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Permissive Parenting: Are We Raising a Generation of Corporate Brats?
When it comes to parenting, everyone’s an expert. And society loves to jump all over the latest media-feted example of overly indulgent parenting of kids of all ages—from toddlers to millennials. Sure,...
View ArticleProblem? Ask a CEO (That’s Chief Expert Officer to You, Buddy!)
Parents, take note! Your search for clarity in the education debates is finally over. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) commissioned a report a few weeks ago that set out a fairly bleak...
View ArticleThe problem at the heart of Ontario’s gas plant fiasco: public-private...
So. Former McGuinty government Finance Minister Dwight Duncan is belatedly celebrating the anniversary of his departure from government to the more lucrative world of the private sector by touting the...
View ArticleTen areas of regulatory failure that contributed, directly or indirectly, to...
My report, Willful Blindness?, released today, summarizes the regulatory failures behind the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. The federal government has so far not acknowledged any culpability or responsibility...
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The Truth Behind Corporate Tax Cuts (in one chart)
Corporate Canada has reached a milestone in 2014. For the first time ever, it is now hoarding more cash than the national debt. What that means is that in one foul swoop, Canada’s corporations could...
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Tim’s + BK = $ for Canada right? …. Wrong! (in one table)
Big news today that Burger King, a US company, is planning to buy Tim Horton’s, a Canadian one. This is another in a string of “tax inversion” deals where US corporations move their corporate...
View ArticleSaskatchewan – The Next Frontier for P3s
By Cheryl Stadnichuk Eighteen months ago, John McBride, the CEO of Public Private Partnerships Canada, was at a cocktail party during a P3 conference in the United States. “All people wanted to talk...
View ArticleWhy “Corporate Social Responsibility” is a Crock
Back when I was in the MBA program at the University of Alberta in 1984, a wily professor put the cat among the pigeons. He asked us students to consider whether corporations should forget about...
View ArticleThe Quebec Employers Council’s Report Card: Much Ado About Nothing
For the fifth consecutive year, the Conseil du patronat (CPQ, Quebec Employers Council) published its report card on prosperity. Once more, Quebec’s grade (C) leads to the impression that it’s not...
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Blackberry and what’s wrong with sectoral development
Another year, another dead Canadian tech giant. Blackberry was sold yesterday for scrap to the Toronto private equity firm Fairfax. The purchase price of $4.7 billion is essentially valued at its cash...
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Private businesses: stacking up money, not investing
How much money do you currently have in your bank account? Enough to hold out for a week? a month? six months? How would you like to have $111 billion set aside? To give you a better sense of just how...
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Degrees of Separation
The shaky economy seems to have prompted Canada’s CEOs to pontificate on what steps should be—nay, must be—taken to solve our economic woes as a nation. Case in point: on Monday, the Canadian Council...
View ArticleGrocery Wars: Lessons from Canada’s Changing Retail Landscape
As Target Canada tumbled into bankruptcy, Loblaw announced that its fourth-quarter profits more than doubled. What should we make of this tale of two retailers? The main reason for Loblaw’s surge was...
View ArticleThe executives who are holding us for ransom
In a televised exchange with Michel Nadeau of the Institute for gouvernance of private and public organizations (IGOPP), I stated that public corporation executives’ level of compensation functioned...
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Canada’s failed experiment with corporate income tax cuts
According to many mainstream (neoclassical) economists, cutting corporate income tax (CIT) rates is wise public policy. By reducing the cost of capital, more of it will be supplied, and because...
View ArticleThe scary corporate tax number generating machine
What a surprise! The NDP makes a proposal for a very modest increase in corporate tax rates – not even to their level before Stephen Harper took office – and defenders of all things corporate in Canada...
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Change gear: The VW scandal and the failure of deregulation, self-regulation
VW’s house of lies about dirty emissions from “clean” diesel cars isn’t a scandal as much as a syndrome, fallout from a belief that less government, more market will produce the best results. But...
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When VW gives you lemons, make lemonade
Following the revelation of Volkswagen’s interesting and creative approach to compliance with emissions standards affecting its diesel-powered cars, conversation has focused on two questions: who is...
View ArticleExcessive CEO pay: What is to be done?
Over the past 10 years, the CCPA has documented annually the average pay of the highest-paid 100 CEOs of companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange as well as the relationship between that average...
View ArticleThe Unbearable Lightness of Professional Corporations
The media often talks about workers’ and student unions, but rarely about professional corporations. In a study published late in 2015, we asked ourselves if they we functioning properly, i.e. if they...
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