Best employers: It’s not about perks

By Alex Ballingall - Friday, October 21, 2011 at 8:03 AM - 2 Comments

Lisa Ballum knows it sounds cheesy, but there’s a simple reason she’s worked at Delta Hotels for 13 years: “Your voice is heard,” she says. “It really does matter.”

Ballum, who wanted to be a teacher, never envisioned a career at a hotel chain. But after working part-time at a Delta front desk as a York University student, she never looked back, and now works in marketing at the company’s corporate headquarters. At Delta, “you can choose your own destiny,” says Ballum. “That’s what’s kept me around.”

Notice that Ballum doesn’t gloat about retirement benefits, or having the flexibility to work from home. Perks, it turns out, matter little. Only three per cent of those working for Canada’s 50 Best Employers rank work-life balance or benefits among what matters most; 90 per cent, however, chose “recognition” and “career opportunities.”

“There’s a lot of people who say people are going to be more engaged if we pay them more,” says Aon Hewitt’s Neil Crawford. “But the data show that it’s actually fixing the other stuff that’s far more important.”

Harper versus the unions

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 21, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 55 Comments

Adrian Wyld/CP

In the midst of June’s 47-hour filibuster over back-to-work legislation for Canada Post, New Democrat MP Wayne Marston was moved to recall the events of 1946, when “workers and veterans fought side by side in the streets” of Hamilton for better working conditions, thus launching the modern labour movement and paving the way for what would become the NDP. When it was her turn to speak, Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner apparently felt compelled to respond. “Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to many nostalgic comments across the way about the old labour movement and the unions back in 1946. I am wondering if the members opposite recognize that we are in 2011 and that we have just come through a great recession that has damaged so many countries and from which we are just recovering,” she said. “When will they realize that we are not in the old socialist days of the good old union? We are in 2011.”

Here the differences between the new Opposition and the new majority government seemed in stark relief. But that filibuster may have only been the beginning. Months later, the issue of organized labour is a source of conflict—or the potential thereof—on numerous fronts.

Last month, for instance, after party strategist Brian Topp—an official with ACTRA, the union that represents 22,000 members of the performing arts—confirmed his bid for the NDP leadership, Conservatives deemed him a “union boss” with “deep union ties.” “How,” they asked, “could Brian Topp speak on behalf of all Canadians when he is so tied to big union special interests?” Conservative MPs have compelled committee hearings into union sponsorships of events at the NDP convention in Vancouver this past spring, while Conservative backbencher Russ Hiebert, who won the draw to table the first private member’s bill, is proposing legislation that would require unions to release public financial statements. And last week, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt both moved to refer a dispute between Air Canada and the company’s flight attendants to the Canada Industrial Relations Board—thus blocking a potential strike—and mused vaguely of perhaps amending the Canadian Labour Code.

Continue…

Best employers: When the going gets tough

By Cynthia Reynolds - Friday, October 21, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Todd Korol

If “cut, cut, cut” was the corporate mantra throughout the recession, then 2011 is shaping up as the year of “what now?” The economy can’t seem to shake its volatility. Markets soar one day and plummet the next, rattled by contradictory news of job gains, consumer confidence, and how Europe is handling its debt crisis. One minute we’re on the road to recovery, the next, it seems, the cusp of a depression. Amid the instability, companies must decide how to conduct business: to hire or remain lean, invest in resources or keep costs low. Another headache is a growing us-versus-them sentiment dividing employers from employees after a recession that brought layoffs, salary freezes and increased workloads.

Yet the employer-employee relationship is obviously symbiotic. And those companies that spend time creating an environment in which each side serves the other are best positioned to ease the animosity and ride out the uncertainty. Aon Hewitt Inc., the global HR consulting firm that annually identifies Canada’s Best Employers (page 60), specializes in identifying these top firms.

In their annual survey identifying the country’s 50 top employers, Aon Hewitt measures employee engagement. “It assesses to what degree people are intellectually and emotionally connected to their job,” explains Neil Crawford, principal at Aon Hewitt—basically, which employees like going to work in the morning. Crawford and his team analyzed surveys which asked employees to rate how strongly they either agreed or disagreed with six statements, including: “This organization inspires me to do my best work every day,” or “I would not hesitate to recommend this organization to a friend.” They also measure what matters most to employees: pay, work environment and recognition. This year, Canada’s top 50 employers achieved high scores—consistent with levels of employee engagement they attained prior to the recession. So in this climate of uncertainty, just how are these companies keeping their office environments running smoothly? Tyson Matheson, a WestJet vice president has a few ideas.

