previous job was challenging and fun, but in this business you can quickly see how you’ve made a difference in people’s lives," says Christopher, who mainly does the books while his wife is more hands-on being a nurse.

That’s exactly the motivation that company founders John DeHart and Ken Sim had when they decided to launch the first Nurse Next Door in Vancouver in 2001.

While they started franchising only two years ago, Nurse Next Door is now one of Canada’s fastest growing home health-care franchise operations.

The level of care ranges from companion care, personal care and complex care, with the price ranging from $21 to $28 an hour depending on the client’s needs, established by a free consultation.

The service goes right up to palliative care and post-operative care and even includes flat rates for travelling with clients and in-home care.

The service is located in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, with seven locations in Ontario including Brampton, Burlington, Mississauga, North York, Oakville, Ottawa and Windsor. The GTA is the next big push in the chain’s growth.

The Patons have been called at all hours to help seniors who have slid off chairs or fallen out of bed.

"The care is on a very personal level," says 80-year-old Burlington client Jacquie Matte, who has Parkinson’s and is on dialysis.

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Booking a flight is getting a little more personal these days.

Under a new federal security program, all airlines will be required to ask for your name as it appears on your government-issued ID. Eventually, they also will ask for your date of birth and gender in an effort to bolster security and minimize the frequency of misidentifying passengers with people named on suspected terrorist lists.

The Transportation Security Administration will compare the additional information against government watch lists to decide whether travelers need extra screening — or are barred from flying altogether. Some airlines, including AirTran Airways, already have begun phasing in the program, called Secure Flight.

At Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, many travelers haven’t encountered the new requirements because the airport’s dominant carriers, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, haven’t implemented them.

American says it will be begin gathering full names, dates of birth and gender sometime this fall. Southwest plans to start collecting the additional information by October.

All airlines are expected to be asking for names as they appear on IDs, dates of birth and gender by early 2010 for every domestic flight, said TSA spokeswoman Carrie Harmon. Similar information will be sought for all international flights by the end of 2010.

Before the Secure Flight program, airlines were responsible for matching travelers against the lists. The 9/11 Commission called for improvements to the matching process in 2004. The commission decided that matching "should be performed by TSA and it should utilize the larger set of watch lists maintained by the federal government."

Travelers have logged more than 58,100 complaints with the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program since February 2007, Harmon said. Many contend people have had trouble boarding a plane because of watch-list issues, or that they have been needlessly singled out for additional screening.

Critics say the new program has its drawbacks.

"Secure Flight causes a lot of problems because it’s expensive and requires more data to be collected on everyone," said Chris Calabrese, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program. "It may help some people who are erroneously matched on the watch list."

The TSA uses a subset of the terrorist watch list — the no-fly and selectee lists — to identify travelers who either are not permitted to fly or are subject to additional screening cheapest car insurance.

Harmon said the no-fly and selectee lists contain about 16,000 people between them, with the no-fly list containing fewer than 2,500 individuals.

Auditors with the Government Accountability Office last month found that TSA had "made significant progress" toward reaching key Secure Flight milestones. But the TSA is still working on the system’s watch list matching capability, and cost and schedule estimates, the report found.

"Until these activities are completed," the GAO reported, "TSA lacks adequate assurance that Secure Flight will fully achieve its desired purpose and operate as intended."

TSA officials say traveler privacy will be protected. For instance, if a passenger’s name is not matched to watch lists, the data will be purged from the TSA systems after seven days.

Many passengers flying into Lambert recently said they weren’t troubled by the latest aviation security mandate.

Kate Spring of New Jersey said she was asked for her name as it appears on her ID when booking her flight to St. Louis on AirTran Airways. "If it’s for security, it doesn’t bother me a bit," Spring said while awaiting a ride outside Lambert’s Main Terminal.

The carrier, based in Orlando, Fla., began phasing in Secure Flight in mid-May, when it began asking travelers to furnish names in that manner, said AirTran spokeswoman Cynthia Tinsley-Douglas. AirTran will begin asking for dates of birth and gender information by Aug. 15.

Travelers have had questions about the name requirement but seem to be taking it in stride, Tinsley Douglas said. "We haven’t had too much push-back that I’m aware of."

But Bill Plachte of Denver said he doesn’t think the new security program will eliminate the problem of people being mistaken for those on watch lists.

"Because you’re not getting enough information," Plachte said after his Southwest Airlines flight arrived in St. Louis last week. "You’re not getting (Social Security) numbers. … They’re going halfway."

