Are Americans getting too cozy with debt again?

By Gabriela Perdomo - Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 12:33 PM - 0 Comments

SS&SS/Flickr

They were supposed to be wary of debt, but data show borrowing among U.S. consumers is growing again. A number of analysts and media outlets are hailing this as a sign of newfound “consumer optimism,” but a closer look at the numbers leaves little reason to cheer.

Though credit card debt has been decreasing, the latest data from the Federal Reserve, which exclude mortgages and home equity loans, borrowing for cars and student loans has soared. Overall, consumer borrowing outside real estate increased by US$8.7 billion in February of this year—topping a six-month upward trend that saw a staggering increase of US$18.6 billion in January.

The Associated Press notes that “consumers are taking on more debt at a time when their wages have not kept pace with inflation. And they are paying more for gasoline.”

Not that Canadians have anything to teach Americans here, but it’s still legitimate to ask: What does this mean for the U.S. recovery? It depends on who you talk to.

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IKEA introduces the Uppleva entertainment system

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 10:07 AM - 0 Comments

It used to be that when Ikea adorned the display furniture in its showrooms with TVs and stereos, the company used hollow plastic props. How times, and cheap electronic components, change. Ikea has unveiled the latest product coming to its showrooms—furniture with the TVs and stereos built right in.

The pitch from the Swedish home furnishing giant is simple—already cramped living rooms are choked with wires and cables criss-crossing the walls and floors. The solution, says Ikea, is the Uppleva, an integrated unit complete with LED TV, sound system, wireless bass speakers and CD, DVD and Blu-Ray players, all internet-ready, at a price of around $960.

To be sure, this isn’t a system for audiophiles. And many will bristle at memories of trying to assemble those book shelves in their first apartments. But the company is betting enough people are fed up with the clutter that they’ll take a look. Oh, and it comes in beech, white, black, green and purple.

Starbucks now serving a billion latte sippers in China

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 10:04 AM - 0 Comments

Greg Baker/AP

It wasn’t long ago that Starbucks’ big plans to expand throughout China ran into an embarrassing hitch. The American coffee giant, which first entered the market in 1999, stepped into a scandal five years ago after a local TV personality complained that a store erected on the grounds of Beijing’s Forbidden City was eroding Chinese culture. A massive protest followed and the company retreated. Now Starbucks faces the opposite problem. With more than 570 coffee shops across the country, and plans to open another 1,500 by 2015, CEO Howard Schultz says the challenge is finding ways to prevent enthusiastic patrons from lingering for hours on end—sometimes without even buying drinks. “For a decade, the core business was expats and tourists,” Schultz recently told Reuters. “Without question, the core business today is Chinese nationals.” And they seemingly can’t get enough.

New Brunswick: From miracle to ‘meh’

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 1:56 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph By Blair Gable

Uncertainty hangs over Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in southern New Brunswick. Cuts are coming. “It’s kind of scary,” says Rick Jenkins, 45, a shop steward for the Union of National Defence Employees at the base. “We’re not being told when we’re going to know,” he says. “It’s just unknown.”

For a province hailed for its “miracle” economy 15 years ago, this has become the order of the day. Canada’s major banks are predicting the province is in for some of the weakest economic growth in the country. The Bank of Canada anticipates New Brunswick’s GDP will grow just 1.5 per cent this year, the lowest of any province. Alberta, by contrast, is expected to grow 3.4 per cent. In 2011, the provincial economy incurred a net loss of more than 4,100 jobs. Last month the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 per cent, while in Canada as a whole it inched down to 7.2 per cent.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Under former Premier Frank McKenna’s reign, from 1987 to 1997, the province balanced its books and enjoyed a boom in call centre and technology jobs. The “McKenna Miracle,” as it was called, set New Brunswick apart from its Maritime brethren. In the years since, though, the province came to rely overwhelmingly on the public sector for its growth. Now the federal and provincial governments have slammed on the brakes in an effort to tackle deficits. Transfer payments from Ottawa to New Brunswick have flatlined after a decade of annual increases of more than five per cent, while the defence department recently announced at least 120 civilian jobs will be lost in the province. Other federal departments are expected to dramatically downsize in New Brunswick, while the province itself plans to shed 1,500 positions over the next three years.

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How the housing market is pumping up our GDP numbers

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

The latest GDP numbers, released yesterday by Statistics Canada, caught everyone off guard. The Canadian economy dipped 0.2 per cent in February, surprising most economists, who’d been predicting GDP would inch forward by roughly the same magnitude. Most surprised of all must have been Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, who had projected 2.5-per-cent annual growth rate for the first quarter. “It looks like the Bank of Canada jumped the gun,” quipped CIBC in a note to clients, adding that “the report suggests that the Canadian economy isn’t out of the woods just yet.”

