The other day, we talked about how Subway Canada’s chicken was found by CBC Marketplace to be less than 50% chicken, and after allowing the dust to settle a bit from the investigation, Subway has decided to come out in a defence of their product.

After the story about Subway’s chicken being more soy than chicken reached worldwide recognition, Subway came out and asked that CBC retract the story, claiming in a report that it was “absolutely false and misleading.” CBC Marketplace has shot back and says that they completely stand by their findings, and have gone the lengths of even releasing the findings from their DNA analysis of Subway’s chicken.

Subway refused to comment to the CBC about their product, but sent an email to the news station listing the ingredients they use in their chicken sandwiches, which they still claim are made with 100 percent white chicken meat and seasonings. The ingredient list included:

• Chicken strips: Boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, water, soy protein concentrate, modified potato starch, sodium phosphate, potassium chloride, salt, maltodextrin, yeast extract, flavours, spices, dextrose, onion powder, carmelized sugar, paprika, chicken broth, vinegar solids, paprika extract.
• Chicken patty: Chicken breast meat, water, seasoning (sea salt, sugar, chicken stock, salt, flavours, canola oil, onion powder, garlic powder, spice, chicken fat, honey), soy protein, sodium phosphates.

CBC has come out to clarify their results a bit more so that people understand when they say that Subway’s chicken was found to be 50 percent chicken, that does not indicate an exact ratio but more of a representation. When they asked experts from the University of Guelph about their findings they agreed that DNA results “cannot be taken as exact mass ratios in the product,” but the results are a good indicator of how much soy is in Subway’s chicken.

CBC Marketplace also did a video about tasting fast food chicken that you can check out here, and you can read the CBC’s original article that has garnered so much attention here.

Toys R Us Canada has a great FREE Family Events in March each Saturday including fun make and takes, product demos, giveaways and more.

Visit your local Toys“R”Us store to take part in the exciting promotions and activities your kids will love. All events are offered In-store only. While quantities last. Giveaways and make and takes are limit to one per child. Events recommended for children ages 5 years and up.

Today: Saturday, March 4, 2017  from 11am – 1pm

• Imports Dragon Giveaway, FREE giveaways from Imports Dragon! Choose from:
  • The Grossery Gang or
  • Shopkins Season 7 mystery foil bags.

Here’s the upcoming event every Saturday morning at 11am:

Saturday, March 11, 2017 from 11am – 1pm

• Mega Construx Halo Make And Take
• Build and take home a MEGA Construx HALO ship!

Saturday, March 18, 2017 from 11am – 1pm

• Beyblade Burst + Play Doh Demo & Crafts
• Kids test their skills and challenge other participants at our Beyblade battle for the burst event.

Saturday, March 25, 2017 from 11am – 1pm

• Beauty and The Beast Event Make and Take
• Kids can Build and take home a LEGO Mini Cogsworth and create and take home a Play-Doh Rose.

Click here to view the Toys R Us flyer.

Click here to get more information on this event.

Cineplex Canada has released their new schedule. The Cineplex Canada Family Favourites Movies include:

• Today, Saturday, March 4, 2017 at 11am the film Nine Lives, Comedy, Family, is the Family Favourites for $2.99 (1h 27m).

Here’s the upcoming movie every Saturday morning at 11am for Cineplex Family Favourites at $2.99 each:

March, 2017:

• Saturday, March 11, 2017: Kubo and the Two Strings. Animation, Family. 1h 41m
• Saturday, March 18 2017: The Wizard of Oz. Family, Fantasy. 1h 42m
• Saturday, March 25, 2017: Space Jam. Comedy, Animation, Adventure, Family, Classic. 1h 28m

Click here to see a list of Cineplex participates in the Family Favourites event.

Click here to get tickets from Cineplex online

Udemy Canada has a new deal starting today! Now you can get all online courses for only US$15. Use the promo code GAMER15 online to get this deal.

Udemy is an online learning marketplace, where over 15 million students are taking courses in everything from programming to nutrition to languages – and much more! There are over 45,000 courses and each one is taught by an expert instructor, and every course is available on-demand, so you can learn at your own pace, on your own time, and on any device.

