The faucet is on. The providers are starting to trickle in.

More than a year after the CRTC announced new players would soon freshen up the wireless market – and only three months after WIND Mobile made a bid to become our saviour from the Bell/Telus/Rogers stranglehold – a new discount network can be seen on the horizon trying to save Canadians cash.

Public Mobile announced today it will launch in Toronto and Montreal this May, basing its service on a budget, unlimited talk-and-text plan for $40 a month.

Right now, thousands of Canadians are on a beach and you’re not.

Want to make matters worse? Canuck vacationers, despite the big cash they’re dumping on jet ski rentals, Jeep island tours and snorkel shots, are actually being fiscally responsible.

Um, whuh?

Alright, they’re not being that  responsible, but Canadians fraternizing in the U.S. – or any destination that accepts the greenback, which is everywhere – have gotten a nice boost by the surging loonie, which is helping them Spring Break without Spring Breaking the bank quite as much.

Leave a fresh carcass in the wild and what’s gonna happen? Vultures, right? There will always be vultures.

Indeed, you could see the writing on the wall last December when the Wall Street Journal  reported Americans, dejected and out of work, were fleeing the Sun Belt hotspot locales where once they flocked.

But with thousands of depressed homes listed at incredibly discounted prices, it wasn’t a question of when houses in the Floridas, Arizonas and Nevadas of the U.S. were going to get snatched up. It was a matter of who’d get them.

Enter: the Canadian investor.

It pays to worship James Cameron.

By now, we all know the box office power of Avatar, but who knew the 3D epic could actually turn a struggling business to gold?

According to a Reuters report today, the force behind the highest-grossing film of all time helped IMAX Corp., the big-screen Canadian theatre chain, post two dominant quarters after an unimpressive run.

There are a myriad of ways to cope with the recession.

Some of us reel in spending. Others pay more attention to their investments. Or, there are the people like Nicolas Cage, who will do just about anything for a paycheque.

But how can an entire city put on a good face when it’s been ravaged by the downturn, an economic disaster that’s chased away vendors and left key business areas looking like ghost towns?

Well, if you’re like one U.K. borough, you fake it.

Canadians, as we saw at the Vancouver Games, hold up quite well on the world’s athletic scale.

Yet, how do we perform in business, the measuring stick that often accounts for endured success in life?

Well, the latest Fortune list of the world’s most admired companies is out, so let’s see how Canada fared:

The casualties of this latest recession come in different shapes and sizes.

And new victims always seem to come to light as we look back on the downturn. We know about the laid-off, the suddenly pension-less retirees and the graduates who can’t find work, but here are four new sufferers of the economy we never thought to consider.

Boobs, butts, tummies and chins.

Scenario A: You wake up Sunday morning and, as you usually do, head down to the local Tims to grab a coffee. You order a mug, snatch a newspaper and plop down next to Herb, Betty, Jim and the rest of the gang. You talk about nothing in particular, though you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Scenario B: That same Sunday, you get dressed and hop in the car. On the way to your favourite Tims is – huh?  – another Tims, a new Tims. Inside this restaurant aren’t the familiar booths and tables, nor that counter top with the cafeteria-style grooves that run down from the cash to the sandwich pick-up area. The food looks the same, but you peer inside to see patrons sipping from mugs you don’t recognize, and now Herb, Betty and Jim are Chip, Kent and Joan, a trio of stockbrokers on their way to spin class.

Which setting do you choose?

There’s no shortage of differences between two-thousand-and-ten and, say, nineteen-hundred-and-ten.

In 1910, the Union of South Africa was created. In 2010, a 'We Are The World' remake starring Justin Bieber was created. In 1910, the first infrared photographs were published. In 2010, the first photos of Greg Oden’s, uh, manhood were published. In 1910, this was Jack Johnson. In 2010, this is Jack Johnson.

Yet this year, in this age, there's one thing more dissimilar (and more complicated) than anything else was one century ago: death.

Last October, as the issue was gaining increasing steam, we discussed the fat tax – was it a good idea, a bad idea or something close to the plot line from V for Vendetta?

Indeed, the conversation quickly turned to “enough government already” almost without pause. And, perhaps, rightfully so. Such a proposal is radical, even considering the health information we have today.

Yet, still, hidden amongst the anti-totalitarianism comments was a good amount of support for the idea. Maybe the fat tax wasn’t perfect, but its ideals seemed to have the right intentions. Maybe it just needed a little … tweak.