The disappointing numbers seemed to be tied in large part to sluggish performance in the mining and oil industry, which, as Maclean’s wrote last week, just can’t seem to be able to get their due from the commodities boom. Luckily, there were a couple of sectors that defied the general downward trend and softened the February drop. One of them was—you guessed it—housing. Take a look at this chart from the StatsCan release:

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Someone gave Peter Pocklington some more money

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 10:57 AM - 0 Comments

In some ways, the most startling part of this story may be that someone gave Peter Pocklington money again. The former Edmonton Oilers owner and one-time most hated man in Canadian hockey has had a string of financial problems since losing his team in 1998. He declared bankruptcy in 2008. He was charged with bankruptcy fraud in California in 2009. To top it all off, he pleaded guilty to perjury in 2010.

Now Pocklington, a resident of California, is in trouble again. He’s been accused of securities fraud in Arizona. According to documents filed with that state’s Corporation Commission, Pocklington and partner John McNeil overstated the amount of gold they could recover from a surface-mining operation in La Paz county. Using estimates investigators allege are faulty, the two raised more than US$4.8 million from investors.

Securities officials have asked the commission to levy cease and desist orders, fines and restitution payments against the pair. But Pocklington denies doing anything deliberately wrong. “Any errors made in the past were born of inexperience and naïveté, not malice or avarice,” he wrote in an email, “and they were quickly rectified.”

Europe on growth: All together now?

By Gabriela Perdomo - Friday, April 27, 2012 at 3:13 PM - 0 Comments

(Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)

Last week, we wondered whether Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German officials were too stubborn to notice that their push for austerity is choking Europe’s economy. There’s a chance they aren’t.

On Wednesday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi called for a European “growth compact,” acknowledging that fiscal austerity is “starting to reverberate its contractionary effects.” Merkel agreed with Draghi, though she immediately specified what type of growth she would–or rather wouldn’t–like to see:

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What does it take to boost a company’s green cred?

By Kate Lunau - Friday, April 27, 2012 at 12:16 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Brian Howell

Wade Janzen has a worm composter under his desk. Most employers might discourage vermicomposting at the office, but the Vancouver Aquarium is an exception. “I learned how to make a compost [in a workshop] on my lunch hour,” says Janzen, 30, the aquarium’s coordinator of curriculum. He plans to give away the worms (which process organic waste into fertilizer) to teachers as an outreach project in local schools. “It’s really nice working here, where we’re supported in our efforts to live sustainably,” he says.

The Vancouver Aquarium is one of this year’s “Green 30”—organizations whose employees are most positive about their record of environmental stewardship, according to Aon Hewitt. The global consulting and outsourcing firm surveyed more than 112,000 employees in Canada, asking them about their employers’ commitment to the environment. Among the 30 that came out on top—including the Vancouver Aquarium, Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, Mountain Equipment Co-op, and Nexen Inc., an oil and gas company—82 per cent of employees have a positive perception of their employers’ eco-friendly initiatives, the survey found.

The Green 30 list provides an “inside view” into a company’s practices, since it shows how its own employees view it, says Aon Hewitt partner Neil Crawford, leader of the Best Employers in Canada study. Green initiatives not only help attract and engage workers; they’re appealing to the public, too. “It’s good business to say you’re socially and environmentally responsible,” says Crawford. For companies at the top of the list, expectations around being green are set high.

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Canada’s Green 30 companies for 2012

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 27, 2012 at 12:14 PM - 0 Comments

Brian Howell

The Green 30 is based on how employees perceive their employer’s environmental efforts. We asked each organization that made the 2012 list, compiled by Aon Hewitt, to highlight some of the key programs and practices that earned them high marks. Here are their contributions:

Accor/Novotel Canada

Hotel management, Toronto •

A detailed tracking system minimizes electricity, water, gas and sewer use. •

A comprehensive recycling program has cut back the use of newspaper, glass, aluminum, plastics, cardboard and kitchen grease.

BC Biomedical Laboratories Ltd.

Medical laboratory, Surrey, B.C.

• Works with recycling providers to find solutions for high-volume items—like small caps from needles, which once weren’t considered recyclable.

• Telecommuting is encouraged; more than 15 per cent of administrative staff work from home.

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The British are coming—for our gold

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 11:24 AM - 0 Comments

On April 2, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney stepped in front of a business crowd in Waterloo, Ont. to speak about the state of Canada’s foreign trade. His message, more or less, was this: we need to break our national reliance on exports to the U.S.–the country is a wounded behemoth, and we would do better to focus on trade with economic up-and-comers. By that the governor probably meant the likes of China and India. But by looking at our trade numbers, one would think Canadian exporters are taking it to mean the U.K. as well.

