Let's all hate Toronto
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 16, 2010 - 0 Comments
John Baird, today. “I share the disappointment of many of my colleagues that people who had fought so long, so hard, so passionately against the registry are now feeling the pressure from the two Toronto leaders, Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Layton,” Baird said. ”We’re all accountable. If we make clear and unambiguous promises in our constituencies and then face pressure from Toronto elites, [MPs are] accountable for that.”
Toronto Star, May 2006. Baird calls himself an “Ottawa boy” but concedes after living in the Big Smoke for about 10 years, Toronto is in his veins. He regularly visits the city, staying at his old apartment, which he sublet to a friend. ”I miss Toronto,” he said.
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The brawl on Bay Street
By Jason Kirby - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments
Canada’s big banks are preparing to launch a rival stock exchange to the TSX, setting up a battle that could shake up the industry and bruise investors
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON
When executive egos and business interests collide in Canada, the Toronto Stock Exchange has traditionally been the battlefield on which conflicts are waged. But the latest corporate showdown on Bay Street pits the TSX itself against the most powerful financial institutions in the country.
Sometime in the next few weeks, Canadians will get their first look at what this country’s newest stock exchange could look like. That’s when Alpha Group, a company owned by the Big Six banks, Canaccord Capital, Desjardins Securities and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, will make public its application to become a full-fledged exchange. Jos Schmitt, CEO of Alpha, is tight-lipped about exactly how the new exchange will be structured and what services it will offer. But he’s not nearly so reticent about why he believes Canada needs another big exchange. “What we’ve had in Canada was a monopoly without any regulation of fees,” he says, referring to the TSX and its parent company, TMX Group. “We saw a lack of innovation, fees that were too high and a lack of investment. That’s why competition has kicked in.”
On buttoned-down Bay Street, those are fighting words. And competition is certain to get fierce. But this isn’t just a battle between rival exchanges for market share and fees. Some worry investors could end up getting bruised, too. -
152-151
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 11:18 AM - 0 Comments
Carol Hughes says she’ll oppose C-391, which makes it 152 MPs opposed to the bill, 151 in favour.
“Should Ottawa have spent a billion dollars on this thing? I say no way, and so do most people around here. But that start-up money is gone, and I want to look forward, not back. I think many people were surprised to learn this month that it now only costs a dime per Canadian to keep the registry running,” Hughes said.
Jack Layton wants to talk compromise with the Prime Minister.
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An elephant worthy of Cervantes
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments
Plus, revelations from Pickton’s survivors, tales of Palin from the campaign trail, a beguiling twentysomething memoir and histories of malaria and the common cold
Palani Mohan/GETTY IMAGES‘The Elephant’s Journey’: Saramago’s final book is both a departure—a Renaissance-style human comedy—and a fitting epitaph for the Nobel laureate
THE ELEPHANT’S JOURNEY
José SaramagoTwo years before his death at 87 in June, José Saramago—voice of peasant sensibility and hyper-modern stylist, unrepentant Marxist, and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature—completed his last novel, now available in English. It’s more a fairy tale than a novel, certainly not the sort of searing social commentary that made his reputation in works such as Blindness. But Saramago’s take on a remarkable historical fact—the slow progress of an elephant from Lisbon to Vienna in 1551, a wedding gift from the king of Portugal to the archduke of Austria—is as much a satire, albeit far funnier and more gentle than most, as anything he ever wrote.
Saramago is well-known for his all-encompassing view of creation, the way in which dogs often have a major presence in his novels, the better to remind readers that humans are not the only creatures who matter (or feel, or even think). Naturally, that rings true even more for his elephant, a beast as kindly as any human in the tale—when, affronted, he kicks a priest trying to exorcize a supposed demon, the elephant is careful to break no bones—and often notably smarter, as befits his name, Solomon. He’s at least as much a leading character as his philosophical Indian driver, who goes by Subhro until the Austrians confirm his utter fish-out-of-water status by renaming him Fritz.
The Elephant’s Journey is, in a very real sense, Saramago’s late-in-life musing on his craft. He constantly breaks into the narrative, on one occasion to explain that many things happen not quite by chance but because one word follows “sweetly and naturally” after another, and so drives the story in a new direction. Or to praise the virtues of onomatopoeia: when a man on a mist-shrouded path disappears from sight, Saramago notes: “He went plof. Imagine if we’d had to provide a detailed description. It would have taken at least 10 pages. Plof.” But it’s also a charming story, a Renaissance-style human comedy reminiscent of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. For a great writer’s epitaph, it doesn’t get any better than that.