Continue…

The Three Musketeers go sci-fi

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, October 21, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 2 Comments

Rolf Konow/New Legacy Film

Every generation gets the version of The Three Musketeers it deserves. In our era’s own 3-D extravaganza, opening Oct. 21, director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil) tries to turn the story into a steampunk superhero adventure, building most of the action around sci-fi airships. It’s just the latest version to radically change Alexandre Dumas’s novel. To the premise of the 1844 book—a callow youth joins up with three older swashbucklers and fights to save the honour of France— films have added cartoon animals, musical stars, and Raquel Welch. Given that Hollywood did a film with the title characters played by the cult comedy team the Ritz Brothers, is there any version that can still shock us?

Literally since feature films began, there has been a Three Musketeers movie about twice a decade. While many adaptations of 19th-century literature are money-losers, Musketeers movies usually do well. Stars like Douglas Fairbanks, Gene Kelly and Michael York have successfully appeared as the callow youth D’Artagnan. Even the now-obscure 1993 film with a bunch of guys who later went into TV (Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O’Donnell) was a hit. And animated short films can’t stay away from the idea either: The Two Mouseketeers, a Tom and Jerry cartoon version with a French-speaking mouse, won the Academy Award for best cartoon.

That track record could explain why last year studios were in a race to see which one could develop a Musketeers movie first. After its success with Sherlock Holmes, Warner Brothers was working on its own Three Musketeers reboot, which Variety said would “play up the action and sexier elements of the story.” A German company rushed the current version into production, causing Warners to abandon the property; the new film has gotten poor reviews from the critics, but just getting a Dumas film on the market was considered enough of a triumph. Even more than Sherlock Holmes, who hadn’t been in many big-budget features before Robert Downey Jr. came along, the Musketeers are always seen as a viable movie project.

Continue…

Canada’s best employers

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 7:30 PM - 4 Comments

PCL Constructors Inc.

At the core of the Best Employers list compiled by Aon Hewitt, a global HR consulting and outsourcing firm, is high employee engagement, which is driven by leadership quality, effective rewards, strong workplace culture and values, enabling productivity and the support of performance and development. The list is determined, in large part, by surveying employees. So Maclean’s asked all 50 organizations (listed alphabetically) what they think earned them such high marks from their staff. Here are some of the highlights: Continue…

The Commons: There must be something here to disagree about

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 7:00 PM - 26 Comments

The Scene. First, the unquestionably good news.

“Mr. Speaker, today, myself, the NDP shipbuilding critic from Sackville-Eastern Shore, and all New Democrats celebrate with the workers of Nova Scotia and British Columbia,” Nycole Turmel informed the House.

Alas, this is Question Period and so this much would not suffice.

“But for other workers,” Ms. Turmel continued, “yesterday’s announcement came up $2 billion short. Instead of announcing the full $35 billion in contracts, the government picked winners and losers. The Prime Minister left major shipyards like Davie vulnerable. Why?”

The NDP leader’s lament was not well received.

“This is your angle?” begged James Moore from the government frontbench.

“You’re the loser!” cried a voice from the near corner of the Conservative side. Continue…

‘With the shadow of Gadhafi now lifted’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 3:38 PM - 14 Comments

The Prime Minister’s statement to reporters this afternoon on the death of Moammar Gadhafi.

The Libyan National Transitional Council has confirmed the death of Moammar Gadhafi. Gadhafi’s days are over.  Never again will he be in a position to support terrorism or to turn guns on his own citizens.  The Libyan people can finally turn the page on 42 years of vicious oppression and continue their journey toward a better future.

At this time, I should like to say how proud we all are of the prominent role played by Canada’s armed forces.  In cooperation with our NATO and striker group allies, they upheld the UN mandate to defend innocent Libyans against the regime’s violence.

I should also like to commend Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard of the Royal Canadian Air Force who led the combined NATO military mission in Libya.  General Bouchard has served our country with great distinction. I’ve recently spoken with General Bouchard and our government shall be speaking with our allies to pretend – to prepare for the end of our military mission in the next few days.

With the shadow of Gadhafi now lifted from their land, it is our hope that the Libyan people will find peace and reconciliation after this dark period in the life of their nation and we look forward to working with them.