Over the past decade, the value of Canadian exports to the centre-piece of the Commonwealth have skyrocketed. In 2011, they hit a record high of $18.8 billion, up more than 324 per cent since 2002. The U.K. is now Canada’s second biggest export partner–while China is only third.

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The hottest new trend in casual dining? The ‘breastaurant’

By Anne Kingston - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 11:36 AM - 0 Comments

Douglas R. Clifford/St. Petersburg Times/ZUMA Press/Keystone Press

If you’ve not yet heard of “breastaurants,” gird yourself: they’re about to roll out across Canada. And this new generation of mammary-centric casual dining chains—with their slick thematic formats, man-cave mentality and hyper-friendly female servers schooled in “touchology”—makes Hooters seem downright quaint.

First out of the gate is Tilted Kilt, a Tempe, Ariz.-based “Celtic”-themed sports pub chain whose servers wear tiny tartan tops and micro-mini kilts. Originating in Las Vegas in 2003, the Hooters-Brigadoon hybrid has 60 locations in the U.S. with 15 franchises in development. Its first Canadian location opened in Edmonton last December; a Toronto franchise will open in June, with a Calgary outpost slated for July. “We’re racing to have it finished before Stampede,” says Mark Hanby, Tilted Kilt’s vice-president of development. Hanby admits the company “had serious butterflies” about opening in Edmonton, but now expects the chain’s average annual per-location sales of US$2.7 million to be higher north of the border, in part because of higher prices. The Calgary location is 8,000 sq. feet, bigger than the chain’s average 6,000- to-6,500 sq.-foot floorplan in the U.S. Hanby, who has scouted the country, says Ottawa, Halifax and Saint John, N.B., are ripe for the concept. He hopes to see six locations in the Toronto area by the end of 2013.

Over the past decade, the “breastaurant” has emerged as the second-fastest growing sector in the casual dining industry behind upscale burgers, says Darren Tristano, an industry consultant with Chicago-based Technomic, Inc., who coined the “breastaurant” neologism in 2007. Puns and plaid go with the territory. Addison, Tex.-based Twin Peaks, founded in 2005, has 20 U.S. locations with plans for another 30 by year-end. It exploits an Alpine lodge theme with “scenic views” provided by “Lumber Jill” servers in skimpy plaid shirts and hiking shorts. Canada is on Twin Peaks’s radar, says marketing director Meggie Miller: “We’ve received lots of interest and we’re open to seriously considering qualified [franchisee] candidates.” Meanwhile, regional players are thriving in the U.S., among them Brick House Tavern & Tap, Honey Shack, and Bone Daddy’s House of Smoke, which boasts “BBQ, beer, and Daddy’s girls” in midriff-baring sweaters.

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Commodities boom, miners’ bust

By Tamsin McMahon - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 4:38 PM - 0 Comments

It’s been a great year to be involved in Canada’s natural resource sector—unless you happen to own stock in some of the companies. Even with oil trading at more than $100 a barrel and gold hovering just below $1,700 an ounce, Canadian resource companies have been struggling to hit their earnings targets. Canadian mining companies were among the worst performers of the year, according to a recent report from National Bank Financial. They were dead last among commodity-producing countries, the report’s authors said.

Shares of Canadian energy companies have stagnated, while Canadian gold stocks have been on a steady downward spiral over the past 12 months. Energy companies can partly blame a buildup of crude oil reserves in the U.S. Midwest that has kept the price of Canadian oil low. Canadian gold producers, however, have been hit on all sides with soaring operating costs, massive writedowns at major projects, and the politics of operating mines in countries with unstable governments.

Shares of Kinross Gold Corp., the country’s third-largest gold company, fell 20 per cent in January. It was the largest drop in the company’s history and came after Kinross announced a $2.5-billion writedown on its mine in Mauritania along with expected delays at projects in Chile and Ecuador. Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. embarked on an ambitious plan to mine a stretch of Nunavut so remote that the company spent $50 million building a road to the nearest town. But after a blaze destroyed the mine’s kitchen in -60˚ C weather —and with operating costs soaring to $1,000 an ounce—the company announced a $644-million writedown last month. Vancouver’s Ivanhoe Mines stock also took a hit after the government of Mongolia said it wanted to renegotiate its agreement with the company over its $6-billion Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, saying it planned to raise taxes and increase the government’s stake from 34 per cent to 50 per cent. The government later backed down, but the damage was done.