- Brian Bethune
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Another bump in the road
By Jason Kirby - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments
Despite consumer anxiety, Carlos Gomes sees improvements in the industrial side of the U.S. economy
Getty Images
All hangovers are bad. Delayed hangovers are diabolical. Anyone who’s woken up feeling surprisingly fine after a late night on the town, only to crumple in agony later on, knows that. Now, so too does everyone who thought the strong rebound in America’s auto sector could continue unabated.
After months of improving sales, U.S. car buyers stayed home in August. Dealers unloaded roughly 997,000 cars and trucks, down five per cent from July and a whopping 21 per cent decline from a year ago. Not since 1983 did Americans buy fewer vehicles in August. A year ago, of course, was the peak of Washington’s Cash for Clunkers stimulus plan, which saw the government offer up to US$4,500 to people who traded in gas guzzlers for new cars. And for a while the shot of adrenalin had the desired effect on the broader economy. Manufacturing levels finally began to rise, shell-shocked consumers rediscovered some of their confidence, and overall retail sales seemed to benefit.
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The PC's trust fund fight
By Colby Cosh - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments
Where’s the money? No one will say exactly how much money is in the old Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative trust fund
Bryan Schlosser/Regina Leader-Post
No one will say exactly how much money is in the old Saskatchewan Progressive Conservative trust fund, though it’s thought to be in the neighbourhood of $3 million. The revelation of its existence—a mountain of cash taken from God knows who, in exchange for God knows what, and available for any purpose the party might decree—was among the scandals that helped tear the province’s PCs apart in the mid-’90s. But that gold continues to haunt Saskatchewan politics, as a few diehard Tories fight to regain control of it.
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Mike Lazaridis vs. Robert Mundell
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:16 AM - 0 Comments
Lazaridis’s invention made him famous, but it was Mundell’s economic theories that arguably made him rich
Mike Lazaridis
Why he’s famous: Putting e-mail on people’s cell phones via the BlackBerry.
Why he deserves to win: Along with co-CEO Jim Balsillie, Lazaridis has built Research in Motion into a tech powerhouse, putting Canada on the map in the wireless device business. Lazaridis has registered more than 30 patents and won dozens of awards for his innovations in software and wireless communications technology, including a 1999 Academy Award for RIM’s role in inventing a digital-barcode reader for film editing.
Robert Mundell
Why he’s famous: The Nobel Prize-winning economist helped found the school of thought known as supply-side economics.
Why he deserves to win: Mundell’s most tangible accomplishment was in laying the groundwork for the Euro zone with his work on currency areas. But Mundell’s theories—specifically his advocacy of tax cuts and other measures aimed at lowering the barriers to the supply of goods and services—had a profound effect on the political and economic discourse that’s still in place today. Ronald Reagan would totally vote for Mundell.
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George Retzlaff vs. James Naismith
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:16 AM - 0 Comments
Naismith gave us basketball, but it was Retzlaff who allowed us to watch buzzer-beaters over and over again
George Retzlaff
Why he’s famous: Retzlaff took (most of) the risk out of a mid-game bathroom break by introducing the instant replay.
Why he deserves to win: The aesthetics of modern hockey broadcasts owe much to Retzlaff’s pioneering ways as the first producer behind Hockey Night in Canada. His greatest innovation? Using film he could develop in 30 minutes to replay goals. At first the replay wasn’t so instant—goals were replayed during intermissions. But the technique was eventually refined to allow producers to integrate it into the play-by-play broadcast. The bladders of sports fans have been thankful ever since.
James Naismith
Why he’s famous: You have heard of basketball, right?
Why he deserves to win: Naismith is widely credited as the inventor of basketball, which he reportedly developed while working as a phys-ed instructor at his local YMCA in Massachusetts. Naismith needed a sport to keep his otherwise unruly charges happy, but didn’t want to indulge their more boisterous tendencies. Soon enough, inspired by a childhood game bearing the unfortunate name of “duck-on-a-rock,” Naismith had them tossing a soccer ball at a peach basket placed at the top of a 10-foot pole. So we have Naismith to thank not just for giving non-hockey players something to do in the winter, but also for the social relevance of Shaq’s Twitter feed.
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Marshall McLuhan vs. Jane Jacobs
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:12 AM - 0 Comments
The man who helped us understand media takes on the woman who helped us understand cities
Marshall McLuhan
Why he’s famous: Most of all, for his famously misunderstood phrase, “the medium is the message.”