Why we need real scrutiny

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 1:30 PM - 7 Comments

Emmett Macfarlane considers yesterday’s Supreme Court hearings.

While reform should be crafted to avoid the overt partisanship that infects the American process, any process we do design should acknowledge the political reality that different judges approach their function in different ways. That is where a public hearing can ultimately be useful. It is unfortunate that this second stab at the public interview process wasn’t used to shed light on how judging actually works.

(As a footnote: Team Macleans.ca will be expanding somewhat in the weeks and months ahead with a bevy of new contributors. Emmett, for instance, will be stopping by every so often with thoughts on the Supreme Court. Last month he wrote about the Court’s Insite decision. Equally smart and witty writers on a variety of political issues will soon follow. We’re excited.)

Prisoner swap fueled tensions, created little goodwill

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 1:19 PM - 1 Comment

Monday’s Middle Eastern prisoner swap, in which Hamas officials returned Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to Israel in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, may have increased tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, rather than promoting good will. Shalit’s release after six years of captivity in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip was bittersweet for the Jewish nation, as the Palestinian group said that it won’t rest until all Palestinian prisoners are released from Israeli prisons. Many in Israel fear the pledge will result in the capture and imprisonment of more Israeli soldiers to be used as bargaining chips in future prisoner swaps. And the successful release of Shalit did nothing to convince the Palestinian Authority to return to the negotiating table. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Thursday excluded progress on the peace talks until Tel Aviv imposes a complete freeze on Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

BBC
New York Times

Should the House of Commons have the final say on Supreme Court nominations?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 12:27 PM - 6 Comments

Quebec’s shipbuilding loss straightjackets NDP chief

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 12:14 PM - 9 Comments

A ship for every shipyard, a contract in every port. So goes the dream of Nycole Turmel, interim NDP leader and newly minted personification of her party’s awkward tiptoe between national party and regional champion. On Wednesday, Canadian bureaucrats dolled out $33 billion in shipbuilding contracts to yards in B.C. and  Nova Scotia. Halifax’s Irving Shipbuilding got the larger share of the cash, $25 billion to build combat vessels. B.C. secured the rest for less martial ships. Left out of the bounty was Quebec, home to 59 New Democrat MPs, including Turmel  herself. “This is great news for Nova Scotia and British Columbia, and I congratulate them wholeheartedly,” Turmel said, according to the Globe and Mail. Good news, but not great. “Canada has the longest coastline in the world,” she continued, “making shipbuilding a critical strategic industry in all corners of this country. This government announcement leaves our Quebec-area shipbuilding in a more fragile position. The Conservatives have to do much more to ensure that Quebec shipbuilding capacity remains stable and that long-term skilled jobs are created.”  “I’m glad you won,” she seemed to say the other provinces. “But can’t we all play a game where nobody loses.” Meanwhile, one New Brunswick economist says his province also stands to gain from Nova Scotia’s win—to the tune of $25 billion over 30 years—and William Watson, in the National Post, wonders why we the tender for the ships wasn’t opened to foreign firms.

Globe and Mail

CBC

National Post

Subject to change

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 12:05 PM - 2 Comments

Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal suggests the numbers leaked Tuesday might not match what the government will do to rebalance the House.

In a letter to media released Wednesday, Tim Uppal, Minister of State for Democratic Reform, took issue with the leaked reports about the new bill. “Reports on our government’s representation plans are pure speculation until legislation has been introduced,” Mr. Uppal wrote.

Wealth in Canada on the rise: report

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 11:48 AM - 3 Comments

Thanks to a sturdy housing market and sound banking regulations, Canada’s wealth is on the rise from 2007 levels, according to a new report released by Credit Suisse. The study, which looks at countries around the world, found that wealth in Canada is up 3 per cent from pre-recession levels. Contrast that with the situation in the United States, where the nation’s riches are down 8 per cent. Canada ranks eighth in the world for collective household wealth, and 13th when in comes to wealth per head. The average adult Canadian is worth U.S.$245,000, compared with $248,000 for the average American. That’s a dramatic change from 2000, when Canadian adults had an average wealth that was 56 per cent of the U.S. figure. The Canadian section of the report, however, does not look at household debt levels, which have been swelling for years.