Click here to start a new course at Udemy Canada!

Bad news for all Costco Canada shoppers! Costco Canada (and Costco USA) will be increasing its annual fees. Starting June 1st, 2017. Costco Membership fees will change as follows:

• Costco Canada Gold Star Membership: $60 (up from $55).
• Costco Canada Executive Membership: $120 (up from $110).

Last time the fees were increased was in 2011 and hence this Costco membership fee increase was inevitable.  Costco has over 87 million members who collectively paid more than $2.6 billion US in 2016 for the right to shop at the Costco stores. This is surprisingly more than the company made in profits last year!

Costco has been growing steadily year to year and has become the second largest brick and mortar retailer in the world behind Walmart. The only demographic where Costco performs poorly is amongst millennials who prefer online shopping and click-and-collect options.

How do you feel about these Costco fee increases? Will you still continue to shop there?

I know outside it still has the chill of winter, but before you know it, restaurants will be opening up their patios for the season and you’ll be itching to get off work early on Friday afternoons to hit the beach. And to ring in the soon-t0-be changing seasons, Coca-Cola Canada will be launching a ready-to-drink tea for their Canadian customers, Gold Peak Tea.

Gold Peak Tea is going to be joining forces with Canadian Nestea to make a bigger mark on the Canadian ready-to-drink tea market. In launching Gold Peak in Canada, they will be offering three great varieties: lemon, raspberry, or unsweetened. Gold peak is going to be sold across Canada in grocery stores as 1.75L carafes or 547mL bottles.

They’re going to be running promos to advertise the new product throughout the season, so I suggest you keep an eye on Coca-Cola Canada’s Twitter and Facebook page to see what they’re offering up.

Click here to learn more about Gold Peak Tea from Coca-Cola Canada.

Guess what’s back? Hot Cross Buns!

Hot Cross Buns are back and baked fresh daily at your local COBS Bread. COBS bakery is hosting their Hot Cross Fun Day Event this Saturday, March 4, 2017! Head to your local bakery on March 4th for Hot Cross Bun tastings, kid-friendly activities and family fun!

COBS Bread have three delicious varieties from Hot Cross Bun baked fresh from scratch daily on-site at each bakery. Try all three this spring: Traditional Fruit, Cranberry Orange, or Chocolate Chip. The Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Bun has more than 100 chocolate chips per bun.

Click here to find a COBS Bread Canada near you.

The Home Depot Canada has a new list of workshops that are going on March, 2017! The Home Depot Canada March, 2017 FREE workshop include:

• March 2017:
  • Build a Rain Gauge, Saturday, March 11, 2017 – 10:00 AM to noon
  • Install Moulding and Trim, Wednesday, March 15, 2017 – 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
  • Install Laminate Flooring, Saturday, March 18, 2017 – 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM

To book your slot at a workshop, contact your local Home Depot location.

Click here to read more about these workshops at The Home Depot Canada.

Click here to get all Home Depot Canada online offers.

In a bold move, the president of Sunrise Records, Doug Putman, announced that the Ontario-based music chain would be taking over 70 vacant lots left empty by the soon-to-be liquidated Canadian music retailer giant, HMV.

Putman says that he plans to take ownership of the retail locations, which are based in malls and across the country, in the springtime after HMV has officially pulled out and pulled down their signs.

Putman told the Canadian Press in an interview that he sees this as “a good opportunity for us to get a lot more stores open.” Despite the fact that online streaming services has risen to 22 billion streams in the past year (up 203%), Putman says that consumers still have a soft spot for having a ‘physical’ piece of the music to hold onto.

“Vinyl will definitely be front-of-store,” he was quoted saying in an interview to CBC. The stores will also continue to sell CDs, apparel and other forms of music paraphernalia.

HMV officially closed down operations in January after trying to make a business work that was said in court filings to be losing $100,000 a day.

But these numbers haven’t stalled Sunrise Records president’s faultless optimism. In fact, the company has plans on reaching out to the thousands of HMV employees who have been left unemployed after the company decided to shut down operations of all 102 stores.