Why he deserves to win: As the the father of modern mass media theory and an early philosopher of the electronic age, McLuhan changed the way people relate to information. Best known for coining the expressions “global village” and “the medium is the message” (which meant that the way we acquire information shapes us more than the information itself), his two major books—The Gutenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media—still have a cult following. Though he died before the advent of the Internet, McLuhan seemed to see it coming: he theorized electronic media was creating a global village by exposing people to events on the opposite side of the world which would render books obsolete. Ask Barnes and Noble if he was right.
Jane Jacobs
Why she’s famous: Her groundbreaking tome, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is still considered a bible by architects and city planners.
Why she deserves to win: Just as McLuhan changed the way we relate to information, Jacobs revolutionized the way we think about our cities. A lifelong social activist, Jacobs was a vehement critic of urban renewal projects that called for the razing and rebuilding of neighbourhoods. Instead, Jacobs proposed abolishing zoning laws to create dense, mixed-use neighborhoods.
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Peter Robertson vs. James Cameron
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:12 AM - 0 Comments
We’d still be stripping screws if it weren’t for Robertson, but we wouldn’t have the special effects we do without Cameron
Peter Robertson
Why he’s famous: He’s the inventor of the Robertson screwdriver—you know, the square-shaped one in your toolbox.
Why he deserves to win: Before Robertson’s invention in 1908, we were stuck with the slip-prone flat bladed driver and slotted-head screw, a combo notorious for causing injuries. Later, when the cross-shaped Phillips screw and driver were invented, Consumer Reports magazine declared the Robertson superior because Phillips’ screws are easily stripped and degrade with wear. As writer Witold Rybcynski put it, “no matter how old, rusty, or painted over, a Robertson screw can always be unscrewed. [It’s] the biggest little invention of the 20th century.”
James Cameron
Why he’s famous: The Terminator. Aliens. True Lies. Titanic. Oh, and those blue people in Avatar.
Why he deserves to win: Whether you like his movies or not, director James Cameron is a visionary. If the technology he needs to shoot a film doesn’t exist yet, he invents it. He initially dreamed up Avatar in 1995 and spent over a decade waiting for technology to catch up to his vision. His most notable invention is the 3-D camera that mimics human sight, revolutionizing the cinematic 3-D experience, and allowing the people behind the camera to observe the actors in their virtual forms. Now Cameron is working with NASA to incorporate that 3-D technology into a camera for the next Mars rover. Show off.
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Sir William Osler vs. Alexander Graham Bell
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments
The father of the medical internship goes up against the inventor of the telephone
Sir William Osler
Why he’s famous: Osler introduced the concepts of clerkship and residency in medicine, forcing doctors to gain years of hands-on experience before graduating to their own practices. “If you listen carefully to the patient,” he often said, “they will tell you the diagnosis.”
Why he deserves to win: By moving students from the lecture hall to the patient’s bedside, Osler revolutionized the teaching of medicine, making it more patient-focused. Osler also went to great lengths to make the profession less stuffy. Writing under a pseudonym, he once penned an article in thePhiladelphia Medical News describing the condition “penis captivus,” in which the vaginal muscles clamp down harder than usual during intercourse. Osler was, in other words, a Victorian-age Dr. House.
Alexander Graham Bell
Why he’s famous: He invented the telephone. Duh.
Why he deserves to win: He also invented the metal detector, created an alphabet for the Mohawk language, contributed significantly to aeronautics, and was a founder of the National Geographic Society. A natural inventor, Bell created his first invention at age 12, a de-husking machine that he used to make his part-time flour-milling job easier. But really, what would the last 135 years be like without phones?
Next: Sir Sandford Fleming vs. Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best
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Norman Bethune vs. Lester B. Pearson
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments
A battlefield doctor goes head to head with a peacekeeper
Norman Bethune
Why he’s famous: Bethune revolutionized battlefield medicine.
Why he deserves to win: During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Bethune invented a mobile blood transfusion service which could collect blood from donors and deliver it wherever it was needed. His “mobile blood bank” is considered the greatest medical innovation from the war. Later, Bethune would take his battlefield medicine expertise to China, where he became the Red Army’s Medical Chief and taught his techniques to new doctors and nurses. Think of Bethune as the Canadian Florence Nightingale.
Lester B. Pearson
Why he’s famous: Putting the peacekeeping bug in the UN’s ear, though the blue helmets were somebody else’s idea.