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NEW YORK–Television stations across the U.S. completed the shutdown of their analog signals yesterday, marking the final signoff for a 60-year-old technology and likely leaving more than 2 million unprepared homes without TV service.

The Federal Communications Commission put 4,000 operators on standby to field calls from confused viewers, and set up demonstration centres in several cities. Volunteer groups and local agencies were helping elderly people set up digital converter boxes that keep older TVs functioning. Any set hooked up to cable or a satellite dish is unaffected.

"When you’re alone like me, that’s my partner," Patricia Bruchalski, 82, said about her TV.

Bruchalski, a pianist and former opera singer living in Maryland, got assistance from a county agency to have a converter box installed. Afterwards, she marvelled that digital broadcasts seemed clearer and her extra channels – 15 instead of the three she was used to.

Around 15 per cent of U.S. households don’t have satellite or cable, and they tend to be poorer.

Nielsen Co. said minority households were less likely to be prepared for yesterday’s analog shutdown, as were households consisting of people younger than 35.

A survey by broadcasters showed Americans were well aware of the switch, thanks to two years of advertising about it. But many people simply procrastinated.

Fox affiliate WUPW in Toledo, Ohio, cut its signal at 8 a.m., among the first stations to go. By 10:15 a.m., the station had received 40 calls, said chief engineer Steve Pietras.

Many callers wanted help connecting converter boxes, Pietras said. They had put off hooking them up until yesterday because they thought that was the day digital broadcasting started. Like most stations, WUPW has been broadcasting digitally for years, alongside analog.

Another cause of confusion is that many stations were moving to new frequencies yesterday unsecured personal loans. That meant even digital TV sets and older sets hooked up to converter boxes need to be set to “re-scan" the airwaves, a procedure that people can do through menu options on their remote controls.

Some also faced a need for new antennas, because digital signals travel differently than analog ones. While a weakly received analog channel might be viewable through some static, channels broadcast in the digital language of ones and zeros are generally all or nothing: If they don’t come in perfectly, they are blank or they show a stuttering picture that breaks apart into blocks of colour.

The shutdown of analog channels opens part of the airwaves for modern applications such as wireless broadband and TV services for cellphones. The government reaped $19.6 billion (U.S.) last year by selling some of the freed-up frequencies, with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless the biggest buyers.

The shutdown was originally scheduled for Feb. 17, but the government’s fund for $40 converter box coupons ran out of money in early January, prompting the incoming Obama administration to push for a delay. The converter box program got additional funding in the national stimulus package.

Research firm SmithGeiger LLC said Thursday that about 2.2 million households were still unprepared as of last week.

Nielsen Co., which measures TV ratings, put the number of unprepared homes at 2.8 million, or 2.5 per cent of the total television market. In February, the number was 5.8 million. The switch comes as many stations struggle financially because of a drop in advertising, and 21 stations simply went off the air yesterday along with their analog signals. Most belonged to Arkansas-based Equity Media Holdings, which is under bankruptcy protection.

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WASHINGTON–The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes dipped in May from April, and the annual increase was the smallest in three years.

But as layoffs, rather than risky mortgages, become the main reason that borrowers default on their home loans, foreclosures likely will remain elevated this year and into 2010. Many economists expect unemployment, now at 9.4 per cent nationwide, to rise as high as 10 per cent, and some project it will exceed the post-World War II record of 10.8 per cent.

Foreclosure filings fell 6 per cent in May from April, according to RealtyTrac Inc. More than 321,000 households received at least one foreclosure-related notice last month – 18 per cent more than a year earlier – but the smallest annual gain since June 2006.

Despite the drop from April, it was the third-highest monthly rate since Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac began its report in January 2005, and the third straight month with more than 300,000 households receiving a foreclosure filing.

One in every 398 U.S. homes received a foreclosure filing last month, according to the foreclosure listing firm's report.

The mortgage industry has resumed cracking down on delinquent borrowers after foreclosures were temporarily halted by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other lenders.

"It would not be a huge surprise to see the numbers level off a little bit at this point," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's senior vice president for marketing.

Banks repossessed about 65,000 homes in May, up from 64,000 in April, due to big increases in several states including Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.

The Obama administration announced a plan in March to provide $50 billion from the financial industry rescue fund as an incentive for the mortgage industry to modify loans at lower monthly payments free credit report.com.

But the effectiveness of the relief plan remains unclear, with questions lingering about how much the lending industry will cooperate. Many housing counselors say it hasn't made much of a difference so far.

