Weaker bank rules part of Canada-EU trade talks

A leaked draft of part of the Canada-Europe trade talks shows that Canada's vaunted banking system is on the negotiating table.

The Canadian Press has obtained the Feb. 1 version of the services chapter of the Canada-Europe trade deal that Europe has circulated to its member states.

It shows Canada is struggling to maintain the traditional stringent standards it imposes to ensure financial stability and protect financial services in Canada from foreign control.

"EU does not want to exclude financial services from the scope of performance requirements," says notes written into the draft text.

The documents also show Canada is resisting European Union attempts to weaken oversight of financial institutions — leading to a heavily contested text that is one more obstacle to completing an agreement with Europe soon.

Both sides want more access to each other's financial services markets.

For Canada, the European market is a huge opportunity for big insurance companies located mainly in Ontario. And Germany in particular has been pushing for more financial services opportunities in Canada.

But the documents show Canada is taking a cautious approach, and will only allow a more open market if Canadian authorities can block business activity that would put the financial system at risk. Canada's caution is bumping up against an aggressive European drive for investor protections that have no strings attached.

Canada wants the text to say: "A party may prevent or limit transfers ... through the equitable, non-discriminatory and good-faith application of measures relating to maintenance of the safety, soundness, integrity or financial responsibility of financial institutions or cross-border financial service suppliers."

Deal to be model for other EU agreements

But that section of text is in bright red, indicating — like much of the financial services portion of the agreement — that the EU has not yet agreed.

"What the (European) Commission is doing: it feels obliged to wrestle Canada down," said Jan Kleinheisterkamp, a senior lecturer in the law department of the London School of Economics, who follows the investor-protection discussions closely.

Canada also wants to set up a special mechanism that would have governments resolve any disputes that arise from new forays into each other's financial services sector.

The draft shows the EU is somewhat open to a version of this idea, but has deep reservations for fear Canada will use the mechanism as an excuse to block legitimate European investment. European officials have not agreed to many parts of the Canadian text in this area.

"EU has concerns about the potential for abuse of such a provision if it were to be used for reasons which are not prudential," notes to the draft text say.

"EU has concerns about the possibility to backtrack on GATS commitments," the notes add, referring to the general agreement on trade in services, a World Trade Organization agreement that Canada and the EU have both signed.

The European objections to Canada's cautious approach have to be understood in a broader context, said Kleinheisterkamp.

The EU member states want the Canada-EU agreement to serve as a model for other comprehensive trade and investment agreements, he said. So they want investor protections in the Canadian deal to be as "clean" as possible, with no strings attached.

"Why is the (European) Commission pushing so hard for this? ... It's probably because that will be the template for so many agreements negotiated afterwards," Kleinheisterkamp said in an interview.

Talks come at 'strategic moment'

"This is a strategic moment because the EU is setting out its emergent investment policy."

At the same time, Europe should realize that for Canada, tinkering with the financial services sector will not be well received, he added.

That's because the federal government speaks frequently about the strength of Canada's financial services, boasting about the oversight that allowed Canada to avoid the worst of the global financial crisis that is still undermining Europe's banks.

"What is clear is that for Canada, it is a very important issue. But the EU does not want to accept a lower standard" of investor protection for its financial services companies, said Kleinheisterkamp.

In Ottawa, a spokesman for International Trade Minister Ed Fast would not discuss the draft text, but said Canadian insurance companies would have a lot to gain from better access to the European market.

"The strength of Canada's financial institutions throughout the most recent global economic crisis reflects the strength and soundness of Canada's regulatory framework," spokesman Adam Taylor said in an emailed statement.

"In fact, for five straight years the World Economic Forum has said Canada has the soundest banking system in the world."

"The process of negotiations continues to unfold. Progress has been made in several of the areas that remain outstanding; however, further important work remains to be done. As in all negotiations, nothing is agreed to until everything is."

The opposition NDP said it will be watching closely to ensure Canada does not give an inch on financial services regulations.

"Canadians are rightly proud of their strong financial services sector," said trade critic Don Davies.

Canada and Europe had both hoped to sign the comprehensive trade deal by the end of last year, but have still not yet reached agreement on key issues such as drug patents, beef, pork, procurement, investment and automobiles.