Investors, meanwhile, continue to flock to gold bullion as a surefire path to riches—even if they’ve proven they don’t have much faith in the Canadian companies that mine it.

Patagonia goes from jackets to wild salmon jerky

By Alex Ballingall - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

Kevin Fleming/Corbis

Patagonia Inc., the California-based apparel company that was one of the first to switch to organically grown cotton, has embarked on a new quest: selling wild salmon jerky while promoting sustainable fishing practices. Working with Aboriginal communities along British Columbia’s Skeena River, Patagonia catches fish upstream from areas where salmon stocks have declined. The jerky is made locally in a processing facility. “I want to show the [food] industry that this is the way it should be done,” says company founder Yvon Chouinard in a promotional video warning of the dangers of fish farming and overconsumption. The jerky comes in three flavours (smoked pepper, smoked teriyaki and smoked chili pepper), but netting consumers—and changing the fishing industry—won’t be easy. A two-ounce packet costs US$12.50, and Patagonia will have to rely on its clothing distribution chain to sell the jerky.

Toronto’s luxury condo prices rival New York’s

By Erica Alini - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

Christian Heeb/Laif/Reux; Peter Mintz/Getty Images

Imagine you had $4 million to spend on a new downtown home. In New York, one of the world’s great cities, you could buy a three-bedroom, 2½-bathroom apartment on the edge of Central Park. If you were feeling more frugal you could move a couple of blocks away and snatch up a penthouse with a full view of the park for less than half the price, $1.5 million.

Or you could spend the money on a three-bedroom, four-bathroom suite at the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton with a full view of . . . Toronto. A two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite in the same building costs as much as that New York penthouse, and a survey of the Multiple Listing Service shows over 100 condos in Toronto selling for $1.5 million or more.

The multi-million-dollar New York price tags for some condos in Canada’s biggest city speak to a dangerously overheated market, say some observers. In Ontario, construction of multiple urban units (which mostly means condo buildings) was up a staggering 50 per cent in March from the previous month. In Toronto alone, there are nearly 48,000 units under construction. In 2011, the city counted 132 residential high-rises under construction—more than New York, Chicago, Miami, Boston and Dallas combined. Later this year, that number is expected to reach 189, according to housing market analyst Ben Rabidoux.

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Air Canada’s slow descent

By Chris Sorensen - Monday, April 23, 2012 at 11:42 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

The Air Canada back-to-work legislation, passed March 14, was meant to spare Canadians from the nightmare, both personal and economic, of a crippling strike by ground workers and a lockout of pilots at the country’s biggest airline. So far, however, it’s only made a bad situation worse, fuelling more labour hostilities and chaos for passengers.

As they returned from March break, sun-seekers still faced long delays after an unusually large number of pilots called in sick. A few days later, dozens of flights were delayed or cancelled after angry baggage handlers in Toronto launched another wildcat strike—this time in apparent retaliation for Air Canada’s decision to discipline three workers who gave federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt a mocking “slow clap” as she strolled through Pearson’s airy concourse.

More recently, television viewers were treated to the spectacle of pilots’ union president Paul Strachan on the CBC issuing veiled warnings about the potential for deteriorating safety standards at his employer. Wearing full uniform, he suggested the bankruptcy of Aveos Fleet Performance Inc., the airline’s former maintenance arm and major maintenance provider, could lead to future aircraft repairs being done at low-cost facilities in El Salvador, where employees can be paid as little as $16,000 a year. “My question to you is: Is this the man you want maintaining the aircraft that you fly on so frequently?” said Strachan. “I suspect not.”

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Could DIY jet fuel cut flying costs?

By Chris Sorensen - Monday, April 23, 2012 at 2:24 AM - 0 Comments

Kevin Fleming/Corbis

For the past five years, airlines around the globe have struggled to contain their rapidly rising fuel bills. Solutions have included everything from ditching magazines and wine bottles to taxiing with one engine shut off. Air Canada even tried stripping the paint off one of its planes to reduce weight.

But Delta Air Lines Inc. may have come up with the best idea yet: make your own jet fuel. The airline’s executives are rumoured to be considering a US$100-million purchase of an idled ConocoPhillips refining facility in Trainer, Penn. It’s estimated that Delta could shave as much as 10 per cent off its US$12 billion in annual fuel purchases by making jet fuel at the refinery and shipping it to hub airports in New York, saving on the so-called “crack spread,” the price difference between refined fuel products and raw oil, in the process.

While some have cautioned that the refinery business is a difficult one, at least one analyst described the bold plan as the “ultimate hedge.”

