Hot, fresh, and delivered straight to your door

By Sarah Elton - Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

 

Tiffin arrived just before lunch time in a Honda Fit. The three containers, packed in a thermal bag, were still warm to the touch. There was hot aloo gobi (a potato and cauliflower curry sprinkled with fresh coriander), a flatbread called paratha, and two cardamom-coconut pancakes. All the dishes looked homemade, but the food came from Tiffinday, a business serving hot prepared lunches in those distinctive tiffin boxes to hungry people in Toronto’s downtown.

The tiffin carrier, a stainless-steel stackable lunch container that is used all over India, has made the trip around the globe and is now growing in popularity in this country—though with a Canadian twist. “It’s a vertical version of a horizontal meal,” said Krishnendu Ray, an assistant professor of food studies at New York University, who grew up in India. In high school, he recalls, he’d trade his egg salad sandwich for his friend’s tiffin. “You have the dahl, the rice and the curry all served simultaneously,” he said. These days in Vancouver, you can pick up a two-tier stainless-steel tiffin, full with curry, for $12 at the Granville Island food court take-away Curry 2U, and bring it back another day for a $5.99 refill. In Calgary, Tiffin Curry and Roti House offers a thermal insulated tiffin box (it can get cold in Calgary) that they fill with two curries and two rice pulaos. They will even deliver them to boardroom lunches. In addition to Tiffinday’s new venture in Toronto, there are plenty of home-based businesses in that city’s suburbs, such as Komal Shah’s home-cooked Gujarati-style food that her customer base of about 100 picks up in one of the stainless steel containers. “Some people have no time for cooking,” she said, explaining the popularity of her service.

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A built-in advantage

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, December 16, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 11 Comments

Competitive spirit might run through the veins of any good businessman, but a handful of Prairie companies say they can’t win the war against some unlikely rivals in the building supply trade—Hutterite colonists. Frustrated by a steady drift of metal roof and siding orders to Hutterite-owned competitors, building supply companies are pressuring the Manitoba government to take action, arguing the market is tilted in favour of Hutterite enterprises because colony members work for free, and because their firms are exempt from certain taxes.

The Hutterites are an Anabaptist sect whose adherents live communally, sharing resources and property on farming colonies that speckle the southern Prairies and parts of the U.S. plains. For the most part, they’ve coexisted peacefully with neighbours, but tensions began rising in the 1990s, when some colonies turned to commercial enterprises to help support their way of life, raising the unexpected question of whether communal living constitutes an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

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Keep a close eye out for the signs

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, December 16, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Nov. 12, 2005, remains the darkest day in the history of Windsor’s Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital. That’s when staff anesthesiologist Marc Daniel ambushed and stabbed his ex-girlfriend, nurse Lori Dupont, in a second-floor recovery room. Their colleagues worked desperately, but unsuccessfully, to save Dupont. Later, when the escaped Daniel was brought in with no vital signs after an overdose, they put aside personal feelings and almost saved him too.

In 2007, a coroner’s jury studying the incident made a recommendation to the Ontario Ministry of Labour: noting that literally dozens of Hôtel-Dieu employees had been aware of the danger Daniel presented, they requested “a review of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) to examine the feasibility of including domestic violence (from someone in the workplace).” Domestic violence was added to the act in June, under provincial Bill 168. But the words in parentheses mysteriously disappeared along the way, which has left Ontario employers with awkward new responsibilities and its workers with diminished personal privacy.

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You can bank on it

By Erica Alini - Thursday, December 16, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 3 Comments

After 10 years in the doldrums, the West Bank is back in business. A five-star Mövenpick hotel opened in Ramallah last month, restaurants and bars in the city are crowded, and construction is booming. Even smaller cities have seen an uptick in activity of late.

These are all palpable signs of an economic revival that started in 2007, and has continued thanks to three consecutive years of relative peace and an economy that was spared by the global financial crisis due to its relative isolation. Things have picked up in the Gaza Strip as well. There, the economy has registered an eye-popping 16 per cent growth in the first half of this year. But economists warn that those figures merely indicate that growth is starting from a very low base, and that a third of the population in Gaza still lives in poverty. In the more developed West Bank, by contrast, nine per cent growth in the first six months of 2010 is fattening wallets, brightening moods, and attracting investors.

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Mike Holmes wants to fix the world

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 25 Comments

A rhetorical question needs no answer, but sometimes it’s better to be safe than sorry. “Am I full of crap?” Mike Holmes barks from the stage, pausing just long enough to flash a teeth-baring smile. “No, I know I’m not.”