After banks take over foreclosed homes, they usually put them up for sale at deep discounts, pulling down prices for other sellers. Nationwide, sales of foreclosures and other distressed properties made up about 45 per cent of the market in April, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The supply of new foreclosures had diminished in recent months as banks held off on taking back properties, but it's starting to surge again, said Gary Kent, a San Diego real estate broker who focuses on the foreclosure market.

"Everything I've got that's priced right is just flying off the shelves," he said.

On a state-by-state basis, Nevada had the nation's highest foreclosure rate in May with one every 64 households receiving a filing. California took the No. 2 slot previously occupied by Florida. California's rate was one in every 144 households.

In Florida, one in every 148 households received a foreclosure filing. Rounding out the top 10 were Arizona, Utah, Michigan, Georgia, Colorado, Idaho and Ohio.

Among large cities, Las Vegas led the way with one in every 54 households receiving a filing. Four California metropolitan areas – Stockton, Modesto, Riverside-San Bernardino and Merced – were next, followed by Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.; Bakersfield, Calif.; Orlando, Fla.; Vallejo-Fairfield, Calif.; and Miami.

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Last week hosting the Americans. Next week visiting Russia. China’s busy diplomacy amid the economic crisis reflects growing sway that some say has brought the moment for Beijing to don the cape of a full super-power.

Many Chinese observers think the woes besetting the wealthy West will help Beijing win a bigger global role, but that expectation comes tethered to warnings China should not oversell its strength - above all, not imagine dislodging U.S. dominance or the dollar any time soon.

“The leadership is fully aware that the United States will continue to dominate despite the financial crisis,” said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asia Institute of the National University of Singapore, who often travels to China.

“China does see opportunities to accelerate its rise, but it’s still far from becoming an overall super-power.”

That caution will be on display next week when Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Russia for the first summit of the “BRIC” nations, Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The four fast-growing countries may discuss ways to reduce reliance on the United States, but it is Moscow, not Beijing, that has been most vocal about diversifying away from U.S. government bonds and making the Chinese yuan a global reserve currency.

Just last week, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was in Beijing to reassure his hosts about the safety of their vast dollar holdings, Chinese leaders made it clear they, too, wanted to see a strong U.S. economy.

China, however, knows well that the game has changed. Its growing prominence is rubbing against its ingrained preference for a muted international role paydayadvance.

The line of foreign governments looking to Beijing for an economic boost has raised the question of how far China should use its vast savings and continued growth during the global slump to advance broader national goals.

“There was initially some uncertainty about the strategic impact of the financial crisis,” said Yan Xuetong, a prominent international relations expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“But now we’re seeing clearly that the crisis will lift China’s international status … With countries asking China for its money, it’s found its international influence has also expanded.”

The discussion is also about the right limits for China’s ambitions. The rejection of Chinese company Chinalco’s tie-up with global miner Rio Tinto last week underscored the pitfalls Beijing faces in extending its reach.

Some nationalists say the economic slump marks the end of American preeminence. But most analysts close to the government stress China remains tied to the much bigger U.S. market and does not have the strength to challenge Washington.

Beijing hopes to boost economic and resource security, regional influence and diplomatic reach without riling the United States and its allies, said Zheng.

“China will continue to climb up the ladder,” he said. “But it does not want revolutionary change in the international system.” 

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WASHINGTON — A small army of Canadian diplomats fanned out across Washington today in a full-court press to "contain the contagion" of Buy America trade protectionism.

Stressing that the frantic round of lobbying was "to educate, not to threaten," Canada’s Deputy Head of Mission Guy Saint-Jacques led Ottawa’s effort to reach out to more than 75 members of Congress with a barrage of raw statistics showing how the benefits of free trade flow both ways.

All 13 of Canada’s consul-generals to the United States were involved in the meetings, together with "private-sector allies," officials said.

"I can report the congressmen are surprised by how many jobs are in their districts, supported by trade with Canada," Saint-Jacques said in a conference call with reporters.

Saint-Jacques acknowledged that the protectionism is flaring today at state and municipal levels, with local governments following through on the Buy America provisions of the U.S. federal stimulus package by barring Canadian companies from bidding on contracts health insurance company.

"But let me remind you the problem started in Washington," where politicians first set in motion the expanded scope of Buy America provisions laid out in President Barack Obama’s massive public spending initiative.

While Ottawa intends to continue efforts to win the support of regional jurisdictions in the U.S., Saint-Jacques said the main goal of the Canadian diplomacy now is to avoid the "slippery slope" of further protectionist legislation — including pushing for the removal of copycat Buy America provisions in two pieces of draft legislation now working through Congress.