The Globe and Mail

A camp counsellor named William Shatner

By Adrienne Clarkson - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 4 Comments

In Adrienne Clarkson’s new book, Room for All of Us, the former governor general weaves the personal stories of new Canadians with chapters on the conflicts that displaced the people and prompted them to seek a new home. In one of the most poignant entries, she details the early life of Fred Bild, a long-time employee of the Department of Foreign Affairs, former ambassador to Thailand and China, and Holocaust survivor. When Bild was six, his father was grabbed off the streets of Brussels; 30 years later he found out he had died in Auschwitz. His mother, who gave birth to his baby brother after her husband disappeared, decided to hide both boys, relying on the Red Cross to protect them for the remainder of the war. Bild spent two years on a farm near the small Belgian village of Lubbeek, spoiled rotten by eight brothers and sisters, none of whom had any children. In this excerpt, Clarkson describes the boy’s reunion with his mother.

***EXCERPT***

Then one of the people who had helped bring him to Lubbeek went to find Fred’s mother. He had written her letters, which were sent to the abbé in Malines, and the abbé would get someone in Brussels to deliver them to her door. Every couple of weeks, she got a letter from her little boy, but he never got anything back from her—it was too dangerous for him to be receiving any letters, and she had no idea where he was.

Eventually, she arrived at the village. It was a very traumatic moment for nine-year-old Fred: although he hadn’t forgotten his mother, two years had passed and he had been very happy with his adopted family. But he did realize that in some way he was happy to see her. The worst thing was that now he’d have to go to school. His mother stayed for a couple of days and then left again to try to find his little brother, whom she had sent into hiding when he was 10 months old. She told Fred he would have to stay where he was because she couldn’t get ration stamps from the Resistance anymore and she had no income. She told him to be good and that she would come to visit him whenever he had holidays.

Continue…

Everyone’s a curator now

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images, iStock; Photo Illustration by Sarah Mackinnon

The verb “curate” has become such an overworked—and distorted—marketing buzzword, it’s now in need of curation itself. Writing about designer Tom Ford’s new cosmetics line in September’s Vogue, Plum Sykes didn’t simply say Ford “selected” the colours in his four-colour eye shadow compacts. No, each compact offers “a complete look curated by Ford,” befitting its US$78 price tag. Even processed foods are treated as objets d’art in the Louvre: Loblaw Companies’ cookbook, The Epicurean’s Companion, part of the launch of their new high-end black label line, boasts “recipes inspired by the thoughtfully curated President’s Choice black label collection.”

“Curation,” from the Latin “to care for,” morphed beyond galleries over a decade ago—from indie music festivals “curated” by Matt Groening, Sonic Youth and the like, to high-end Paris boutique Colette, feted for pioneering the retailer-as-curator concept. Technology, too, paved the way to the “curated” identity on Facebook, iPod playlists and Flickr. It also created the market for “curated consumption,” the term coined by trendwatching.com in 2004 for the growing role style and cultural arbiters have in influencing buying decisions. In the recently published Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators, Steven Rosenbaum argues that huge opportunities exist for businesses able to cull the digital deluge to offer unique “curated” goods, services and experiences for customers. The result is a consumer universe in which credit card companies can be “curators”: Tourism Toronto’s recent “Toronto getaway” promotion, for example, was “curated by The Platinum Card for American Express.” Shopping itself can be an act of curation, Toronto jewellery designer Jane Apor recently told the Toronto Star: “Anyone can wear an Hermès bracelet, but layering it with leather bracelets and a mix of other pieces I’ve picked up on my travels, I’ve curated my own wrist.”

Continue…

Consult widely

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 1 Comment

Lorne Sossin calls for a return to the 2005 model for Supreme Court consultations.

As originally developed during the Liberal government of Paul Martin, the screening committee involved members of Parliament, but also leaders in the legal community and representatives from non-partisan bodies within that community. The advisory committee developed in 2005 included an MP from each party, a retired judge and, from the region where the vacancy arises, a nominee of the provincial attorneys-general, a nominee of the law societies and two prominent Canadians who are neither lawyers nor judges.

… This hybrid model was far from perfect, but it signalled that, while the voices of elected parliamentarians matter, it was also vital that the selection of judges not be, and not be seen to be, simply an expression of majority will. The court’s mandate to be vigilant over minority rights and interests is a fundamental aspect of Canadian democracy. 

