Rent A Pick Up

Keep your cash in your pocket

You can plunk down a month's rent on a two-bedroom rental home on Aberdeen Avenue in the North End or fly to Los Angeles and back on Air Canada or snag a deal on a used oak dining-room set advertised on Kijiji.

But if you think you can buy a city councillor for $750, you're going to wind up disappointed. You simply can't call yourself the proud owner of a municipal politician for that paltry sum of squish.

According to Winnipeg's electoral rules, $750 is the maximum amount of cash any individual can donate to a council candidate during a municipal campaign.

Ostensibly, the maximum was put in place to prevent any one well-heeled interest from spending too much money on a single candidate. I say "ostensibly" because this was done not to level the financial playing field but to attempt to avoid the appearance of anything untoward existing in municipal politics.

During the 2010 campaign, for the very first time, unions and corporations were prevented from donating to council candidates. This rule, instituted by the province, was also motivated by a desire to achieve better optics and pander to the public desire for more transparency in municipal government.

The reason both rules are all about optics -- as opposed to actually improving democracy -- is both are too easily circumvented. As the late Charleswood councillor Bill Clement used to explain: If any person wants to hand a little bit more money to any given candidate, all that donor has to do is convince a few other people to make donations or even hand those folks the money to do so.

The same thing applies to corporations or unions; if a corporate or union figure want to give money to a candidate, all they have to do is instruct a colleague or employee to do so. There's no way to prevent this from happening and nobody pretends it doesn't happen. In fact, nobody even bothers to cover it up.

Earlier this month, when the City of Winnipeg published the audited financial statements of all 62 council and mayoral candidates who registered to run in the 2010 municipal election, you could easily find examples where a number of like-minded people got together to support the same candidate.

For example, Leo Ledohowski and Taras Sokolyk are both senior executives with the Canad Inns corporation. They each gave to several of the same candidates. Ditto several members of the Borger clan, which is associated with property developer Ladco. Senior Shindico executives Robert and Sandy Shindleman also gave to several of the same candidates.

General information about cars » Best Way To Rent a Car by D ...

Once in a while there might be a time where we will need to rent a vehicle. It might be for a vacation, your main vehicle is out of commission or etc. If you’re a first timer in renting a vehicle, you might think that the procedure of renting a vehicle is perplexing but it’s not. You will read about some rental car tips that will illustrated throughout this article about how smooth the procedure will be.

You will need to know the size of the vehicle you need to rent. I have found that compact and standard size vehicles are in actual fact cheaper and normally are more ideal to fit a person working with a tight budget . It is best to get something that is the right size and not too big. For example, renting a pickup truck wouldn’t be very ideal unless you are hauling something which is very large and heavy.

Always shop around car rental business because sometimes they are more likely to go down on their price in order to make the transaction. Use this to your advantage in receiving a decent price for your rental car. Ask for deals and package rates that are available. Renting a vehicle for a full week is sometimes cheaper than actually renting a vehicle for 4 to 5 days. Also some car rental business has really huge discounts for weekend rentals. Always get the final price which includes taxes because sometimes the price quoted doesn’t always include taxes. Car rental companies such as Avis , Budget and Dollar are usually decent with their prices compared to other big rental agencies in the business.

Certain groups might offer you a discount on your rental car. Keep in mind that having car insurance for another vehicle can save you as well. Check the policy for discounts and to fully understand if you are covered with the rental as well. Most auto insurance will cover rentals but make sure you know this kind of information prior. Another thing that can save you a few dollars is using your own auto insurance instead of the rental company’s insurance.

Once you have decided which rental car company to do business with, make a follow-up call a day or two before the date to pick up the car. The reasoning behind this is to make sure the rental company and yourself are on the same page with information as well as pricing. The last thing you want is to have a misunderstanding and realize it when it is time to leave.

Most car rental companies don’t accept cash, more than likely they will be accepting credit or debit cards. They do such procedure in case the vehicle is returned damaged. Speaking of damage they ( car rental company) are more likely than not to do a walk-around with you present inspecting for damages. Make sure you speak up upon any damage your eyes catch that they didn’t make note of; the last thing you want is to be charge for damage which was present prior to your possession of the vehicle.

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