Air conditioning this summer is about to get a little cheaper if you live in Ontario.  This morning, the Premier announced that they are refinancing building and upgrading of power plants along with some of the other costs that attached to our bills.  Admitting that hydro bills are too high for many Ontario residents, there will be an average reduction of 17% on most bills starting with June usage – just in time for those summer cooling bills!  This is on top of the recent savings of 8% by cutting the provincial portion of taxes on bills.

While many bills have arrived with small discounts, the tax reduction only included actual usage and not just billing from January 1st so bills arriving this month should see the full discount.  With most electricity providers moving to monthly billing this Spring as required by the recent decisions on hydro rates, we should start seeing the full 25% discount on bills in July.

It will probably cost us more in the long term, refinancing means it needs to be paid back at some point but for those struggling to pay their bills, it may be a welcome break.  Officials say the maximum amount of interest per year would be $1.4 billion, with those interest costs to be paid by hydro customers in future years – so don’t get used to the discount, it may disappear after the next election!

Tim Hortons Canada has a wonderful freebie event going on for March, Break this year that the whole family will be able to take advantage of. On different days throughout the March Break, Tim Hortons will be offering your family the chance to go to local swimming pools in your area for completely FREE

The dates, times and locations of thisTim Hortons free event will vary depending on where it is you are living. But all you have to do to determine when and where your free swimming events can be found is type in your address, city or postal code into the map finder and then the site will generate a list of places in your preferred region to choose from.

For the most part, the dates will be offered between March 13th-March 18th, but that may change depending on your region.

Click here to learn more about the Tim Hortons Canada free swimming event.

Toys R Us Canada has FREE Family Events each Saturday in March. The Toys R Us March Family Events include fun make & Takes, product demos, giveaways and more.

Visit your local Toys“R”Us store to take part in the exciting promotions and activities your kids will love. All events are offered In-store only. While quantities last. Giveaways and make and takes are limit to one per child. Events recommended for children ages 5 years and up.

Saturday, March 4, 2017  from 11am – 1pm

• Imports Dragon Giveaway, FREE giveaways from Imports Dragon! Choose from:
  • The Grossery Gang or
  • Shopkins Season 7 mystery foil bags.

Saturday, March 11, 2017 from 11am – 1pm

• Mega Construx Halo Make And Take
• Build and take home a MEGA Construx HALO ship!

Saturday, March 18, 2017 from 11am – 1pm

• Beyblade Burst + Play Doh Demo & Crafts
• Kids test their skills and challenge other participants at our Beyblade battle for the burst event.

Saturday, March 25, 2017 from 11am – 1pm

• Beauty and The Beast Event Make and Take
• Kids can Build and take home a LEGO Mini Cogsworth and create and take home a Play-Doh Rose.

Click here to view the Toys R Us flyer.

Click here to get more information on this event.

BCBG Max Azria, the women’s upscale fashion retail chain, is closing all its standalone stores in Canada and seeking protection from creditors in North America. Fifty one stores in Canada will be liquidated and closed, however court filings say the company may keep its kiosks inside department stores, such as Hudson’s Bay, which are for the most part profitable.

Founded in 1989, BCBGMAXAZRIAGROUP is the lifetime vision of Founder, Designer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Max Azria. After years of success designing women’s wear in Paris and Los Angeles, Azria decided to pursue his dream of launching a design house that spoke to the modern woman, and BCBGMAXAZRIA was born. The chain has grown to over 550 stores worldwide.

The brand, a longtime favourite of red-carpet celebrities, has suffered in the retail slump. Kate Winslet, Victoria Beckham and Alicia Keys have worn its fashions, which include cocktail dresses and handbags. Despite US$615 million in sales in its most recently completed fiscal year, the chain is the latest unable to pay its debts. Court documents suggest the company has assets of up to $500 million and debts of up to $1 billion.

“Unfortunately, like many other apparel and retail companies, BCBG has fallen victim in recent years to adverse macro-trends, including a general shift away from brick-and-mortar to online retail channels, a shift in consumer demographics,” the company said in a court filing. As such, BCBG Max Azria is seeking protection under Canada’s Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

If you’re one of the people who think of Subway as a “healthier” alternative to the usual fast food fare, a myth that has been debunked on more than one occasion, then this study from CBC Marketplace is one that will surely make you think twice before ordering that $5 footlong.

