Toronto is the most diverse city in the world, yet many of its arts boards are woefully bereft of women and men of colour. Four years ago, I wrote a Star column on the shocking white maleness of the boards of Toronto’s “Big 6” arts groups. Back then, all 25 board members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra […]
Is Canada young? Not any more. If I heard it once this past weekend, I heard it 150 times: “We’re a young country…” But we’re not young at all, certainly compared to the 15 countries that were born after the death of the Soviet Union in 1991. By any measure, Canada is a middle-aged country. […]
Everyone who travels to India returns to say a variation of this: “I am inside the most opulent palace in the world—and outside its gates, the most pitiful beggars are pleading for enough rupees to keep them alive.” In other words, the contrasts between wretched wealth and clutching poverty are so inescapable in India that lots […]
True, Hilary Clinton didn’t break through the Everest of glass ceilings. True, 44 per cent of Canada’s public companies don’t have even one woman on their boards. True, Canadian women earn just 73.5 cents for every dollar a man makes. But women are breaking through in the very place where their numbers will not only make gender parity a […]
Of the 12 largest European markets, five – France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Norway — have mandatory quotas on women serving on boards. So, 46 per cent of 733 TSX-listed companies have no women sitting on their boards. Not even one. This news, announced earlier this month, in a survey by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt […]
Whether it was Big for you or not, you need to start planning for next summer — Canada’s 150th — right now. Because waiting till next June to plan your July 1st will attach a lifetime of bad memories to the word “staycation.” So here are 10 ways to make next summer as big, memorable […]
Toronto needs a dramatic increase in the number of bike racks — and let’s make them attractive while we are at it. If you own a bike, and more than half of Torontonians do, you may have more routes to ride it on this summer, but no place to park it. Especially downtown where finding a […]
The news that Donald Trump’s support is falling within his fortress of white males puts many of them in an awkward spot: how to abandon their leader while holding on to their pride. So here’s a 10-point guide to doing that very thing. 1. Don’t vote on November 8. This will be hard since you’ve likely poured […]
Imagine you’re Justin Trudeau’s speechwriter and you’re on the phone with his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeu, who will soon give a speech in support of her husband. She says that one of the people she has always liked is Laureen Harper, Stephen Harper’s wife. Over the phone, she reads some passages from Ms. Harper’s speeches […]
We are not car people. Our car is 7 years old and the only route it knows is from downtown Toronto north to Georgian Bay, which it faithfully plies most every weekend. Beyond that, it’s clueless, and so are we. So when a connected colleague said we could have a new BMW 750 to use […]