Even if they disagree, the teenagers before him—Aboriginal youth from across southwestern Ontario, brought together for a career fair at which the burly contractor is the keynote speaker—are unlikely to say it out loud. They’ve seen him on TV. He’s famous. Or at least recognizable enough that a bunch of 16-year-olds want to take his picture with their cellphones. At their age, Canada’s second most trusted man—trailing only David Suzuki in an April survey by Reader’s Digest—was a dropout, working full-time as a renovator, and living alone in a Toronto apartment where he wired the TV, stereo and all the lights to a panel attached to his armchair. Now he’s standing there, jabbing his finger in the air like Apollo Creed in Rocky, and pulling out every trick in the motivational bag to convince them to stay in school, and preferably pick up a skilled trade. There’s the scare: “If you quit, what the hell are you going to do? Work at McDonald’s?” Blandishment: “There’s so much opportunity. In 10 years, we’re going to be a million tradespeople short.” Even the potential for hookups: “I have met some of the hottest female electricians, welders and plumbers . . .”

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An oligarch's last stand

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once one of the richest men in Russia, has found out what the consequences of crossing the Kremlin can be. The businessman, who made his fortune as an oil tycoon, was first arrested at gunpoint for tax evasion in 2003. Two years later, he was convicted. In 2005, state prosecutors brought new charges against him: they alleged he stole $25 billion of the very oil he was accused of underpaying taxes on. If Khodorkovsky is found guilty on these second charges in mid-December, when a verdict is due to be released, he’ll remain in prison for six more years—after his current sentence ends in 2011.

The case against Khodorkovsky is now widely seen as a response to his financial support of political parties that oppose the Kremlin. This current trial, analysts believe, is a ploy to keep him in jail until after the 2012 elections, when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is expected to take another run at the presidency. Until then, from behind a glass cage in a packed Moscow courtroom, he’s made no secret of his views on Russian justice. His arrest, he noted, was a display of the Kremlin’s power above the law. But, “so far, they have achieved the opposite: they turned us, ordinary people, into symbols of a struggle against lawlessness.”

Royal Bank on global "too big to fail" list: Financial Times

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 2:04 PM - 4 Comments

Royal Bank of Canada is on a list of 20 world banks that have been deemed “too big to fail,” according to a Financial Times story that quotes individuals familiar with the agenda at this week’s G20 summit in South Korea. The international Financial Stability Board has been working the a list of banks that could face enhanced scrutiny and be forced to keep extra capital locked-up as insurance against an economic meltdown. JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Barclays and Credit Suisse are also on the list. Gordon Nixon, CEO of Royal Bank, says that it would be “unfair” and “illogical” that his bank be included. He says that although it’s the biggest bank it Canada, it doesn’t differ significantly in size from the other Canadian banks. He also said banks would do whatever they could to stay under the threshold of “too big to fail,” which could have a negative effect on the economy. “What I would say is we can shrink our balance sheet very quickly if we had to,” Nixon told the Financial Post. The issue of which banks are “too big to fail” may or may not be decided by the end of this week’s summit.

Financial Post

Air Canada forced to reinstate retired pilots

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 8, 2010 at 2:11 PM - 3 Comments

Two Air Canada pilots, aged 65 and 67, who were forced to retire from the airline in 2005 and 2003, are about to go back to work thanks to a ruling from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The pilots will be given full seniority, and be compensated for lost wages, plus interest, and minus received pension money. However, the tribunal made clear that this ruling only applies in these cases, and is not a precedent meant to throw out all mandatory retirement provisions at the airline. CARP, the retiree advocacy group, supports the decision, but says it is still lobbying the government to repeal parts of the Canadian Human Rights Act in order to prevent mandatory retirement.

CBC News

Housing starts down more than expected

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 8, 2010 at 10:09 AM - 2 Comments

Housing starts are down more than expected in October, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The annualized rate of housing starts in October was down 9.2 per cent from September, falling from 185,000 to 167,900. All regions saw a drop-off in starts except Atlantic Canada, where starts were up 32.9 per cent. Ontario was worst hit with a 24.5 per cent drop. The Prairies also saw starts down significantly, with 16.9 per cent fewer in October.

Financial Post

Where's the harm in selling potash?