Japan’s electronic market unplugged

By Gustavo Vieira - Friday, April 20, 2012 at 11:31 AM - 0 Comments

Once the dominant force in electronics, Japan has been sidelined lately. The country’s most iconic firm, Sony, announced an annual loss of $6.4 billion last week. That coincided with news that Japan’s Sharp took an $800-million lifeline from Taiwan-based Hon Hai, the Chinese manufacturer of Apple’s iPhones, iPads, and other gadgets—a move that also shed light on the tough competition driving Japan’s decline.

While smartphones and tablets dominate shopping lists, Chinese and Korean firms have also been moving in on the market for video screens and TVs, traditionally dominated by Japan. In the last quarter of 2011, Korea’s Samsung had a 23 per cent worldwide market share in TVs, followed by another Korean firm, LG Electronics, with 13 per cent, while the combined sales of Sony, Panasonic and Sharp accounted for just 22 per cent, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

A Japanese-government fund recently contributed $2.5 billion to combine the display-panel operations of Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi to fight in another market Samsung leads: small screens for mobile devices. It’s a Hail Mary play from the nation that brought us the VHS recorder, the Walkman and the Game Boy—all nothing but collectors’ items now.

Burger King tries to conquer women’s hearts

By Gustavo Vieira - Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 6:40 PM - 0 Comments

Luis M. Alvarez/AP

After years of mostly targeting young men with its fat-filled Whoppers, Burger King has finally introduced healthier choices to its menu. Just weeks after learning that Wendy’s took its place as the second-largest hamburger chain in the U.S., Burger King rolled out one of its biggest menu redesigns, to offer salads, chicken wraps and fruit smoothies, much like the first-place fast-food chain McDonald’s has served up for years. To complete its makeover, after retiring its “King” mascot, Burger King launched a new advertising campaign starring mainstream celebrities like David Beckham, Jay Leno and Salma Hayek. Burger King still has lots of ground to make up: besides the loss to Wendy’s, both Subway and Starbucks passed Burger King in overall revenue in 2011. It’s now hoping the new menu will be appealing not just to customers, but to investors, too. Burger King also announced last week that it is going public again, just 18 months after the investment firm 3G Capital bought it and took it private.

TaylorMade teams up with Reebok-CCM to make hockey sticks

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 10:39 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Roger LeMoyne

Rinks across the country—which have seen their share of consumer fads—buzzed last month with news that TaylorMade, manufacturer of top-of-the-line golf gear, was getting into the hockey-stick business. The California-based company announced a long-term collaboration with Montreal’s Reebok-CCM that both firms say will bring “game-changing equipment” to Canada’s national sport. First up: an eye-catching carbon-fibre stick dubbed the RBZ, featuring a snow-white blade.

TaylorMade cemented its reputation as a trailblazer when it introduced metal drivers to golf in 1979. It’s now the second-largest maker of clubs in the U.S., with $1.3 billion in sales last year. Analysts applauded CCM for reaching between sporting silos with the deal, but these were not strangers spotting each other across a crowded room. Both companies are wholly owned by the global sports-goods behemoth, Adidas Group—a fact omitted from their joint press release and most of the ensuing media coverage.

So are kinematics geeks at TaylorMade about to, in their words, “redefine” hockey gear? Or is this just a cross-market promotional gimmick aimed to capture momentum in the hockey market? The Adidas Group’s 2012 outlook, after all, predicts low- to mid-single-digit growth at TaylorMade, whereas Reebok-CCM is expected to achieve “strong double-digit” increases, thanks to growing interest in hockey south of the border. Marrying the two labels gets TaylorMade in front of hundreds of thousands of hockey players, many of whom also play golf.

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B.C. inflates the housing bubble

By Gabriela Perdomo - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 at 10:37 AM - 0 Comments

While warnings about a Canadian housing bubble and rising household debt keep piling up, the government of British Columbia appears intent on fuelling the fire. This spring, first-time homebuyers can get a cash-back bonus of up to $10,000 for a newly built home. This “tax relief,” which aims to also “assist the residential construction industry,” will last until 2013. Government stimulus seems like the last thing Vancouver’s market (the priciest in the country) needs. Tina Mak, a broker with Coldwell Banker in Vancouver, knows of at least two condo projects that sold out in a matter of hours earlier this year with prices starting well above $500,000. Robert Kavcic, an economist with BMO, explains the intent of the program is “to ease the transition back into the [provincial sales tax] system.” With the harmonized sales tax, implemented in 2010, taxes for new homes rose from five to 12 per cent. A referendum forced the province to scrap the HST. It will be discontinued next spring. Kavcic thinks the bonus will help the industry through a down year, as people hold off on entering the new home market until taxes drop. Sales will likely go back to normal in 2013, he adds. But Mak expects a buying boom. Her phone has been ringing off the hook with clients interested in the rebate.

