Appeared in Business in Vancouver – July 15, 2014 Brad Katsuyama was mystified. A Royal Bank of Canada trader whom RBC sent from Bay Street to Wall Street – where he met “more offensive people in a year than I had in my entire life,” he told writer Michael Lewis – Katsuyama discovered a strange…
Category: Business in Vancouver
Great Depression’s scarcity and sacrifice underwrote today’s Canadian prosperity
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – July 1, 2014 To pontificate in a Canada Day column to you very young people – anyone under 70 – about our nation’s recent history, as experienced by an, ahem, seasoned journalist who has lived through more than half of the nation’s history, may seem like a fraudulent way…
Climbing aboard the medical marijuana bandwagon with Gov. Hickenlooper and ex-premier Harcourt
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – June 17, 2014 Mike Harcourt is signing on with a medicinal marijuana company. Well, what’s a former premier to do? Gotta live somehow, one supposes. I like Harcourt, easily the B.C. premier of the last half-century that I’d most want to hang out with, and a rare politician who…
Grappling with Truth and Reconciliation Commission truths
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – June 3, 2014 One man’s attempt to reconcile truth with reconciliation, regarding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Truth 1: The arrival of white Europeans destroyed ancient Indian certainties. (Note: “Indian” used mostly here, not “aboriginal,” which reeks of an anthropologist’s word, or “First Nations,” a PR term.) Truth 2:…
Pity the poor 90% of the richest 1%
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – May 20, 2014 “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” As Benjamin Disraeli, who few remember, said. Or Mark Twain, who many remember, said. Or Leonard H. Courtney, who nobody remembers, said. More currently, we pick up statistics measuring the middle class. Careful, a heavy load. Or is it lighter since…
Aquarium’s whales and dolphins need protection from their protectors
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – May 6, 2014 Let us get the business out of the way. Last year the Vancouver Aquarium attracted over a million visitors. Its total revenue was $30.6 million, of which $12.9 million was from admissions. Its fame is worldwide. It has thrived under co-founder Murray Newman and, since Newman’s…
Still watching him: FLQ crisis was Pierre Trudeau’s finest hour
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – April 22, 2014 I would have attended Justin Trudeau’s Vancouver Board of Trade speech except for previous engagements with Voltaire, Beaumarchais and Brecht. But it inspired me – to celebrate his father’s role in the Quebec election. But Pierre Elliott Trudeau is deceased, you will protest – haven’t you…
Adding up the escalating financial and political costs of scandal on the public dime
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – April 1, 2014 Scandals in British Columbia ain’t what they used to be. They’re far more expensive. But – if it’s been a bad day and you already need a lift in this space – here’s a cheery point: they’re more inclusive (that’s a politically correct term if you…
Learning the lucrative longshore trade in B.C.
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – March 25, 2014 The union struck, but classes continued. No, not a BC Teachers’ Federation issue. This is the innovative “classroom” for B.C.’s longshore workers, created at remarkable speed in 2013 by the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) – with an enviable level of co-operation by the International…
Erich Vogt’s KAON vision scuttled by Canadian political myopia
Appeared in Business in Vancouver – March 11, 2014 Sheer coincidence of course, but visionary Erich Vogt died days short of the 20th anniversary of the shattering of his greatest professional dream. That was the KAON project, on the TRIUMF facility site at the University of British Columbia (UBC). It was killed by the Jean…