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

They say the stakes are high in this potash business, but really, I’d no idea. Apparently, if BHP Billiton’s bid for Potash Corporation goes through, a part of Saskatchewan will have to be dug up and moved to Australia.

Or what else can Ralph Goodale possibly have been on about? The normally phlegmatic Liberal deputy leader—and the party’s only Saskatchewan MP—had been in high flight for weeks over the deal. As federal officials pondered whether the takeover was of “net benefit” to Canada, he appeared to enter the stratosphere.

“Never before has there been a takeover of this magnitude,” he quivered, denouncing the deal as a “fire sale” of one of our “key national champions.” And not just a single company: “Canadians will lose control of an entire industry.” And not just the industry: “53 per cent of the world’s reserves [of potash] are in Saskatchewan, and that’s about to move into foreign ownership, presumably permanently.” To sum up: “At stake here is the global supply of a strategic resource vital to food production for generations to come.”

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Fed to inject $600b in U.S. economy

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 12:57 PM - 0 Comments

The Federal Reserve said it will inject another $600bn into the struggling U.S. economy in a new effort to shore up the country’s economic growth.  The quantitative easing operation, nicknamed ‘QE2,’ will see the Fed buy longer-term Treasury securities and is being regarded as “one of the most significant decisions the Fed has made in years,” according to the Financial Times. The measure is meant to drive down long-term investment rates and could be one of the last options available to the Fed to try to stimulate the economy through monetary policy, since short-term interest rates in the U.S. are already hovering around zero. Some economists, though, fear the intervention could cause the dollar to drop further on international markets.

Financial Times

Spreading political fertilizer

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Saskatchewan, says its premier, Brad Wall, is in the world spotlight. “If you were watching the Google trends back in August,” he said at an Oct. 21 speech in Regina, “when the BHP Billiton hostile takeover story broke, you would have seen a real spike in terms of the number of stories with the word Saskatchewan. In fact, we broke our own record in terms of the number of media stories around the world involving the word Saskatchewan.”

The previous record, he added sheepishly, was set after the province’s beloved Roughriders lost the 2009 Grey Cup by having 13 players on the field for a key play. “So there have been some unintended benefits to all of this.”

Not everyone is so sure that attention is a good thing right now, as Wall strives to block the hostile takeover of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (PCS) by the Anglo-Australian mining giant. BHP Billiton would derive a bonus from the deal, since it is already building the world’s largest potash mine near the village of Jansen, 150 km east of Saskatoon. The first ore from the site is not expected until 2015 at the earliest, but with BHP and PCS merged, the new company could immediately subtract the capital costs of Jansen from royalty payments that PCS mines are currently contributing. Moving forward, that writeoff is expected to save BHP and cost the Saskatchewan treasury about $200 million a year over the next decade.

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Ignatieff, a working-class hero?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

In a new Liberal party video, Michael Ignatieff recalls his time as a freelance writer with a particular romanticism. “I lived without a safety net,” he says, explaining that his life was “almost” like that of a “small business person.” This working-class claim from a world-renowned academic mirrors something Stephen Harper, a political player for most of his adult life, said during the 2008 election. In promising new benefits for the self-employed, Harper recalled how he had run a “medium-sized business”—a reference to his time with the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative advocacy group.

Both seem eager to relate to one of the current icons of political discourse: the hard-working small business owner. The authenticity of these claims is debatable. “There are some parallels,” says Dan Kelly, a senior vice-president with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. “The difference is, neither, I don’t think, has been in a situation where they’ve put their life savings into a project and that they may lose everything if that endeavour is not successful.” But the appeal is perhaps irresistible. Amid tales of greedy corporations, downsized citizens and powerless governments, the entrepreneur is a dynamic, but responsible, working-class hero.

What’s more, the values and concerns of small business owners seem to match wider desires for fiscal responsibility in the population at large, and may foretell the way forward for government. Indeed, if self-sufficiency and “living within one’s means” define public administration over the next few years, all politicians may style themselves, if only in spirit, as small business owners. “A lot of the messages that entrepreneurs have been pushing for years,” says Kelly, “are starting to resonate.”

G20 finance ministers looks to prevent "currency war"

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 22, 2010 at 1:35 PM - 0 Comments

A meeting of the finance ministers from the G20 group of leading economies kicks off today in Gyeongiu, South Korea, with the goal of averting a global “currency war.”  The spectre of such a scenario, which could upset the global economic recovery, arose after a series of aggressive market interventions this year by countries including Japan, Switzerland, Poland and Ukraine, which are trying to keep down the value of their currencies to make their exports more competitive on international markets. At the core of the currency issue is also a potential clash of titans between China, which has long been accused of manipulating its currency, and the U.S., which says China’s artificially cheap imports are swamping its domestic market.