Pump rage

By Alex Ballingall, Tamsin McMahon, and Richard Warnica - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 9:34 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Simon Hayter

Rising gas prices have long been a rite of spring. We drive more as the weather improves and prices go up. But this year, there is a little extra frustration in the air.

As gas prices topped $1.40 a litre last week—reaching records not seen since 2008—a gas station in Oromocto, N.B., decided to drop its prices to 92.3 cents a litre as part of a promotion with a local radio station. It took minutes for anxious motorists to flock to the station, which went through 3,000 litres of gas before ending the sale after just 30 minutes. In Miami Beach, Fla., an impatient driver tried to beat one gas station’s traffic snarl and ended up slamming her SUV into the pump, setting it on fire. High prices have sparked an angry backlash among motorists. Police in Ontario have reported an increase in gas-and-dash thievery, while several campaigns on Facebook and across social media platforms are calling for nationwide gas boycotts.

The frenzy over fuel prices isn’t just a North American phenomenon, either. Fears of fuel shortages and price spikes in recent weeks have sparked riots in Indonesia and protests in the streets of Britain and Pakistan.

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Prius is an untouchable hybrid hit

By Chris Sorensen - Monday, April 16, 2012 at 9:14 AM - 0 Comments

Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail

There’s no shortage of automakers offering gas-electric hybrid versions of their cars—most of which look identical to their gas-powered counterparts. And yet, the decade-old Toyota Prius remains the untouchable hybrid hit. A record 28,711 Prius cars (which, in addition to the original hatchback, now include a subcompact and wagon) were sold in the U.S. in March. Another 1,039 were sold in Canada—a 215 per cent rise from a year earlier. The Prius accounts for nearly half of all hybrids sold in North America. Why? One theory, tested in a paper last year by Ph.D. candidates Steven and Alison Sexton, is that hybrid owners are mostly interested in appearing “green,” and that the futuristic-looking Prius was the best car for the job. They called the effect “conspicuous conservation.” The message for carmakers: even when it comes to the environment, never underestimate the vanity of your customers.

Letters

By Aaron Brophy - Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 7:10 PM - 0 Comments

Weathering coming storms

Milder winters may be nice, and an open Northeast Passage may be economically beneficial (“The winter that never was,” National, March 26). I’m a proud Canadian, but I can see past the potential effects climate change will have on our national identity. What’s most important at this point is to consider ourselves citizens of planet Earth, and realize the much worse devastation our home will face across the globe, not just in our own backyard.

Bradley J. Dibble, Midhurst, Ont.

Why can’t Johnny count?

I am a high school math teacher in Ontario, and today’s curriculum is bunk (“Have you finished your homework, mom?” Society, March 19). Every year, I see students who cannot perform basic arithmetic without a calculator. I see Grade 12 students who do not know the difference between “10 divided by three” and “three divided by 10” and cannot even comprehend how to perform the division either way. The best math students in my experience are generally foreign trained or have parents who were. Is it a coincidence that the domestic generation—raised on a steady diet of self-esteem and instant gratification—has no attention span for memorizing math facts or persevering through challenging problems without the aid of electronics?

Shannon Matthews, Toronto

In a Grade 3 classroom last week, I saw students excited about math. Some were using concepts well above the curriculum. Others were operating at the curriculum level but showed real number sense sharing long mathematical sentences. The teacher there has high expectations. Students are regularly required to demonstrate knowledge of the facts. Math is presented in a context of meaning. Multiple strategies are explored but the teacher does not insist on doing it one right way. We need to look at our many successes and figure out how to make the joy of mathematics happen for everyone.

Trevor Calkins, Victoria

Most of the children in my elementary class understand a variety of math strategies. The curriculum states that the traditional standard algorithms also be taught, so it is incorrect for your article to suggest they aren’t. Many people who were math whizzes back in elementary school used a wide variety of math strategies intuitively. Now these intuitive strategies are being taught.

Cathi Stewart, Waterloo, Ont.

Your article makes it sound as if a couple of English teachers sat in a basement one summer and developed some cut-and-paste activities to make math fun. Many experts in math from universities and schools and business identified what students needed and how best to go about teaching it. Working with Grade 5 students over the past 25 years, I noticed many students had great difficulty with division. After we started using pictures and numbers and stories in multiplication, the class scores in division were all over 70 per cent. The new math curriculum works.

Kerry Armstrong, Ottawa

I can see some of the alternative methods working for those with various forms of dyslexia. But what percentage of the children are dyslexic? My daughter is dyslexic; numbers to her were just squiggles on paper, and yet continual iteration helped. There is nothing wrong with rote when needed.

