 |
CANADA'S MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR eHEALTH CONUNDRUM:
A 32-part series of articles investigating why Canada lags the world in building a public health infostructure. |
|
 In Russia’s remotest corner the descendants of gulag prisoners and guards now work side by side under Canadian bosses
The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, March 23, 2011
Industry-led committee urges delay in closing loophole allowing import of unapproved antibiotics for animals
Seven years after Canadian experts called for tighter rules governing unrestricted imports of unapproved and untested antibiotics used in meat production due to worries that their use contributes to antibiotic resistance in humans, industry wants Health Canada leave open a loophole that allows farmers to import such drugs without regulatory scrutiny.
Canadian Medical Association Journal, April 28, 2009
 Iraq is a Hard Place
To read the article, click on the poster to the left.
Iraq boasts the world's fourth-largest proven oil reserves, but much of the country has not even been explored. For WesternZagros, a small, new firm, and for Talisman, its larger, richer partner, the daunting risks of drilling in the world's most violent oil frontier are offset by the fact that it is also the world's most promising oil frontier.
Report on Business Magazine, February 27, 2009 (cover story)
 Hard-Hat Heaven
To read the article, click on the poster to the left.
A powerful alliance of builders, bureaucrats and bankers is quietly sliding an entirely new foundation across some of the Canadian economy’s most important terrain. “There’s no magic in it,” says Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty “You just want to do it in a way that doesn’t saddle your kids with excessive payments.”
Report on Business Magazine, February 25, 2010
A Golden Retirement
With contributions from working Canadians totaling $168 billion since 2000, the Canada Pension Plan aims to have assets over $300 billion by 2019, the year before it’s expected to begin relying on investment income to help pay pensions. In 2008, the CPPIB got a dose of anti-inflammatories. In the third quarter between July and September, as the global financial crisis cut pension funds worldwide by $4 trillion, the CPPIB lost 29% of its Canadian stock market holdings and 18% of its holdings on international markets — an $11.6-billion net loss yielding a 30% reduction in its four-year average overall return on all investments.
Canadian Business, December 8, 2008
A Religious Revival:
Buddhism is Big Business in China
Phoenix is one of China’s largest private television networks, broadcasting to over 40 million Chinese homes, and bringing in more than US$100 million in annual advertising income. Although the network is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch, the world’s richest media baron, the majority owner is 57-year-old Liu Changle, who ranks 179th on Forbes’ most recent list of China’s richest people. His net worth is estimated at US$440 million. Phoenix, behind its low-budget façade, is a major money-maker.
Canadian Business, December 8, 2008
Divorce, Russian style: Why Oleg Deripaska dumped Magna.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current prime minister and former president, is a man of few words. They tend to be words that matter, though. So when he visited the massive GAZ car factory northeast of Moscow last July to take Russia’s newest sedan, the Volga Siber, for a test drive, the carmakers listened closely. “It takes off fast, and they’ve increased the clearance,” Putin said admiringly as he climbed out from behind the wheel. “It will be fine for our roads.” It was a happy day for Magna International Inc., which sent about 150 experts to help build the Siber.
Canadian Business, November 10, 2008
Siberia Rising
Nobody would call Kodinskiy, a town of 16,000 consisting of a clutch of apartment towers crumbling in the central Siberian wilderness, an alluring place. The roads are pitted and sidewalks are rare. Ancient municipal buses blacken the air with exhaust. Many buildings are fronted by garbage piles. And at mid-morning, dishevelled men drinking vodka dot the town square. But a closer look reveals a brighter picture.
Canadian Business, November 5, 2007
To Russia With Parts
To overtake the fierce competition and make its curiously lopsided partnership pay, Magna must now attempt to exit the very gates it gave up so much to enter.
Report on Business Magazine, Sept 26, 2007
Is it time to hand global warming to the lawyers?
When legislators stop short and polluters won't act, nothing spurs action like litigation. Americans started suing governments and companies that oppose efforts to address global warming quite a while back. Relying on tactics honed in battles against tobacco, pharmaceutical and chemical companies, they've been making considerable progress.
Perhaps it shouldn't come as any big surprise, then, that Canadian lawyers are also considering whether to sue the Canadian government – and perhaps even Canadian companies – over climate change.
Toronto Star, April 29, 2007
The (Legal) Heat is On
At first glance, Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. doesn't appear to be a company threatened by climate change. People with prescriptions to fill don't normally flock to locations considered vulnerable to global warming — like barren permafrost, or Antarctica. So when Inhance Investment Management Inc., a Vancouver-based mutual company, drafted a shareholder resolution aiming to force Shoppers (TSX: SC) to disclose its "exposure to climate risk and efforts to reduce that exposure," some might have viewed the effort as frivolous, or just plain bizarre.
Canadian Business, March 26, 2007
Will Candu Do?
While Ottawa continues to push the sale of candus to old customers like Romania, it is being shut out of major markets just as the industry is expanding internationally. Losing access to the US market was a major blow, but things took a turn for the worse when officials in China, where the two Canadian-financed candus recently went into service, said current plans require simpler US-style reactors to be built in the future. The Chinese decision followed one made by South Korea, which had bought four candus in the 1980s and ’90s before it also decided to go with American reactors. With the doors slammed shut in most of the world’s markets, Candu is now fighting to hold on to Ontario.
The Walrus, September 2006
Multimillions
Canada proudly calls multiculturalism integral to our national identity. Turns out it’s also a nifty way to make money “back home”.
Report on Business, March 2006
Controlling the costs of US health care
Poor uninsured Americans, and middle-class households upset at rising health-care bills, have long been arguing for health-care reform. Now, growing numbers of the most wealthy Americans— including many business leaders—are joining the campaign for change.
The Lancet, February 25, 2006
Bitter harvest: pine beetle infestation in B.C.
A pine beetle infestation is ravaging B.C. forests. Evidence points to climate change as the catalyst.
Canadian Business, January 30, 2006
US big businesses struggle to cope with health-care costs
General Motors president Rick Wagoner caused controversy when he blamed the US health-care system for his company’s near-bankrupt status. But health care and the US and Canadian automotive industry’s economic decisions are increasingly interlinked.
The Lancet, January 14, 2006
Send Money Guns and Lawyers
Thirty minutes before the plane touches down in Koryazhma, a Russian mill town of 44,000 built by prisoners sent to operate the Kotlas plant when it opened in 1961, clear cuts begin to scare the landscape. This could be an aerial view of Canada’ hinterland. But unlike the land surrounding Canadian mills, rather than converging into a massive cutover, the cuts thin out again, engulfed by a landscape that both foresters and environmentalists agree has felt remarkably little impact from the industry.
Report on Business, February 2003
Contact Paul via email
|