Talks continue this week in Brussels.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dow flirts with all-time high

Stocks are rising sharply for a second day as evidence mounts that the U.S. housing market is making a comeback and the broader economy has turned a corner.

The Dow jumped 175.24 points to 14,075.37 when markets closed at 4 p.m. eastern time.

That came after the National Association Realtors said the number of American's who signed contracts to buy homes rose to its highest level in 2.5 years in January.

Earlier in the day, official data showed that factory orders — a closely watched measure of long-term plans at businesses, rose 6.3 per cent to it's highest level since the end of 2011.

That was enough to light a fire under the Dow, pushing the benchmark U.S. stock index up 300 points over the past two days, putting it within 100 points of its record high of 14,164 reached in October 9th, 2007.

TSX also gains

Stocks in Canada also fared well, with the S&P/TSX composite index up 71.95 points at 12,732.39, held back by falling gold stocks, while the TSX Venture Exchange was 0.79 of a point lower at 1,131.12.

The Canadian dollar gained 0.32 of a cent to 97.75 cents U.S.

Railway stocks help push the industrial sector up 1.33 per cent with Canadian Pacific Railway ahead $4.18 to $124.91.

The telecom sector was up 1.28 per cent as Telus Corp. rose $1.45 to $70.67.

The energy sector was ahead 1.23 per cent as the April crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained 13 cents to $92.76 a barrel. Prices moved to positive territory after data for the week ending Feb. 22 showed a rise in inventories of 1.1 million barrels, much less than the build of 2.6 million barrels that analysts expected.

With files from The Canadian Press

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

TD Bank profit jumps to $1.8 billion

TD Bank Group is raising its quarterly dividend by five per cent following strong growth in the first quarter at most of its major divisions.

The bank reported $1.79 billion of net income before adjustments, about $300 million higher than the same time last year, and said its quarterly dividend will rise by four cents to 81 cents per share starting in April.

Its Canadian personal and commercial banking division reported $920 million of net income for the quarter, or $944 million on an an adjusted basis.

There was similar growth in adjusted net income at its U.S. personal and commercial banking division, which rose 12 per cent to US$387 million.

TD's wealth and insurance business had a smaller overall increase, although the contribution from its stake in TD Ameritrade was down.

There was also an 18 per cent decrease in net income from wholesale banking, which fell to $159 million.

TD's adjusted net income was $1.92 billion, up from $1.76 billion in the first quarter of its 2012 financial year.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

CIBC profit slips to below $800 million

CIBC says its net income slipped to $798 million in the first quarter of its current financial year, down from $835 million a year earlier.

Among the items included in the quarter was a $148-million loss from the settlement of a contract dispute linked to the collapse of Lehman Bros. in 2008.

That item reduced CIBC's first-quarter profit by 27 cents per share.

Overall, however, the bank still managed to report a profit of $1.91 per share, just two cents below the profit in the first quarter of 2012.

CIBC's core retail and business banking division saw its net income rise to $611 million, up from $567 million a year earlier.

That was offset by a small dip at its wealth management division and a major decline in wholesale banking, primarily related to the Lehman settlement.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Miller seeks divorce from Molson Coors in Canada

Miller Brewing Company says it's aiming to end its Canadian licensing agreement with Molson Coors Canada this summer.

The agreement covers such well-known brands as Millers Genuine Draft, Miller Lite and Miller High Life.

Miller's managing director for Canada, Paul Gurr, says there's an opportunity to grow its brands in Canada.

"We see Canada as a country with a rich tradition of beer appreciation and believe we can better serve Canadians needs through this transition," Gurr said in a statement.

Molson Coors Canada has filed a suit in Ontario to prevent the move but Miller says it gave the required six-month notication in January and it expects the termination to take effect on July 22.

Miller Brewing Co. is a subsidiary of SABMiller PLC, a multinational with its headquarters in the United Kingdom.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Paycheques got a bit bigger in December

The average weekly paycheque of a non-farm Canadian employee was $908 in December, a 0.3 per cent increase from the previous month and 2.8 per cent higher than a year ago.