Constance Dwyer, Halfmoon Bay, B.C.

Shifts in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment over the past two decades should reassure many when we consider how Canadian 15-year-olds performed on international assessments such as PISA. Our kids topped out again in reading, science and, yes, math, with other top performing OECD countries. The kids’ test results speak for themselves.

N.S. Carlton, Abbotsford, B.C.

I fully agree with your alarmist cover headline “Why is it your job to teach your kid math?” I am shocked that some teachers expect parents to help their kids with math homework! Don’t they know we’re busy?! The next thing you know, they will want parents to teach kids manners, too!

Terry Hogan, High Prairie, Alta.

“Why is it your job to teach your kid math?” Because you elected a succession of governments whose only focus is on keeping taxes low. The result is a chronically underfunded education system. In a class of 30 kids there will be a number of children who do not speak English, or are learning handicapped, or have emotional problems, but teachers’ aides have been eliminated in order to save money. The system will look for more ways of shifting the onus to you, the parent. This will only get worse. Get used to it.

R.E. Langemann, Calgary

Opioids and addiction

Your article “The latest opium war” (Health Report, March 19) touches on a number of problems, including the myth of addiction in patients with chronic pain on opioids. Addiction is extremely rare in patients on narcotics for control of chronic pain. I treated a patient who required a very large dose of morphine to control severe metastatic bone pain. He had developed a significant tolerance but he was not addicted. The day after radiotherapy for his cancer pain, he was able to reduce the dose by more than seven times.

W.W. Arkinstall, MD, Kelowna, B.C.

I wish to correct the statement attributed to me in your recent article about prescription opioids. The facts are these: OxyContin releases about 35 per cent of the medication immediately. This rapid absorption can help with the immediate relief of pain but at the same time can make it addictive.

Peter Selby, Clinical Director, Addictions Program, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto

African aid

M.G. Vassanji needs to be aware that we can’t have it both ways (“The trouble with Kony 2012,” International, March 26). Dependency on foreign aid need not negate Africans doing their own part for their own countries. Vassanji is correct: there are too many outsiders involved in the development of African countries. To that end, tomorrow I will contact World Vision and ask that my child in Malawi no longer receive my support and I will give it elsewhere.

Lee Masciarelli, Nanaimo, B.C.

When all else fails

So-called “quackbuster” Joe Schwarcz (“Who you gonna call?” Society, March 26) thinks that he is protecting the ignorant simpleton public from homeopathy. I’m a dentist and a homeopath; my patients are highly intelligent, informed, and many have tried the traditional medical routine only to meet with failure. This is not to say that medicine is a failure, but only that doctors are human. When these patients tried the alternative approach, many have met with improvement in what ails them. No one says homeopathy can cure everyone; we too are only human.

Gary Fortinsky, Toronto

The medical community has failed to embrace nutrition as both a source of, and cure for, many of our health problems, including cancer. What would Joe Schwarz do if given a diagnosis of stage 4 stomach cancer? Surgery and radiation are not an option. Chemotherapy offers abysmal prospects. Death within a year is almost certain. Would he wait for a double-blind clinical trial to prove nutrition and supplements could offer some hope, or would he stick to the limited choices science offers? Wouldn’t the $5.5-million federal grant Schwarz received be put to better use investigating food companies who put unpronounceable chemicals in our food supply, genetically modify our corn and who knows what else?

Frank Ninno, Toronto

Home on the free range

I hope Peter Clarke, chairman of the Egg Farmers of Canada, was blushing when he dismissed backyard chicken farming cloaked in his overwhelming concern for the consumer (“Running a-fowl of the Constitution,” National, March 19). Before I retired, I had an intensive hog operation; I know how difficult it is to maintain the health of livestock without the judicious use of vaccines and antibiotics. On the other hand, I have kept free-range chickens my whole life and no one in my family has ever caught a disease from eating the eggs and chickens. Trying to frighten people by playing the disease card is unworthy and is a tactic to divert attention away from the caged versus free range debate and to prevent people from accessing eggs from anyone else but Clarke’s membership.

Bruce Owen, Wadena, Sask.

Donors, death and safety

As Dick Teresi (Interview, March 19) points out, the declaration of death is an essential part of the organ donation process and, as such, it is only done in compliance with a stringent set of policies. Every three days, someone in Ontario dies waiting for an organ because there simply aren’t enough organs through donation available to meet the demand. These deaths are preventable. Not only can a single organ and tissue donor save up to eight lives and enhance as many as 75 others, but organ donation often offers comfort to a grieving family. They see something positive coming out of their loss.

