Musings by Rod McQueen Blog

Mandatory women

The trouble with this “comply or explain” strategy proposed by the Ontario government to increase the number of women on corporate boards is this: what exactly are you trying to comply with? The half-baked belief of some CEO? A board’s namby-pamby position? The unstated view of politicians or regulators? Catalyst statements? Which do you think will apply? The other trouble with “comply or explain” is that we went through this with corporate governance fifteen years ago. As I recall there were fourteen aspects that public companies were to strive for … or explain why they weren’t getting there. What occurred...

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Both sides now

I’ll begin this by declaring that I think Mayor Rob Ford and his brother Doug have too little talent for their respective roles. But as a former journalist and someone who continues to write books, I believe that the journalists who pursue the Fords are also at fault for not doing their jobs properly. The Toronto Star, the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada, has decided to bring down the Ford administration single-handedly. This is a worthy goal. Indeed, it should be the goal of any newspaper to ferret out facts that run afoul of what any government – municipal, provincial or federal...

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Do not go gentle

The man sitting opposite me on the subway yesterday was obviously in the wrong place. He was wearing a leather jacket and pants, gang colors and chains, a bandana on his head, and sported a beard and handle-bar moustache. Finally, curiousity got the better of me, and I asked him: “Where’s your bike?” “It’s sitting out in front of my house,” he said, with a note of sadness. “I’m only 50, but the weather’s been too cold.” He put his hands towards me as if he were clutching the grips and said, “After a few hours, they get arthritic.” He...

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Moose, mountains and Mounties

The Canadian Tourism Commission has decided, in its wisdom, to pull its money out of the American market. The reason? According to Delivering Value, the Commission’s 2012 report, the average American only spends $518 per trip while each Brazilian traveller spends $1,874. But look at the 2012 totals. There were 11.8 million U.S. tourists in Canada compared to 81,000 from Brazil. Total spending by American tourists in Canada was $6.4 billion compared to $3.7 billion from the next ten countries combined: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Why turn your back on...

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Worth the wait

I’ve been using the new BlackBerry Q10 for a week and so far I like it. Of course, my previous model, the 8700, was at least seven years old, so there’s lots new to learn and do. I like the keyboard. It’s crisp and responsive although the keys are much smaller than my previous model. Still, you hardly need to use the keys for emails. There’s excellent predictive software plus dictation to create your missives. The price at Rogers for the hardware starts at $249 but there’s a $50 mail-in coupon. If you grumble, the associate finds another $50 but...

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The Pose

It was around 2005 when I first saw The Pose. I was researching a book and looking at some family photos. In one of them, a daughter then in her late 20s, was standing on the right of a group with her left hand slung on her hip so her arm formed a 90-degree angle at the elbow. She lived in New York City so I put it down to some affected custom among Upper East Side socialites. In the years since, The Pose has grown in use all the way from the Red Carpet at the Oscars to local...

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Lucky guy

Yesterday I joined a group of birders tromping through Minesing Swamp near Angus, just west of Barrie. I’ve done this sort of thing regularly over the last twenty-five years while living in three countries: England, the United States and Canada. No matter where you go, the groups are always the same: a knowledgeable leader, one or two keeners who know every bird, some middling folks like me, and a newbie who knows nothing. It’s also always a learning opportunity. Yesterday one of the other participants patiently instructed me in the difference between the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs. Books are fine,...

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The dark side

Psy’s first big hit, Gangnam Style, reigns as the most popular item ever on YouTube. Since first published last July it’s had more than 1.5 billion views. Everybody copied the happy dance, from pre-schoolers to Peter Mansbridge. It was good, clean fun. Mark Twain once wrote, “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side.” Well, we’re seeing Psy’s dark side in his follow-up offering, Gentleman, which in its first week of availability has already been watched 178 million times. There isn’t enough of a new dance routine but that’s a minor issue. Psy’s view of the world has become deeply...

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Harbingers of spring

I saw my first robin of spring a month ago today. At least I think it was a new arrival. So many American Robins are now wintering in Toronto that it’s hard to know when a migrant arrives. But this one was solo, working my front lawn for worms. Those who stay through the winter tend to be found in flocks. Now that we’re in mid-April other spring migrants are returning. Kinglets are here, a bird so tiny that you wonder how they survive the trauma of the trip north. So, too, red-winged blackbirds, singing conk-a-ree with their scarlet and...

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On the attack

Now that Justin Trudeau has been elected leader of the Liberal Party, we know what will happen next. The Conservatives will mount a multi-million dollar TV ad campaign aimed at sending him into oblivion. After all, that’s what they did to Michael Ignatieff. Remember that ad? It showed Ignatieff riding down an escalator looking like the deus ex machina figure in a Greek tragedy arriving to save the day. The voiceover pronounced, “He didn’t come back for you.” The Conservatives went after interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, too, in the months before he announced that he would not be a...

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New look, same old prices

I have seen the future and it is Wal-Mart. I wrote that sentence while living in the U.S., just before Wal-Mart arrived in Canada in 1994. There’s no question that Wal-Mart has altered the face of Canadian retailing. Within two years, Wal-Mart became the biggest retailer in Canada with about one-quarter of the department store market share. I spent hours watching the inner workings of Wal-Mart at the time, attending internal meetings and interviewing senior people. Wal-Mart succeeded mostly because employees on the floor run the supply chain with handheld devices that can call up inventory levels and have the...

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A chance for change

When you look at the list of appointees on the advisory council named yesterday to promote the participation of women on public and private corporate boards, you ask: Why only 23 members? Couldn’t the federal government have found one more person to make it an even two dozen? Ottawa certainly has taken its time to assemble what has turned out to be the world’s largest committee. The names of the appointees are familiar. They’re all fine folks. But maybe we shouldn’t expect too much. The three-point mandate contains such phrases as “provide advice,” “suggest how,” and “make recommendations.” Not exactly an...

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The dead and the quiescent

Bad enough that we have to put up with the singing of the Star Spangled Banner before every Major League Baseball game at the Rogers Centre. And why is it that every singer always seems to have so much fun riffing around with the U.S anthem while poor old O Canada always sounds so dreary. More importantly, why do so few members of the crowd sing O Canada. In my part of section 124, I’m pretty much alone in my warbling. All that is bad enough, as I say, but what the heck was going on last night at the...

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Play it again, Sam

Writers have it rough. We always have to come up with fresh material, day after day, year after year. As soon as I finish writing a book, everyone’s first question is, “What are you going to do next?” Couldn’t we all read this current one first? Singers have it easy. If any singer has a hit, he or she can perform that song over and over again to the delight of audiences everywhere. In fact, that’s what they want to hear, the old favourites, not some new dud tune. Meatloaf has made a life’s career singing Bat Out of Hell...

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Justin time

Justin Trudeau’s Empire Club appearance today at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel had both historic resonance and forward thinking. According to organizers, Trudeau was the first speaker ever who had been preceded at the podium by both parents. Trudeau’s father, Pierre, spoke to the club in 1972 and in 1968 he also appeared in the Ontario Room next door to the Canadian Room where Justin was today. That 1968 event, a meeting of the Liberal Party of Ontario, saw the first stirrings of Trudeaumania. A week later he declared his candidacy for leadership. Justin Trudeau’s reception didn’t have quite the same...

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