"There are worrisome signs on the horizon… the Buy America provision is having a destructive effect on trade and investment patterns," he said.

"They are listening with great interesting to our message. We want to avoid a tit-for-tat situation."

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NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE – Pickled or not, Peter Piper would be overwhelmed: So many peppers, it’s an assault on the senses.

"It still scares me sometimes when I come in here," says Toine VanderKnaap and he seems to be only half-joking.

"Here" is the newest of St. David’s Hydroponics’ three greenhouse facilities, more than seven hectares of peppers under glass at a constant 26C-27C with a steamy 80 per cent humidity.

"Think of it as Havana!" says Maarty Hendriksen.

VanderKnaap is general manager and vice-president of St. David’s Hydroponics, which grows red, yellow and orange peppers and also eggplants.

Hendriksen is chief grower, overseeing the first harvest from a giant new greenhouse filled with pepper plants as far as the eye can see – 100 metres of them to either side and 360 metres to the far wall – a whole city block, if they had city blocks out here in the hinterlands outside Niagara-on-the-Lake.

This is farming at its most high-tech, a melding of agriculture and science, precisely monitored and controlled and as green as the peppers themselves before they ripen.

Insects are an essential part of the equation, with a $150,000 bill just in for tiny mites – "indigenous to Ontario," says Hendriksen – that prey on parasites.

"And we use bumble bees for pollination," says VanderKnaap.

The company was started in St. Davids in 1985 by three Dutch immigrants and expanded to Beamsville in 1996. It’s still a privately owned concern, says company treasurer Ian Mole, who doesn’t want to name names. He calls it "a quiet little company. . . that likes to stay under the radar."

The company maintains close ties to the Netherlands where, Mole says, the hydroponics industry is much bigger and leads in technology.

“We get the benefit of all their research and development," he says.

The company won Local Food Plus certification last year. LFP is a non-profit organization that describes itself as "committed to building and fostering local sustainable food systems by certifying farmers and processors and linking them with local purchasers."

Niagara-on-the-Lake Chamber of Commerce in January named St. David’s its 2008 company of the year.

All peppers, whatever colour they wind up, start out green, Hendriksen explains. Ironically, St. David’s doesn’t produce green peppers as such.

"That’s the one area where we can’t compete with field peppers," he says. "It’s a price issue.

"Some people think a pepper’s a pepper but there’s a world of difference between a greenhouse pepper and a field pepper, that may have come from California or Florida or Mexico.”

In Ontario, most of the competition is in Leamington, Mole says. "There’s a fairly large number of hydroponics operations there, growing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, of course, and a little bit of eggplant.”

It’s not a business without its risks and challenges, Mole acknowledges easy fast payday loans. But, he adds, the current economic downturn has benefited St. David’s in three ways:

"The price of natural gas, which we use to heat the greenhouses, has dropped dramatically, from $8 a gigajoule to about $3.30. As factories scale down production, they’re not using as much gas.

"Half of our production goes over the border. The U.S. dollar has improved in the last six to nine months to about $1.20 Canadian. Last year, the dollar was almost at par.

"Ours is a capital-intensive business with massive infrastructure. But interest rates have dropped way below what we budgeted for.

"When we see a good financial opportunity, we go in on fixed-price contracts to take advantage of it. But only so far. We also protect 50 per cent of the business. You can never be sure you’re right."

Price is a big issue, Mole says.

"Is demand high or low? Is the product regarded as a staple or a luxury? When people don’t have money in their pockets, are they going to buy high-quality peppers.

"You manage those risks as much as possible. There’s also the risk, whenever you’re growing something, even in a closed environment, of disease. But we’re very good at managing that. It’s never been a big issue."

St. David’s Hydroponics employs Mexican migrant workers, partly because it’s difficult to recruit Canadian labour, Mole says.

"It’s the same with the orchards and vineyards – it’s difficult to find a local population that wants to work at this sort of thing. We’ll bring them in, train them and educate them and, before you know it, they don’t show up.

"The Mexican migrants are excellent. They come for a purpose – to work and make money. They’re focused on the job. We house them very well – I call it Cadillac accommodation – and try to treat them well. It pays off for everyone."

The endless rows of peppers, with plants bearing fruit of varying sizes and maturity, are rooted in coconut fibre from Sri Lanka.

"It’s totally recyclable," says Hendriksen. "Nothing goes to landfill."

