Each year, SmartCanucks holds Secret Santa gift exchanges for the holidays.  you need to be a forum member to participate in these exchanges and have at least 500 posts.

There are just a few days left to sign up if you want to participate.  Visit the threads here for more information, rules and sign up information.

Official Secret Santa Member Exchange

Official Secret Santa Kids’ Exchange

Leon’s has announced that it bought it’s rival The Brick for $700million.

The CEO of Leon’s said: … the transaction will give the brands access to national buying opportunities in merchandising and marketing and a national distribution network that will enhance online shopping capabilities.

They will continue to operate as separate businesses but this deal means The Brick, United Furniture Warehouse and Leon’s will all be owned by the same company – likely not something that will make them consumer and competition friendly despite increased marketing power.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

– John McCrae

 We will remember them.

Holt Renfrew Canada is launching a new hr2 store in March, 2013.  The retailer hopes to provide “new and unique designer product selection at great value”.  The first hr2 store will open in Quebec at Quartier DIX30 with another location planned for Ontario in early 2013.  Ultimately, Holt Renfrew hopes to expand to Calgary where they feel hr2 is a perfect fit among the outlet style malls and younger population.

Save On Foods have decided to no longer allow stacking according to an email from their Head Office.   They will still allow the stacking of one Overwaitea coupon with one manufacture coupon.  View the discussion about this change on our forums here.

Johnson & Johnson Canada has announced that their website Living Well Canada will be shutting down on December 3, 2012.  Here are the fine details from the livingwell.ca webpage:

An Important Message
for LIVING WELL Members

On December 3, 2012, LIVING WELL will be shutting down. To replace it, Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies has created an exciting new program called HEALTHY ESSENTIALS^TM.

As thanks for your loyalty over the years, all LIVING WELL members may sign-in with their LIVING WELL credentials to gain exclusive access to valuable coupons, exciting contests and promotions, and helpful tips and tools found on HEALTHY ESSENTIALS^TM.

Click here to begin enjoying

The HEALTHY ESSENTIALS^™ program provides information, solutions and exclusive offers.

Don’t forget to bookmark the above link to continue getting great coupons, freebies and health tips from the folks at Johnson and Johnson.

The suggested dates for surface mail has now past and airmail dates start on November 23rd so if you are mailing Christmas presents internationally, it is time to start planning.

Check out Canada Post’s suggested mail dates for Christmas 2012 here.

For those McCafe coffee lovers, McDonalds is introducing bags of ground coffee in Canada on November 5th – after they give away lots of cups for free to get people hooked.  A 340g bag will cost $6.99 and will be available in select McDonalds locations.

They are also looking into k-cups and other grocery items for the Canadian market.

The federal government have finally imposed regulations on prepaid credit card companies.

Under the new regulations, prepaid cards must fully disclose any fees and conditions at activation, must not expire and eliminate any unused balance, they also can’t have maintenance fees for at least one year after card activation.

For more information, check the government’s press release here.

Banana Boat/Energizer is pulling two types of continuous spray Banana Boat sun care products from stores across Canada – Banana Boat Ultra Defense Spray Sunscreen and Banana Boat Sport Performance Spray Sunscreen.

Energizer who own the Banana Boat label says there is a “potential risk of product igniting on the skin if contact is made with a source of ignition before the product is completely dry.”  There are five cases of users catching on fire, four in the US and one in Canada.

The products were sold nationally from January, 2010, through Sept. 20, 2012.

If you shopped in the US, the list is much longer, view it here.

Consumers who purchased the products are being told not to use them. More information is available from the manufacturer at 1-888-SUN-TIPS (1-888-786-8477) Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET. or by sending an email to: [email protected].

Starbucks Canada has revised their Rewards Program to ensure their customers get more free food and drinks!  However, they have also said goodbye to a few small freebies 🙁  Click here to view all the changes (too many to mention) and let us know what you think of the revised program.  The new program starts on October 16, 2012.

Websaver.ca has announced on its Facebook webpage that “Monday will be a big day for coupons! If we get 1000 likes on this post, we’ll announce one of the companies that coupons will be available for. Start liking and sharing!”  They received over 1000 “Likes” in 36 minutes and annouced there will be a coupon for Kellogg’s Vector cereal.  They stated “Keep those shares coming! Our next company announcement will have quite a few coupons!”

Click here to “Like” websaver.ca on Facebook and check back to see more coupon announcements!

With so many Mini-Wheat coupons, I thought this one was worth posting even though it is a ‘low level recall’.  Kellogg’s Mini-Wheats have been recalled due to metal “Extraneous Material” in the cereal.  The recall includes original frosted and brown sugar flavour across the country with best before dates of “2013 AL 01 TO 2013 JL 29”.

See details on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s website and check your cereals, chipped teeth are expensive to fix!

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is now urging consumers to ask stores where they get their beef as they expanded the recall to include steaks, roasts, sausages and other cuts of meat in addition to the original (expanded) ground beef.

You can check the various lists on the CFIA website to see if the meat you have is recalled.  Due to the size of the list, and the fact they are all on different pages, this page which sorts by store selling the items, may be of more use.

We seem to be experiencing server issues and the forums are currently showing intermittent database errors.

Hopefully they will be back up fully soon, but feel free to chat in the replies here until they are.