Statistics Canada released data Tuesday showing Canadians' pay packets got slightly larger at the end of 2012. And the fatter paycheques didn't just come because of working longer. The data agency says the average work week came in at 32.8 hours during the month, down slightly from 33.1 hours in November but unchanged from where it was a year earlier.

Statistics Canada monitors what it calls 'non-farm payroll employees' in part because agricultural and other workers have fluctuating employment trends which skews the data.

The 2.8 per cent increase more than outpaces the current inflation rate. Last week the data agency revealed the cost of living only increased by 0.5 per cent in the year ended January.

By sector, wage gains were highest among professional, scientific and technical services workers, followed by health care and social assistance workers, then those in the manufacturing industry.

Across all industries, average pay packets were highest in the mining, quarrying and oil and gas sector, where workers took in an average of $1,881 per week — a 4.6 per cent increase from the level of a year ago.

And by province, seven of 10 Canadian provinces posted higher-than-average wage gains, with Saskatchewan leading the way with a five per cent average salary increase over the previous 12 months.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Professional cellphone contract negotiators haggle for customers

Discussing cellphone bills, contracts and plans with their wireless provider is something many Canadians would rather not do — so a number of entrepreneurs are offering to haggle with service providers on their behalf.

Companies such as mybillsarehigh.com negotiate with wireless providers like Rogers or Bell to get customers a better deal, in return for a cut of the savings.

Mohamed Halabi, founder and CEO of mybillsarehigh.com says the trick is to know all the plans, past and present, offered by all the cellphone providers in Canada. But that doesn't necessarily make it fun to deal with customer service representatives for the wireless companies.

"Even me as an expense management professional, I mean, I [get] really frustrated, right?" he said. "So, I mean, it's obviously really hard for the average customer to do this."

CBC's Blair Sanderson had his wife Tara give Halabi's service a try, and then he reported on her experience. Tara was reluctant to participate at first because it meant providing her past wireless bills to Halabi, and calling her cellphone service provider to authorize him to make changes to her account. She also felt that she was getting a pretty good deal already.

However, Halabi did manage to get her a better contract. (Though in the end she reverted to her previous contract, so as not to benefit from her husband's story, as per CBC's journalistic standards.)

To hear the details, click on the play button in the audio player at the top of the story.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

BMO surprises with $1B profit

Bank of Montreal got the banking sector's first-quarter earnings season off to a bang, delivering surprisingly strong revenue and a profit that remained above $1 billion — beating analyst estimates.

Analysts had estimated about $958 million in adjusted profit, the equivalent of $1.48 per share.

Instead, BMO beat that by four cents per share with $1.041 billion of adjusted net income — up $69 million or seven per cent from a year earlier.

The bank's revenue and net income were also well above consensus estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Retail banking strength

Chief executive Bill Downe says all of the bank's major divisions in Canada and the United States — where it operates under the BMO Harris Bank brand — performed well during the three-month period, which ended Jan. 31.

"Looking ahead, we are well-positioned to leverage our North American platform and deliver sustained earnings growth," Downe said in a statement.

The bank also said its quarterly dividend will be going up, rising by two cents to 74 cents per share.

Analysts had expected most of Canada's big banks would hike their dividends and report strong first-quarter earnings. But they were also cautious about how they'll fare in the months ahead, particularly at their Canadian retail operations.

Bank of Montreal is the first of its peers to report first-quarter earnings.

The bank's total revenue for the quarter was down slightly from a year earlier, falling by one per cent to $4.08 billion from $4.12 billion. The consensus estimate had been for revenue to fall further to $3.9 billion.

Net income, before adjustments, also fell — dropping by five per cent to $1.048 billion from $1.109 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2012. The consensus estimate had been for $923.6 million or $1.45 of net income.

There were signs of weakness elsewhere in the report, however.

Provisions for credit losses increased to $178 million from $141 million. Return on equity dropped to 14.9 per cent from 17.2 per cent and adjusted ROE was 14.8 per cent, down from 15 per cent a year earlier.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Young people overshare financial info, Visa warns

Many young Canadians are "oversharing" their financial information, says a new survey that found nearly half of 18- to 34-year-old respondents admitting they take risks like texting their credit or debit card numbers.