Why public hearings with Supreme Court nominees should mean something

By Emmett Macfarlane - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 10:56 AM - 21 Comments

For advocates of greater transparency and democratic accountability in the Supreme Court appointments process, Wednesday afternoon’s ad hoc committee hearing—which gave members of Parliament an opportunity to interview the prime minister’s two nominees—was rather difficult to watch.

The questions ranged from vacuous puffery, such as asking Justices Andromache Karakatsanis and Michael Moldaver to name their personal heroes, to glib and disrespectful challenges to Moldaver regarding his inability to speak French. The broader question of whether Supreme Court justices ought to have proficiency in both of Canada’s official languages is most definitely a legitimate one. And it was certainly not out of bounds for members to ask Justice Moldaver about the importance of language capacity and his intentions to learn French. (I’ll set aside for now the debate about whether we should make bilingualism a prerequisite for appointment to the Court). Continue…

Gadhafi killed in Libya

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 10:19 AM - 0 Comments

Former Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi allegedly died on Thursday from wounds received as rebel fighters seized control of his hometown of Sirte, the New York Times reports. The claim, initially made by the Misrata Military Council, which has been leading the two-month siege of Sirte, has been confirmed by the Transitional National Council, Libya’s interim government. The rebels told reporters they captured Gaddafi at around noon local time on Thursday. Those reports were soon followed with an update that the Colonel had died. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are showing graphic images of what they said is Gaddafi’s corpse, which has reportedly arrived in Misrata. The news, delivered on Libyan State Television, sparked mass celebrations in the capital, Tripoli, as streets filled with crowds and mosques began celebratory prayers. The NTC told Al Jazeera it will announce the liberation of Libya “within hours”.

The New York Times

Al Jazeera

Maybe we have it all wrong

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 36 Comments

Alex Himelfarb considers taxes and the decline of trust, transparency, honesty and equality.

Most Canadians do know that the teachers and firefighters, the police and health care workers, the roads and bridges and traffic lights, the help when we are down or temporarily out of work, the child and elderly benefits we receive are all paid for through taxes. But, we are still reluctant to pay those taxes. We will always say no to taxes if we believe government is inefficient and wasteful or incompetent or worse.

We are falling into what game theorists call a social trap. Even when we know that cooperating with others would serve our collective interests, absent trust, we go off on our own. The absence of trust limits our ability to act collectively and imagine new possibilities. It takes the future away from us and hands it to “the market”. No trust. No taxes. Trapped.

Stephen Gordon quibbles with Himelfarb’s prescription. Continue…

The most famous man in the giant pumpkin world

By Julia Scott - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 9:50 AM - 3 Comments

Their father’s legacy: Howard Dill’s daughter, Diana MacDonald, and his son, Danny Dill

UPDATE: A new record was set in Wellington, Ont., on Oct. 15, with the biggest pumpkin weighing in at 1,818.5 pounds. Growers Jim and Kelsey Bryson, from Ormstown, QC., fed it maple syrup.

Meanwhile, Prince Edward County’s biggest pumpkin and squash (1,048 and 1,246 pounds) have landed on Prime Minister Steven Harper’s doorstep for Laureen’s annual display. This is the second time the county’s John and Sue Vincent have taken pumpkins to the PM, but John said this year’s specimens “are pretty ugly so it might be the last time we’re invited.”

*****

The biggest pumpkin in the world this year weighed 1,807 kg and came from Edinburg, Penn. But its story actually began in 1986 in Windsor, N.S.

Twenty-five years ago, a Windsor man named Howard Dill patented a pumpkin seed variety he named the Atlantic Giant. Dill was a full-time farmer and part-time mad scientist. Home from the evening’s chores, he’d work for hours at the kitchen table, doodling pumpkins and taking notes on his experiments. He spent years secretly perfecting a new line of super heavyweight pumpkins.

What started as a friendly rivalry with other local farmers at the Hants County Exhibition’s annual pumpkin weigh-off became a full-on obsession by 1980. Before the decade was out, Dill set two records for the world’s heaviest pumpkin. But it wasn’t his pumpkins that made Howard Dill the most famous man in the giant pumpkin world. It was the seeds inside them that, combined with his own genetic crossbreeding technique, sprouted the modern quest for the biggest pumpkin of all time.

