Yearly Archive: 2011

Thank you for your loyal readership. Season’s Greetings to all and a Happy, Healthy New Year in 2012.

Much in all as it pains me to say this, it’s time for Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie to step aside at Research In Motion. After almost twenty years as co-CEOs, the world record long ago set, the company needs new leadership. The offer by Mike and Jim to reduce their salaries to $1 a year is bold but does not speak to the issues involved. Others need to participate in the solution. As share price plummeted 80 per cent this year, institutional investors have been unusually quiet. A modest revolt at the time of the annual meeting was snuffed...

I’m not one to play Chicken Little but the situation in Europe appears to be intractable. For 18 months politicians and bureaucrats have been claiming to do something but so far little has been accomplished. To be sure, some holders of Greek bonds voluntarily took a haircut, central banks have acted in concert, and leaders in Greece and Italy are out but the situation just grows worse. Tomorrow marks the eight summit on the crisis this year. The worst case scenario is a cascading collapse that makes the Great Depression look like Disneyland. Meanwhile net world debt just keeps on rising, up...

It’s been six months since Sandy died. Anyone who has lost a spouse, a mother, a son, or a close friend knows what these past few months have been like. At first, I couldn’t sleep at night and I couldn’t stay awake during the day. My stress levels were high. Tears would flow without notice. I saw a man on the subway carrying flowers I assumed he was taking home to his wife. That used to be me. I stood there and openly wept. Family and friends have been very supportive. Without them, I couldn’t have made it this far....

For a time I was able to argue the Occupy Toronto situation either way. I agreed with those encamped at St. James Park that there are wrongs in society and within the economy that need to be addressed. But once attention has been drawn, then what? They have no plan, no leader, not even an ideology to keep them warm. And yet I don’t want the rough-and-ready police response that we have seen in some cities. The protesters are not terrorists although they did charge through a few downtown office towers a couple of weeks ago. As a result, access...

The Conference Board of Canada has been harping about productivity for years, but their most recent figures are startling. Canadian productivity levels are only 80 per cent of what they are in the U.S., our largest trading partner. If Canada had kept pace with productivity growth in the United States during the last two decades, every Canadian would have $7,500 more in annual disposable income. Moreover, real GDP would have been 21.3 per cent higher, governments would have collected $31 billion more in revenue, and deficits would be less troublesome. Why has this happened? First off, productivity isn’t about people working...

Now that a second accuser has come forward to talk about sexual harassment at the wandering hand of Herman Cain, I think it’s safe to say that his run for the Republican nomination is all but over. With Texas Governor Rick Perry also sinking in the polls, it looks as if Mitt Romney will eventually prevail. I had an interesting conversation a few days ago with an old friend, a Republican, living in the Deep South. There was a time when he couldn’t have voted for Governor Romney because of his Mormonism. “How can I support someone who thinks Jesus...

I passed my neighborhood Shoppers Drug Mart today and noticed the life-sized Justin Bieber cut-out that had been in the window for a few weeks had been replaced by another display. I wheeled inside, hoping to buy or otherwise obtain Beebs for my granddaughter, a fan. The cosmetician just rolled her eyes. Turns out I’m not exactly the only interested party. The cosmetician had recently attended a Shoppers gathering at which she’d learned the pop star’s cardboard cut-out had already been stolen from 36 Shoppers stores. The cut-outs are meant to promote the singer’s new fragrance, Someday, and according to...

At last, Rob Ford has done something normal for a holder of his high office. The mayor yesterday attended the closing ceremony of the Pan-Am Games in Mexico to accept the flag passed along to the next host city, Toronto. What a disappointment he must be to those who voted for him. What a civic humiliation he is to the rest of us. And Toronto has had some looney-tunes leaders. William Dennison (1966-1972) once greeted a visitor by holding up a writing instrument and saying, “This is a ball point pen.” “I know,” came the reply, “I was educated at...

It’s been almost two months since Lloyd Robertson resigned as anchor of CTV National News. That’s long enough to conclude that his replacement, Lisa LaFlamme, doesn’t have what it takes. LaFlamme was an excellent journalist in the field but rather than make me pay attention, she renders me uneasy. I don’t like her manner, her clothes, or the slight sneer that curls her upper lip. This is not a complaint caused by a woman taking over from a man. I like Sandie Rinaldo, CTV’s weekend anchor, and would have been happy to watch her during the week. I was one...

Shares in Research In Motion are up almost $3 this morning in what might be called a relief rally, relief that the new iPhone didn’t impress. Welcome to the new world of overwrought expectations. Because the iPhone 4S is unable to solve the problem of debt in Greece, the media and techies have pooh-poohed it. The BlackBerry has been suffering through similar denunciations for months. How soon the worm turns on success. Look at Yahoo. Not so long ago Yahoo was hot. Now they fire CEOs three before tea. To be sure, Research In Motion has fallen behind. The new...

If I had to declare a winner in last night’s debate, I’d say it was Dalton McGuinty. Both Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath were fine but they used too many rehearsed sound bites. They also relied on some of the same old ideas from other campaigns such as Hudak’s promise to reduce the size of the cabinet and Horwath’s plan to raise corporate tax rates. Yawn. And what the heck was this “ticket to the middle class” that Hudak kept talking about? Most voters are already there. To be sure, McGuinty fouled his nest going after Hudak’s views on foreign...

This is, bar none, the quietist election I’ve ever known. I can’t tell if no one cares or if there is a storm brewing and a government is about to be thrown out in Ontario. Only one party has been to my door canvassing. With but ten days to go, the other campaigns mustn’t have enough volunteers. There’s no question that Tim Hudak stumbled out of the gate. His sound bites about “foreign workers” were tasteless. Those who saluted were already voting for him anyway. But there must have many voters who cringed and thought, “He’s as bad as I feared.”...

The Canadian Journalism Project has published a list of the top 27 books every journalism student should read. What a great idea except the list looks more suitable for students at Columbia than Canada. Of the 27, three-quarters are non-Canadians, mostly American authors. I can’t imagine the people of any other country in the world being so self-effacing to the point of such silliness. Folks associated with The Washington Post have three on the list: All the President’s Men, by Woodward and Bernstein, plus memoirs by Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee. Other big-name Americans on the list who have written...

With the Ontario election getting under way, I’ve been amazed at how well Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has fared to date. His party has been polling slightly ahead of Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals. Even in those areas where McGuinty leads in voter trust (energy, environment, and the economy), Hudak is just a few percentage points behind. I say amazed because I think I follow politics pretty closely and I couldn’t tell you with any certainty where Hudak stands on any of those topics. I can’t imagine too many other Ontario voters can either. Perhaps the numbers can be explained by...