The poll by Visa Canada found that 45 per cent of this demographic group also shared their payment card information via email, loaned their cards and didn't keep their PIN confidential.

This behaviour mirrors similar habits of sharing personal information on social media sites, said Gord Jamieson, head of payment system risk at the credit card company.

"Yet they're really not totally aware of who has access to this information and who else can be seeing this information and what would be done with it," he said from Toronto.

Not enough secrecy

The survey, released Tuesday, marks the start of fraud prevention month in March.

Individuals in the 18-34 group also reported the highest level of online sharing activities, including keeping an open profile on a social network site and posting to it daily, publicly sharing photos and posting their employment history.

"Just be careful what you put out there," Jamieson said, noting that public WiFi networks for mobile devices aren't necessarily secure.

For the older generations, they tend not to overshare quite as much.

Among those aged 35 and older, the survey found that 32 per cent reported taking risks with their payment card information. This group also reported less sharing of personal information online.

The survey also found that 43 per cent who had engaged in behaviour such as sharing payment card information or loaning their card had experienced some kind of fraud.

"So, is that a coincidence?" Jamieson asked. "They are creating that opportunity by engaging in that risky behaviour. Those people are twice as more likely to be victims of fraud today."

Identify theft possible

The survey also found that 56 per cent of respondents said they were more concerned now about identity theft than they were five years ago. While 50 per cent of respondents said they were more concerned about payment card fraud today compared to five years ago.

"They acknowledge it, but sometimes they don't practice what they should be doing," Jamieson said.

The survey found that less than half — 41 per cent — reported checking their payment card statements more than once a month.

Jamieson recommends setting up an alert system so a cardholder would be notified via email or text every time a transaction is made.

The Canadian Bankers Association says credit card fraud was $436.6 million in 2011, its most recent statistic, up about 19 per cent from 2010.

The online survey was conducted by market research firm Fabrizio Ward with 1,000 major credit and debit cardholders from Dec. 26 to Jan. 2.

Visa also produced a video about the perils of oversharing credit card information. It can be viewed on YouTube at www.TheConcertByVisa.ca.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Samsung Knox targets BlackBerry's turf

Samsung is making a major move into the corporate smartphone market once dominated by BlackBerry.

The company behind the Galaxy line of smartphones — which along with Apple's iPhone dominates market share — announced the Samsung Knox software on Monday.

The "enterprise mobile solution" is aimed at strengthening Samsung's position in the business to business market, which BlackBerry is also targeting with its new line of smartphones.

Enterprise customers who buy devices for many employees at a time helped BlackBerry become a symbol of mobile communications innovation and served as a stabilizing force as consumers turned to rival devices in droves.

Samsung says its Knox software allows enterprise customers, who are mainly employees at government, corporate and private businesses, to use one device for both "work and play."

It's a direct challenge to Waterloo, Ont.,-based BlackBerry (TSX:BB), which is hoping its BlackBerry 10 enterprise service can help restore the troubled company to its former glory.

BlackBerry moves to fend off competitors

BlackBerry's new line of phones are also touted as a work-play solution — through its BlackBerry Balance feature — and the company has made other moves recently in an attempt to fend off enterprise market competitors.

Last month, BlackBerry opened up its secure enterprise service to other smartphones like the iPhone and Android devices for the first time in its history — recognizing the growing bring-your-own-device to work trend.

Just days before BlackBerry's move, an investment wing of Samsung Group — the leading Android smartphone maker — announced a "strategic investment" in Toronto-based Fixmo Inc., a software maker that specializes in data and device security.

Apple Inc. executives have also made a point of emphasizing the popularity of their iPad tablet with major banks and government agencies. The iPhone has also gained traction in the enterprise market, the executive said on the company's earnings call in January.

Analysts are split on the future of BlackBerry and its prospects for sales success. Last week, Canaccord Genuity pulled back its expectations for the smartphone maker.

The investment firm said it believes that shipments of the new BlackBerry devices in February will total just 300,000 units, a far cry for its initial estimate of more than 1.75 million.

The Canadian smartphone pioneer revealed its new phones in late January at a splashy New York City event but is making them available in stages.

The U.S. release is expected to be in March, following February launches of the Z10 touchscreen model in the United Kingdom and Canada.