VanderKnaap was born and raised in the Netherlands. Hendriksen was born here but his background is Dutch. Both have been in the business for years.

The natural gas heat also provides the carbon dioxide the plants need.

In summer, when it’s far hotter than 26C, chalk – "like gypsum, almost" – is spread on the roof to mask the heat but let light filter through.

The plants are tended from electric carts that go up and down the rows using the hot-water pipes as rails.

As you walk through the immense greenhouse, the peppers gradually change from an almost luminous green to incandescent red and ready for harvest.

Peter Piper wouldn’t know where to begin.

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WASHINGTON – Indiana pension funds and consumer groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday to stop the sale of bankrupt automaker Chrysler LLC to a group led by Italian car maker Fiat SpA while they challenge the deal.

The separate requests, which moved the legal battle to the highest court in the United States, were filed after a U.S. appeals court in New York approved Chrysler’s sale to a group led by Fiat, a union-aligned trust and the U.S. and Canadian governments.

The Chrysler case could set a precedent for General Motors Corp., which is using a similar quick sale strategy in its bankruptcy in New York.

The appeals court late Friday stayed the closing of the sale until this afternoon, giving the pension funds and other opponents time over the weekend to ask the Supreme Court to block the sale while they appeal.

The three state pension funds, which hold about $42 million (U.S.) of Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured loans, argued the sale unlawfully rewarded unsecured creditors such as the union ahead of secured lenders.

"The need for the court to review the profound issues presented by Chrysler’s novel bankruptcy sale far outweighs the cost of delaying" a sale, lawyers for the pension funds and the Indiana attorney general said in seeking an immediate stay.

The pension and construction funds also argued the U.S. government, which kept Chrysler afloat with emergency loans before the automaker filed for bankruptcy protection and financed its Chapter 11 filing, overstepped its legal authority by using bailout funds Congress intended for banks business cards design.

"The public is watching and needs to see that, particularly, when the system is under stress, the rule of law will be honoured and an independent judiciary will properly scrutinize the actions of the massively powerful executive branch," the lawyers said.

"The issues presented by this case are of immediate and enduring national significance," they said.

Without a stay from the Supreme Court, the sale will close today, the lawyers said.

The pension funds and the consumer groups seek to delay the sale so the Supreme Court can hear and then decide their challenges to the deal. The consumer organizations said they planned to file their appeal with the high court by tomorrow.

A federal bankruptcy judge in New York and the three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected the challenges in approving the sale.

Attorneys for Chrysler, the U.S. government and Fiat all have argued the sale should be allowed to go forward. Fiat can walk away from the deal if it does not close by June 15.

The requests to stay the deal were filed with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has responsibility for such emergency matters from the New York-based appeals court.

Ginsburg could act on her own or could refer the matter to the full court. A stay from the full court would require the votes of five of the nine Supreme Court members.

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ST. LOUIS — It turns out McEagle Properties doesn’t want to buy St. Patrick Center after all.

The O’Fallon developer mistakenly included the social service agency’s downtown headquarters on a list of some 2,400 properties it wants to buy or, if necessary, take by eminent domain, for its NorthSide redevelopment project, said chief development officer Bill Laskowsky.

The list, which McEagle included with its application to city officials for $410 million in infrastructure bonds, included "about a dozen" properties — all active businesses — that should not have been included, Laskowsky said. It was a preliminary version of the property list that was submitted with the application by mistake.

"It’s a big, complex project," he said. "And there are a few things along the way that are going to happen."

St. Patrick chief executive Dan Buck said he had received a call from McEagle on Monday apologizing for the mix-up. His agency has invested $15 million in the building and had no plans to move.

"I knew there had to be some sort of miscommunication," he said. "The McKees have been so good to our organization for so many years."

An amended property list will be filed next week, Laskowsky said.

The proposal also includes a request that St. Louis officials have rarely granted in recent years on tax increment financing (TIF) projects: for the city to back half of the bonds.

McEagle wants the city to agree to pay, if necessary, up to half of the bonds, which are typically issued at the start of the project and repaid over 23 years through increased property tax revenue No fax no teletrack payday loan. That would put St. Louis on the hook for $205 million.

While TIF projects are common in St. Louis, the city has only agreed to back two — the St. Louis Marketplace project in 1992 and the 2006 purchase of One City Centre by Pyramid Construction. The city ended up footing some of the bill for St. Louis Marketplace and is in negotiations on City Centre, said Jeff Rainford, a top aide to Mayor Francis Slay. Slay has been adamant that the city won’t back the TIF for Ballpark Village.