Ronnie Gavsie, President and CEO, Trillium Gift of Life Network, Toronto

By definition, a patient with brain death cannot react to pain in any way. Everything above the blood pressure and heart rate centre, both low in the brain stem, is not working. It is true that heart rate and blood pressure can “soar” but this is the last dysfunctional sputtering of this cardiac centre low in the brain stem before it, too, ceases and has nothing to do with pain response. Drugs may be given to control these bursts, but otherwise anaesthesia is indeed not required. One only hopes that Teresi’s negative comments have not persuaded some family to withdraw their consent and support for the life-giving process of organ donation.

Russ Reid, MD, Kamloops, B.C.

Clarification

Contrary to reports from the Icelandic press that were cited in our March 26 editorial (“Canada should embrace the Loonification of Iceland,” From the Editors), no Bank of Canada officials flew on an Irving Oil junket to Iceland, or visited Iceland, to discuss that country adopting the Canadian currency.

State of the anti-union

By Tamsin McMahon - Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 12:02 PM - 0 Comments

Billy Weeks/Reuters

When German executives from Volkswagen descended on Chattanooga, Tenn., last May for the grand opening of their $1-billion plant, they pointed to the warm Southern hospitality and the cultural amenities of life on the banks of the Tennessee River as key reasons for deciding to build their first North American auto assembly shop in 20 years on the site of a former wartime-era munitions factory in the Deep South.

Auto industry analysts pointed to other reasons the automaker chose Chattanooga: the region’s high unemployment and strong anti-union sentiment, which promised both a massive labour pool willing to work for cheap and more than half a billion dollars in government incentives—nearly $200,000 per worker. Luring Volkswagen, which promised to hire nearly 2,000 workers for as little as $14.50 an hour, was deemed a huge coup for the city of 170,000. Since the plant opened, the city’s unemployment rate has dropped from nine per cent to 7.3 per cent. Volkswagen-branded shirts became the city’s most coveted fashion item.

Volkswagen is merely the latest foreign automaker to target the southern U.S. for expansion into the North American market. It’s a trend that is profoundly reshaping the American manufacturing landscape, pushing the country’s auto belt south from Michigan and Ohio into the cotton fields and cow pastures of Alabama and Mississippi in search of cheaper labour and fewer costly union battles. It’s not the first time the industry has seen a shift to the South, as automakers decamped for places like Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri in the 1980s in search of cheap labour. But the present-day move appears both more profound and more lasting. For every job created by foreign automakers, mostly in the South, the Detroit Three have shed six jobs, nearly half in Michigan, according to the Center for Automotive Research. It’s a push that now threatens the future of high-paying manufacturing jobs in Canada, and maybe even the future of unionized workplaces.

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Glencore lands in Regina

By Chris Sorensen - Friday, March 30, 2012 at 10:33 AM - 0 Comments

Camera Press/Redux

Considering they work for an aggressive, risk-taking corporation with a history that reads like a Cold War thriller, the top brass at Swiss commodities giant Glencore International PLC can be a surprisingly sensitive bunch. At least, that’s what Oliver Classen discovered. Classen works for an NGO, the Berne Declaration, that handed Glencore a satirical “Public Eye” award in 2008—an attempt to draw attention to what it argued was opaque disclosure surrounding Glencore’s Colombian coal mines. Classen says he was shocked when an “emotional” Ivan Glasenberg, Glencore’s notoriously private CEO, phoned him to complain. “He’s the type of guy who is on a mission,” Classen says. “He feels personally attacked when you criticize his activities.”

That may help explain why Glencore, which trades everything from oil to cotton, spent much of its history avoiding the limelight. With a past that has been frequently dubbed “murky” or “secretive,” Glencore has spent 37 of the last 38 years as a privately owned firm that prided itself on doing business in developing countries where few others dared to tread. Many trace the high-risk, high-reward approach to founder Marc Rich, who fled U.S. authorities in 1983 after he was charged with tax evasion and illegal dealings with Iran during the hostage crisis. He was later pardoned by U.S. President Bill Clinton as he was leaving office in 2001, with critics pointing out that Rich’s ex-wife Denise, a songwriter and socialite, had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the president’s library foundation and US$1 million to the Democratic party.

These days, though, Glencore has its sights set on a less controversial locale: the Canadian Prairies. Last week, it struck a $6.1-billion agreement to buy Regina-based grain-handler Viterra Inc. as part of a strategy to build the company’s agricultural footprint in North America. Unlike BHP Billiton’s failed attempt to buy Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan two years ago, this latest deal has so far drawn relatively little angst—in part because Glencore carefully structured the transaction to make it as politically palatable as possible.

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