In a DNA analysis, CBC took samples from the most popular chicken filet sandwiches that different fast food businesses dish out to their customers. Subway’s sandwiches, as the analysis revealed, contained the least amount of chicken DNA, coming in at under 50% chicken.

The results from the study, which took samples from five popular fast food chains, were broken down as such:

1. A&W chicken grill deluxe (89.4%)
2. Wendy’s grilled chicken sandwich (88.5%)
3. Tim Hortons chipotle chicken grilled wrap (86.5%)
4. McDonald’s grilled country chicken (84.9%)
5. Subway oven roasted chicken patties (53.6%)
6. Subway sweet onion chicken teriyaki strips (42.8%)

The testers were initially shocked by the results of the Subway chicken, considering the outliers to possibly be incorrectly measured. And so the test was done again and again, to ensure accuracy. But after ordering five new biopsies of the chicken, the average still came out to be 53.6% and 42.8% for the two latter sandwiches.

What was the remaining ingredients in the chicken? Soy.

Subway replied to this study, stating that their recipe calls for less than one percent of soy in their chicken products:

“Subway Canada cannot confirm the veracity of the results of the lab testing you had conducted. However, we are concerned by the alleged findings you cite with respect to the proportion of soy content. Our chicken strips and oven roasted chicken contain 1% or less of soy protein. We use this ingredient in these products as a means to help stabilize the texture and moisture. All of our chicken items are made from 100% white meat chicken which is marinated, oven roasted and grilled. We tested our chicken products recently for nutritional and quality attributes and found it met our food quality standards. We will look into this again with our supplier to ensure that the chicken is meeting the high standard we set for all of our menu items and ingredients.”

Subway has said that they’re going to be investigating the matter with their supplier, as they always strive to supply high quality ingredients to their customers.

Regardless of what they plan to do going forward, would you still eat Subway’s chicken sandwich products?

The month of March sees a number of greatly anticipated video games being released with one of the more hotly awaited games being The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which will be released on both WiiU and Switch on March 3rd.

The game have been ordered by the day of their release, with the ones that have yet to state an official release date being left at the bottom.

Friday, March 3rd, 2017:

• 1-2-Switch (Switch)
• Human Resource Machine (Switch)
• I Am Setsuna (Switch)
• Just Dance 2017 (Switch)
• Little Inferno (Switch)
• Skylanders Imaginators (Switch)
• Snipperclips (Switch)
• Super Bomberman R (Switch)
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wii U)
• World of Goo (Switch)

Tuesday, March 7th, 2017:

• Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey (PS4/PS Vita/PC)
• Birthdays the Beginning (PS4/PC)
• LEGO Worlds (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
• Loot Rascals (PS4/PC)
• Nier: Automata (PS4/PC)
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (PS4/Xbox One/PC)

Tuesday, March 14th, 2017: 

• Danganronpa 1-2 Reload (PS4)
• Star Trek: Bridge Crew (PS VR/Oculus Rift/Vive)
• Styx: Shards of Darkness (PS4/Xbox One/PC)

Tuesday, March 21st, 2017: 

• Mass Effect Andromeda (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
• Toukiden 2 (PS4/Xbox One/PS Vita)
• Troll and I (PS4/Xbox One/PC)

Thursday, March 23rd/Friday, March 24th, 2017:

• Rock Band VR (Oculus Rift)  (March 23rd)
• Dreamfall Chapters (PS4/Xbox One)  (March 24th)
• Mario Sports Superstars (3DS)  (March 24th)

Tuesday, March 28th, 2017:

• Has-Been Heroes (Switch/PS4/Xbox One/PC)
• Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix (PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix (PS4)
• MLB The Show 17 (PS4)
• PaRappa the Rapper Remastered (PS4)
• Strafe (PC)

Dates TBA:

• Old Time Hockey (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
• Outcast: Second Contact (PS4/Xbox One/PC)
• Overload (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Mac/Linux)
• The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ (Switch)
• Routine (PC)