Financial Times

Canadians maintain a not-so-rosy view of the economy

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

The latest survey data shows Canadians’ confidence in the economy remains fragile. TNS Canada’s consumer confidence index rose 1.5 points to 96.3 this month, but those surveyed said the current poor economic environment is colouring their look to the future. “Canadians keep cautiously testing the economic waters with one foot then the other. But they don’t seem ready to commit, not quite yet,” said Michael Antecol, vice-president of the research group. The group’s Present Situation Index, which looks at the economic and employment environment, was down 0.7 points to 91.4 in October. Though its Expectations Index, which measures consumers’ outlook for the next six months, rose two points to 104.3 in October, TNS said that it’s “an amount still not enough to offset September’s 3.5-point drop.” Optimism is also on the decline, according to the Nanos Economic Mood Index.

Financial Post

Research group urges Ottawa to scrap telecom restrictions

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 0 Comments

Canada should scrap all restrictions on foreign companies entering the telecom market to encourage competition and maximize gain for consumers, an influential research group said on Monday. In a new report, the SeaBoard Group called for the federal government to lift limitations on foreign investment in the sector, a move which, it said, would inject fresh capital and know-how into the industry. The report comes as Industry Canada is considering possible amendments to current telecom laws dating back to 1993.

The Globe and Mail

U.S. bloggers call for boycott of Campbell's halal soups

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 18, 2010 at 11:32 AM - 0 Comments

Some American bloggers are calling for a boycott of Cambell Co. of Canada’s line of halal soup. Pamela Geller, the woman behind the Atlas Shrugs blog and a vocal critic of the “9/11 Mosque,” says she opposed the soup not because of the certification, but because it was endorsed by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which she says is close to the terrorist group Hamas. “No one is suggesting they not have halal food. I’m not against halal food any more than I’m against kosher food. My issue is who’s doing the certifying,” says Geller. Campbell representatives say they don’t plan on extending the line to the United States, and that the boycott hasn’t had any effect on sales.

Washington Post

Wal-Mart to buy more locally grown produce

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 4:01 PM - 0 Comments

The giant retail chain Wal-Mart anounced a new plan to focus on sustainable agriculture in an effort to improve environmental efficiency among suppliers, putting more locally grown food in its US stores, the New York Times reports. The program will also invest in training and infrastructure for small and medium-size farmers, especially in emerging markets, and measure the efficiency of large suppliers as they grow their produce and get it to store shelves. The world’s largest grocer, Wal-Mart also has one of the biggest supply chains so its changes will have a large effect. Five years ago, when the company set a goal to increase reliance on renewable energy and reduce packaging waste, others quickly followed suit. Wal-Mart expects to meet its goals by late 2015, hoping to double the percentage of locally grown produce (defined here as what’s grown and sold in the same state) to 9 per cent. In Canada, the company expects to buy 30 per cent of produce locally by late 203, and by the end of 2013, when available, 100 per cent.

New York Times

Labour dispute at the Journal de Montreal continues

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 3:58 PM - 0 Comments

After nearly two years, a labour conflict involving unionized reporters and photographers at the Journal de Montreal is set to go on even longer. The group voted overwhelmingly (89.3 per cent) against a contract offered by Quebecor management that could have settled the dispute. “If we would have accepted this offer, the union would have been totally destroyed,” said union president Reynald Leblanc. “I think this was a test of the resolve of our union. They thought we would buckle, but our message today is clear. We want to fight this battle.” While they were locked out, employees started a competing news website called Ruefrontenac.com. Lately, they have also begun organizing to publish a free tabloid newspaper to compete with the Journal. Part of the settlement asked that employees halt Ruefrontenac.com‘s operations. “Without this demand,” Leblanc said, “I think the offer might have been accepted.” The offer also stated that just 50 of the 253 employees would return to work, vacation would be slashed, and the workweek would have increased.

