Ontario Government looks to ban
Ontario Government looks to ban expiration dates on 'gift cards'. Now there's an idea whose time has come. Seriously, I can't believe it's taken this long for lawmakers to go after this particular problem. Expiring money! Who'd've thought! It's a masterpiece of hubris on the part of retailers. I once asked a GAP clerkbot why their gift cards 'expired' - she explained, rather meekly, that it's to excourage people to use the gift card. But, why do you care? I asked. The money's in the bank, your company is making interest on it as we speak, and with inflation, the longer the customer hangs on to it, the less it's worth. So who cares if they keep a gift card for two or three years? Something about keeping track of the cards in their computers is difficult. B.S. again! Data retention is nothing to a big company. It's just numbers in a file. It's a cash-grab, pure and simple. Good that we're going to outlaw it.
For photographers interested in capturing the wonderful fall colours that are bursting out all over this fine province, or for people who just want to go for a nice drive in the country, here's Ontario Tourism's "Weather" page - the top item in the "Seasonal Weather" section is the Fall Colour report. It's a PDF file, updated regularly until the end of October, detailing where the best fall colours are.