Continue…

REVIEW: The Stranger’s Child

By Sarah Murdoch - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 9:15 AM - 0 Comments

In his fifth novel, Hollinghurst continues his exploration of gay social history, this time in a sly and erudite saga that spans 95 years of British life, beginning at a house party (always a reliable venue for a novel of manners) in Middlesex in the summer of 1913. George Sawle has brought the budding poet Cecil Valance, his best friend at Cambridge, to Two Acres to meet the family—and engage in sylvan sexual antics on the modest two acres. During his visit, Cecil drinks too much, stays up half the night, dominates the conversation and performs pagan rituals at dawn—very much a cat among the pigeons. George is besotted with him. Before the weekend is over, so is Daphne, George’s 16-year-old sister. Cecil kisses her, and writes a poem in her autograph book titled “Two Acres.” But was it written for Daphne? Or George? Or was it just another poem about houses, the topic of much of Cecil’s verse?

Whatever, “Two Acres”—and the poetry Cecil later writes in the trenches—secures his place as one of Britain’s great second-rate poets. (One thinks of Rupert Brooke, also sexually fluid, also primarily remembered as a war poet.) The story next picks up in 1926, then 1967, 1980 and finally 2008. Characters who are central in one section play only glancing parts or are absent in another. That is one of the delights of this elegant and demanding work, wondering when and where and with whom we will find ourselves next. Hollinghurst is interested in time—how it changes social mores, individuals and biography. And turns truth on its head.

Hollinghurst’s slow pace is often compared to that of Henry James. Which is to say, it can be tiring—you wish he’d get on with his yarn. But this is not fast fiction: it is a detailed universe, one that rewards the reader’s patience. His last novel, The Line of Beauty, won the 2004 Man Booker Prize. The Stranger’s Child got only as far as the long list. Many feel Hollinghurst was robbed.

Hey, ‘New Yorker’: En français, please

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Anyone who has ever tried to come up with a zinger for The New Yorker’s caption contest knows how challenging it is to seem effortlessly clever. Quebecers, though, will be further frustrated should they come up with a suitably droll caption for the magazine’s weekly back page cartoon. It turns out they are barred from the exercise, which welcomes “any resident of the U.S. or Canada (except Quebec) age eighteen or over.”

Some Quebecers may be tempted to suggest an anti-Quebec bias is at work. The New Yorker, after all, famously ran a lengthy article by Mordecai Richler in 1994, decrying the province’s language laws and history of anti-Semitism. Reality, though, is more banal. The Quebec government requires companies to register their contests with the province’s gaming authority, something done to “protect people who participate,” says Joyce Tremblay, spokesperson for the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux.

Rather than navigate Quebec’s red tape, some companies are deciding to skip it altogether. “The same thing happened last year,” says Tremblay, miffed that The New Yorker has “decided to exclude Quebec.” The NFL had a contest for Super Bowl tickets, and “Quebec was excluded then, too,” she says.

Continue…

The more you know

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 12 Comments

Speaking with reporters after QP yesterday, Pat Martin explains himself.

Well, you can never go wrong according to Margaret Atwood and she made a presentation in 1987 to a parliamentary committee on the free-trade agreement, where she in fact invoked the legend that a beaver, when threatened, will in fact bite off its own testicles and present them to its tormentor. I now know it isn’t true as I’ve actually trapped beavers in the Yukon territory, helped trappers trap beavers and apparently the story started because beavers are one of the only mammals that carry their genitals – their male genitals within themselves. There’s no exterior presence as it were.

Good news, bad news: Oct. 13-Oct. 20, 2011

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 1 Comment

Good news

Barack Obama dedicates the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial. (ABACA USA/Keystone Press Agency)

Build it and they will come

Forbes recently called Canada the best country in the world to do business in, a ruddy economic health that’s prompted Americans to apply for temporary work visas in record numbers. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is wondering how to smooth the path for even more. Good—we need them. Employers in places likes Alberta, as always suffering a shortage of workers, are screaming for people. The Yanks are coming; call it a reverse brain drain.

On the radar

The U.S. continues to take the fight to al-Qaeda, last week killing nine terrorists in an unmanned drone strike in Yemen. But Washington is increasingly looking to even more high-tech battle tactics. News reports this week said the Obama administration had considered using a “cyberoffensive” to disable Libya’s air-defence system. The plan, ultimately shelved, was to crack the enemy’s computer networks and stop early-warning radars that could target NATO planes—including Canadian aircraft. Such tactics will soon limit pilot risk and reduce the need for more dangerous attacks on enemy defences.

Continue…