Montreal Gazette

After the bills are paid, many Canadians have little left to save

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

A new survey by the Royal Bank of Canada shows Canadians are having trouble saving. The poll showed 38 per cent of respondents couldn’t save at all, the majority of whom stated that they had nothing left over after paying the bills. A smaller group cited their impulse-buying habits. Just over a third make regular contributions to a savings account, and 29 per cent said they save “from time to time.” Over half of respondents, the survey showed, have trouble achieving their saving goals, most of whom said it was difficult to be disciplined about saving. “Many of them are starting to focus on other things, like paying down some debt that they’ve accumulated in the last couple of years or other expenses that are coming up, like their children’s education, or just bills that have been piling up over time,” Maria Contreras, product manager for savings accounts at RBC, told the Financial Post. However, official data shows higher rates of savings by Canadians in recent years, according to deputy chief economist for BMO Capital Markets Douglas Porter.

Financial Post

Canada and U.S. jobs numbers disappoint

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 8, 2010 at 11:24 AM - 0 Comments

Canada and the U.S. both lost more jobs than anticipated in September. In Canada, analysts predicted a gain of 10,000 jobs, but the country shed 6,600 instead. The unemployment rate dropped slightly to 8 per cent as summer workers headed back to school. In the U.S., more than 95,000 jobs were lost and the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 per cent. The bright spot in the U.S., say analysts, is that most job losses were government jobs, including temporary census position; the U.S. private sector actually gained 64,000 jobs. In Canada, the good news was that highly-prized full-time jobs increased. The negative overall number was due to a steep decline in part-time jobs and self-employment.

Financial Post

New York Times

Harper and Ignatieff’s very different inner circles

By John Geddes - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

If there were any doubts left about the stark difference between the teams assembled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, two recent top-level recruits to their rival staffs should go a long way toward putting them to rest. Harper reached into the rarified ranks of Toronto’s business elite to find a new chief of staff—Nigel Wright, maker of multi-billion-dollar deals at Onex Corp. Ignatieff raided the foreign service to fill his opening for a principal secretary—Patrick Parisot, who has served as Canadian ambassador to Chile, Portugal and, most recently, Algeria.

Those who know them would quickly protest that “businessman” doesn’t sum up Wright any more than “diplomat” captures Parisot. Both are partisan political creatures, too. As a young lawyer, Wright worked in Brian Mulroney’s PMO during two stints in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. At various times he’s been connected to the circles of Treasury Board President Stockwell Day and former Ontario premier Mike Harris. Parisot served former prime minister Jean Chrétien in senior communications and strategy posts from 1993 until 2001, when Chrétien rewarded him with his first job as an ambassador.

Yet these appointments signal more than the natural tendency of political leaders to tap the talents of devoted partisans. In choosing Wright, Harper has continued his clear pattern of relying almost exclusively on top aides who have never worked inside the federal public service. And in hiring Parisot, Ignatieff has kept up his habit of filling out his staff with precisely the sort of federal public service veterans who aren’t finding employment these days in the PMO.

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Canadians still worried about the economy

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 1, 2010 at 11:56 AM - 0 Comments

A new survey by RBC suggests that consumer confidence dropped in September as a result of uncertainty over the strength of the economic recovery. More than half of Canadians say they are focusing on paying down personal debt. The survey also found that only 60 per cent think the overall economic outlook is good—a drop of seven points from the previous quarter. Since then, more people have also become worried about their jobs, and less than half of those surveyed think the domestic economy will improve. RBC chief economist Craig Wright says “the uncertain and uneven global economic outlook has not gone unnoticed by consumers, translating to heightened anxiety and weaker confidence.”

CBC News

Beijing's new playing field

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

The general manager of the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mining Industries in Sinazeze, the hottest, most remote corner of Zambia, is all of 24. Six months ago, he was busing tables at a Lusaka Chinese restaurant owned by his friend’s mom. Six months before that, he was in university in China. On the side, Alfred Huang is starting an electronics business importing second-hand laptops, DVD players and cellphones to the desperately underserved African market. His moustache is little more than peach fuzz, and his perfect English rolls out so softly it’s hard to make out what he’s saying, but here, the Sichuan native commands respect. He’s a king in the making, with his feet in two markets, and interests stretching from minerals to electronics. Already, he’s told all his friends to come to Africa, the Promised Land for China’s young and nimbly entrepreneurial.

Huang first landed in Zambia in the thick of the global recession, a dark time for the copper-bottomed economy. At the peak of the downturn, the mineral’s price dropped by more than two-thirds. Panicked Western investors fled or dramatically scaled back operations. One in five Zambian miners lost their jobs as the economy ground to a halt. Copper accounts for some 70 per cent of government revenues, and dwindling foreign exchange reserves sunk the local currency.

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