Why he deserves to win: Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1957 for his role in establishing an international police force aimed at quelling lingering tensions from the previous year’s Suez Crisis. In doing so, Pearson effectively created the concept of peacekeeping, not only transforming the UN’s raison d’être, but also altering Canada’s role on the world stage. The former Canadian prime minister didn’t quite get soldiers to make love, but he showed they were good at making things other than war.
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Guy Laliberté vs. Michel Tremblay
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 0 Comments
The man behind Cirque du Soleil takes the playwright who brought us ‘joual‘
Guy Laliberté
Why he’s famous: For making the circus cool with the Cirque du Soleil
Why he deserves to win: Laliberté didn’t just take out the goofy animal stunts from the circus when he decided to class up the tent a little. He brought in a focus on character-driven narrative to replace them, effectively hybridizing the circus with theatre and opera. Thanks to him, acrobats no longer have to fear being mauled by a lion or bear while on the job.
Michel Tremblay
Why he’s famous: Tremblay made his literary characters speak the way they would in real life.
Why he deserves to win: Tremblay didn’t invent ‘joual,’ the gritty street slang of Quebec’s underclass. What Tremblay did, though, was make it a staple of Quebec theatre. Tremblay’s first successful play, Les Belles Soeurs, cleared a path for future playwrights by breaking with the more formal and conservative traditions of the art form—most notably by having his working class characters speak a working class dialect, and most touchingly with a memorable ode to bingo: “Moé ya rien au monde que j’aime plus que l’bingo!”
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A spy chief for president?
By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments
Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s intelligence chief, to be the next president
Amr Nabil/AP/CP
Last week, activists began campaigning for Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s intelligence chief, to be the next president. The elections are set for 2011, and posters have been plastered on Cairo’s streets depicting Suleiman as a suave leader in a business suit and dark sunglasses. A slogan touts him as the “real alternative as president of the republic”—a slap at President Hosni Mubarak. Suleiman, 74, has been Egypt’s intelligence chief for two decades, and is known as one of the president’s most trusted aides.
Suleiman hasn’t endorsed the movement. But the campaigners clearly hope to thwart a family dynasty that would see Mubarak, 82, the country’s leader for almost 30 years, pass power on to his son Gamal. The younger Mubarak was previously kept at arm’s length by his father, but has lately been attending high-profile political events. Some Egyptians are also touting former UN nuclear agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei as a potential presidential candidate. As it stands, the race still appears to be open: Gamal has yet to be endorsed by his father, and some analysts think the elder Mubarak could still run again.
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Let's get married—for an hour
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments
Young unmarried couples craving a getaway turn to the legal loophole of “temporary marriages”
Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters
The penalty for having sex outside of marriage in Iran is 100 lashes. So men wanting a dalliance or young unmarried couples craving a getaway turn to the legal loophole of “temporary marriages”: contracts of a specific duration—anywhere from 60 minutes to 99 years—and for a specified amount of money. These controversial marriages, traditional in the Shia form of Islam, are promoted by the ayatollahs as a way financially troubled women can make money or, as one delicately explained earlier this year, a way for a young widow to “answer her needs, because if she doesn’t, she will have psychological problems.”
Feminists decry the practice as exploitation of poor women and a form of legalized prostitution that serves only men. Recently, women’s groups fought off an attempt, the second in three years, by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make the marriages even more male-friendly, including giving men legal cover to bypass asking permission for the relationship from their first wives. What is unmistakable is their growing popularity: up by at least 28 per cent last year in Tehran. For young couples who can’t afford to marry, the loophole is only way to be together, and avoid 100 lashes.
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Mailbag: Criticism, Dilton Doiley, Serbian testicles
By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:27 AM - 0 Comments
Welcome to the Mailbag, where I never said which Wednesday, did I? And just…
Welcome to the Mailbag, where I never said which Wednesday, did I? And just like that I’m ahead of deadline. Your move, expectations.
(Sorry for the delay in getting the Mailbag up but I was wasting time yesterday on TVTattle.com when I saw the headline about the stars of Big Bang Theory now earning $350,000 per episode. What happened after that is still a blur – I think I passed out. Granted, $350,000 a week is just threesome money for Charlie Sheen, but I guess it kind of shocked me that you can earn that much for portraying an unappealing, humourless nerd. I mean, the guy from Weezer does it for free.)
The following questions were actually submitted by actual readers. And remember – there’s no such thing as a stupid question, unless you’re asking it of Kory Teneycke, who’s not taking your questions, stupid media people who are all stupid!