McEagle has agreed to cover any decline in tax revenue during the project. But it wants the protection of city backing on the TIF. The company hopes the city and other government agencies can direct federal stimulus dollars toward the project, which could reduce the TIF request, but at this point it wants to keep all options open, Laskowsky said.

"We don’t know what some of the ultimate financial answers will be," he said. "The language says ‘only if necessary.’ It’s just an unknown at this point."

Rainford said it would take "extraordinary circumstances" for the city to agree to back the TIF, but that it is considering the project as a whole, not focusing on individual elements.

"We’re not going to say yes or no to any one provision," he said. "We’ll evaluate the whole thing and respond from there."

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Sam would understand.

As General Motors clings to life, propped up by government funding, it’s worth remembering that the forerunner of General Motors of Canada, long-time fief of R.S. "Colonel Sam" McLaughlin, endured an eerily similar fate 110 years ago.

McLaughlin was just 28, a young partner but already a driving force in the family business, when the clan watched disaster strike the McLaughlin Carriage Company buildings on Dec. 7, 1899.

"We were helpless," he later wrote. "We could only stand and watch our life’s work go up in flames, not only we McLaughlins, but the 600 men who depended for a living on the carriage works."

Then, as now, Oshawa’s biggest private employer was staring into the abyss. Then, as now, governments scrambled to offer cash and save jobs.

The works were "still smouldering" when a call came from Belleville, McLaughlin remembered. "The city was ready to float a bond issue, we were told, to provide us with a big cash bonus if we would rebuild our factory in Belleville."

Quickly, 15 other Ontario towns and cities made similar offers, but Oshawa came up with a then-whopping loan of $50,000 (more than $2 million today) to be repaid "when convenient."

Oshawa, carriages and then cars have been intertwined ever since, thanks largely to Colonel Sam, a nickname he picked up after becoming Honorary Colonel of the 11th Ontario Regiment.

It was said McLaughlin, who ran GM of Canada for much of the 20th century, had "wheels in his head." Not everyone knew this had started as a family joke about his "first recollection of the carriage business."

He was 5 at the time, and had wandered into the room where his father’s small company hung carriage wheels from the ceiling. One wheel fell, gashing McLaughlin’s head and knocking him out. Eventually, he would see a lot of wheels. After rebuilding in the wake of the fire, McLaughlin Carriage was soon the biggest in the British Empire, producing more than 25,000 carriages a year.

McLaughlin, 100 years old when he died in 1972, often confessed that he did not remember the first time he saw a motor car. But it was likely around 1904: a Ford owned by a McLaughlin bookkeeper with the wonderfully Dickensian name of Oliver Hezzlewood instant payday loans.

Hezzlewood had one complaint. When it rained, he and his passengers got soaked. McLaughlin had an idea. He had started out in the family business as a 16-year-old apprentice upholsterer earning $3 a week, $2.50 of which his father held back for room and board. So McLaughlin had a way with scissors. His solution was a rubberized sheet that fit over the vehicle’s body, with holes cut out for the heads of the driver and three passengers, all of whom then donned sou’westers.

Not long after, McLaughlin went to Detroit to see William Durant, head of the upstart Buick Motor Co. and soon-to-be creator of General Motors. McLaughlin wanted to strike a co-production deal, but the two couldn’t come to terms.

So the McLaughlin Motor Car Co., with Colonel Sam as president, set out on its own in 1907. But after its chief engineer fell ill, McLaughlin again turned to Durant for help. The ensuing accord saw Buick engines shipped to Oshawa and installed in vehicles built by McLaughlin. The car was dubbed the McLaughlin-Buick Model F. In 1908, the first full year of production, 154 of them rolled off the line.

McLaughlin became a director of GM in 1910 and, five years later, he was striking a Buick-like deal to built Chevrolets in Oshawa.

In 1918, with the lucrative Buick contract nearing its end and no obvious heirs to take over the family firm, McLaughlin sold out to GM. He stayed as president of the newly minted GM of Canada, and would be its chairman almost until his death.

An avid sportsman and horse breeder, he was certainly feisty to the end, not least in the wake of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed campaign against GM and its Corvair model in the 1960s.

Enormously wealthy and in his 90s, McLaughlin was chauffeured to GM in Oshawa every day. Then one day he arrived in a Corvair that was parked from then on in the chair’s spot.

Suffice to say, if Washington had summoned Sam for bailout hearings, chances are he’d have driven there himself in the least luxurious GM product he could find.

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