•••
Dear Scott:
I wonder, if Stevie was able to transport himself into the body of Jesus, much as if it were some sort of political vacuum, what kinds of wacky things would he do in the hoods of OG Israel back in the day? What would he use his awesome powers for? Whom would he smite? Who would be smoten through his smotifying powers? What miracles would he work? What paradoxical parables would prudently pass from his piehole? – Jason G.
Jason G. –
One of the more highly contentious aspects of religion and human belief in an Continue…
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Testing junior for drugs
By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments
Testing kits could help discourage children from taking the drugs in the first place
Getty Images
A municipal council in the Netherlands wants to help parents find out whether their children are using drugs. So Edam-Volendam (where the famous Edam cheese is made) will supply 1,500 home testing kits for parents with children aged 15 to 19. The kits can find traces of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates and PCP, among other illicit drugs, in saliva. The aim is to address the town’s drug problem, which is the fourth highest in the province of North Holland.
Councillor Gina Kroon-Sombroek told Radio Netherlands that the kits could help discourage children from taking the drugs in the first place. “Parents can say, ‘I’ve got that test, so bear in mind you can be tested.’ Our hope is that it’ll stop young people experimenting with drugs,” said Kroon-Sombroek. Interestingly, despite a liberal drug policy, young people in the Netherlands consume far less drugs than other teens. A 2008 study by the World Health Organization found that only 35 per cent of Netherlanders had used cannabis by the age of 21, compared to 54 per cent of Americans. As for the test, Edam-Volendam’s council said it will be easy for parents to use. That may be true, assuming they can convince their teenagers to provide a saliva sample on demand.
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Moscow's painted ponies
By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments
Zebra stripes for a police traffic safety campaign
ALEXEY SAZONOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Last week, Moscow’s traffic police announced they were going to paint horses and ponies to look like zebras. Why? To remind drivers to drive safely, of course. It’s a literal stunt: the city’s crosswalks are in a zebra style (like the one John, Paul, Ringo and George strode on for the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover). The faux zebras are part of a campaign to draw attention to children’s safety during the start of the new school year. They will be stationed at five of the city’s busiest crosswalks in central Moscow, and children can ride the animals and learn about traffic rules.
Traffic is a huge concern in Moscow. Last week, Mayor Yury Luzhkov asked the Kremlin for a $130-billion handout to fix the capital’s clogged roads. One survey of 20 world cities found that Moscow had the worst traffic delays of all. The average reported delay was 2.5 hours, and more than 40 per cent of respondents said they had been stuck for over three hours—three times other cities’ averages. At least with the imitation zebras, the kids will have some way to pass the time.
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Canada's best professional schools 2010
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments
EXCLUSIVE RANKINGS. Plus: where to go, how to get in, the hottest programs, and the biggest pitfalls
McGill Campus - Photograph by Roger Lemoyne
Coast to coast, getting into professional schools has never been more competitive than it is this year
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Coffee, donut and an M.B.A
By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Early morning M.B.A. classes at the University of Calgary accommodate people with jobs and night lives
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON
This summer, the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary announced a program for the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Slated to start in January 2011, a new morning M.B.A. class will run three mornings a week, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
“We already had the evening program,” says Robin Hawes, administration officer at the Haskayne school. “It seemed like a perfect complement.” The difference is that the morning classes will be held in the new downtown campus, instead of the main grounds outside the Calgary core. “It’s literally a five-minute walk from the downtown companies,” says Hawes.
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These doctors mean business
By Kate Lunau - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Fuelled by late-blooming entrepreneurs, business schools see doctoral enrolment double
PHOTOGRAPH BY DARREN STONE
Valerie Sheppard’s been self-employed, she’s worked in government (in the tourism sector), and now she’s headed back to school. Sheppard, 50, who says she has an entrepreneurial streak, is one of four candidates in the University of Victoria’s new business Ph.D. program (UVic welcomed its first cohort this month). “I don’t see myself retiring,” says Sheppard. “Getting a Ph.D. will give me the flexibility to keep working.” After spending years out in the workforce, going back to school is a bit “scary,” she admits, but she’ll have someone close for support: daughter Leah, 26, is doing a Ph.D. in business, too, at the University of British Columbia.
A mother and daughter both doing business Ph.D.s might sound unique, but it speaks to the booming popularity of the degree. The number of doctoral candidates enrolled in business programs nearly doubled in a decade, from 696 in 1998 to 1,227 in 2008, Statistics Canada figures show. (That year, about 31 per cent of students were aged 30 to 34, and 24 per cent were 40-plus, the two biggest age groups.) UVic decided to offer the Ph.D. because “there’s a shortage of business school professors out there, and we knew there’d be a demand for graduates,” says academic director Charlene Zietsma.
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Hot engineering jobs
By Julia Belluz - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Robots, stem cells and green scenes: what engineers are making now
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON
As University of Toronto dean of engineering Cristina Amon puts it, “Hot engineering careers combine innovation and creativity, and allow engineers to create things that didn’t exist before.” But in addition to dreaming up objects that improve lives—like artificial organs or medical imaging devices—today’s engineers are being enlisted to address global issues, such as warming. Here are other growth areas in the field of engineering.
Sustainability: From teaching students to design and build eco-friendly buildings and infrastructure to implementing green government policy, sustainability has become a dominant theme in engineering education. A master’s of engineering in clean energy at the University of British Columbia is now open for students with undergraduate degrees in engineering who want advanced training in energy-efficient technologies. At the University of Calgary, undergraduates in the engineering B.Sc. can enrol in a specialization in energy and environment. Carleton University offers its bachelor of engineering students a new option in sustainable and renewable energy, and the university has established a master’s program in sustainable energy, which students can finish with either an engineering degree (M.A.Sc. or M.Eng. in sustainable energy) or a public policy degree (M.A. in sustainable energy). Finally, the University of Western Ontario has a new green-process engineering undergraduate program, which teaches the fundamentals of chemical engineering to design commercial products and processes that are both economical and environmentally friendly.
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The J.D. vs. LL.B degree
By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Why are schools switching to J.D.? What’s the difference, anyway?
Getty Images
When law students convene at the University of Calgary this month to slog over case studies and legal precedents, they will be working toward a different degree than their predecessors: a juris doctor (J.D.) rather than the traditional bachelor of laws (LL.B) degree.
On Sept. 1, Calgary joined an ever-lengthening list of Canadian law schools to stamp J.D. on their degrees instead of those other letters. But the thinking behind the switch seems as much about politics as it is about education.
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How do Canada's business schools stack up internationally?
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Canadian schools didn’t crack the top 20 in either of the Financial Times’ rankings, but York (Schulich) placed first on the alternative Beyond Grey Pinstripes survey
Beyond Grey Pinstripes M.B.A.
Ranking 2009-2010
Beyond Grey Pinstripes is an alternative ranking of business schools, conducted every two years by the Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education. The ranking assesses the degree to which leading M.B.A. programs integrate issues concerning social and environmental stewardship into the curriculum.Rank Country 1 York (Schulich) Canada 2 Michigan (Ross) U.S.A. 3 Yale School of Management U.S.A. 4 Stanford U.S.A. 5 Notre Dame (Mendoza) U.S.A. 6 UC Berkeley (Haas) U.S.A. 7 Erasmus (Rotterdam) Netherlands 8 NYU (Stern) U.S.A. 9 Instituto de Empresa (IE) Spain 10 Columbia Business School U.S.A. 11 Virginia (Darden) U.S.A. 12 Cornell (Johnson) U.S.A. 13 The George Washington University U.S.A. 14 North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) U.S.A. 15 Simmons U.S.A. 16 Duke (Fuqua) U.S.A. 17 Wisconsin U.S.A. 18 Duquesne (Donahue) U.S.A. 19 New Mexico (Anderson) U.S.A. 20 Denver (Daniels) U.S.A. 21 University of San Diego U.S.A. 22 Loyola University Chicago U.S.A. 23 Nottingham U.K. 24 Ohio State (Fisher) U.S.A. … … … 31 McGill (Desautels) Canada 34 Concordia (Molson) Canada 49 UBC (Sauder) Canada 51 Calgary (Haskayne) Canada 53 Western Ontario (Ivey) Canada 79 Dalhousie Canada Source: Beyondgreypinstripes.org
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No science? No worries
By Carson Jerema - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Getting a C in chemistry may not be a barrier to that white coat, as med schools reassess their admissions
PHOTOGRAPH BY SIMON HAYTER
If you ever wanted to be a doctor, but were scared off because of all the science you would have to learn, you may soon be in luck. Canadian medical schools are taking a closer look at their admissions practices, and prerequisites like the much-feared Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) are no longer seen to be as imperative as they once were.
Just how picky medical schools should be about students being well-versed in the scientific foundations of human anatomy is a decades-old debate. But now, lacking a solid grasp of science might not be a barrier to getting that white coat.