The BlackBerry Q10, which will have the physical keypad beloved by the so-called CrackBerry crowd, follows in April.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Google Glass: No longer just the stuff of science fiction

CopSpace sheds some light on matters of course... There's the green tree of signs sprouting over the doorway of number thirty-nine, each tag naming the legal tenants.

That sounds a bit like someone describing how you might use Google Glass. A real-world image of an apartment building entrance, with an overlay of virtual information about the people who live there.

If that also sounds like science fiction, well, that's because it is.

As well as my interest in economics, I have always been a reader of science fiction. I am convinced the two go together well — the best science fiction helps you disconnect from the present and imagine possible futures.

Today, Matt Galloway, the host of the local CBC Radio morning show here in Toronto, was enthusing about Google Glass. Produced by the world's largest search company, it's a computer device that you wear on your face like glasses, and it's now selling for $1,500 by lottery only. Even while lusting after them, Galloway wondered aloud about what possible use Google Glass could have.

"I don't know why I'd want something like that," Galloway told me later, "but I want something like that."

When I first heard about Google Glass last year ("Google glasses" back then), I didn't have to wonder what they could be used for. I knew. Galloway's comments this morning forced me to rush around the house searching for a book by Charles Stross called Halting State.

Google founder Sergey Brin demonstrates Google Glass glasses at a New York Fashion Week event in September 2012. Google has announced a lottery that would allow people to purchase the $1,500 glasses prior to their wide release later this year. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters )

Stross is a supernerd, sort of an updated version of the similarly polymathic Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon). Although he can write accessible romantic prose (such as his Merchant Prince series), Stross is most spectacular in his dense, technologically aware science fiction, like Halting State. Anyone who wants a realistic portrayal of the near tech future should read it.

'Geographical information systems'

Stross, who has a degree in computer science (and one in pharmaceutical science – did I say polymathic?), used to write about Linux for a tech magazine. But he has the imagination to take us a few steps forward into a world where the virtual and the real have merged.

"When I sat down to write Halting State (circa 2005-2006), I decided to do some clean sheet extrapolation to figure out from existing industry road maps what sort of level of technology would be available by 2017 when the novel is set," said Stross in an email today.

He says this is the world where Google Glass is leading us.

In the world of Halting State, data storage is in practical terms infinite. Data is stored geographically, according to its location in the real world. Think of a Google map, where photographs of nearby locations are available by clicking on boxes that appear as an overlay on the map.

This is a real world science called Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and it is increasingly how information is stored today. The idea is that if the city wants to know how recently the water pipes on your street were updated, for instance, they look at a map-based computer system that may also show natural gas pipes, sewage pipes and electrical conduits on your street and maybe even the billing information for your house.

"CopSpace," as it's called in Stross's book, "is basically a distributed geographical information system mapped onto a police intelligence database, using the glasses to provide a heads up view of local crime-related features," Stross explains.

Halting State, a 2007 novel by Charles Stross, imagines a future world in which police use a wearable computer very similar to Google Glass. (Ace Books)

In Halting State — which concerns a bank heist within a virtual reality that has financial effects in the real world — Stross demonstrates some of the practical uses of a technology similar to but even more advanced than Google Glass. In his novel, Stross calls them "Specs," and as in the quote at the top of this article, geographical information overlays physical information in the police officer's field of vision, providing a directory of who lives where.

Staring at a computer

If the officer gets the right permission, he can look at more information about each of those tenants.

"This is the twenty-first century, and all the terabytes of CopSpace have exploded out of the dusty manila files and into the real world, sprayed across it in a Technicolor mass of officious labelling and crime notes," says Stross in the book.

The other thing CopSpace allows you to do is record what you are seeing in real time. Crime scenes, statements, important communications are evidence-logged and stored. This sounds farfetched — until you think of all the Russian drivers who are already doing it. Crazy crash reels on YouTube and the spectacular photographs of the recent meteor are a product of a "dash cam culture" where Russian drivers keep a continuous record of their driving as proof against corrupt officials.

So much for science fiction. Sorry, Charlie, it's hard to keep up.

But Stross has more. When you want your colleague (an expert? a supervisor?) to see what you are seeing, or if you want to observe the view from a remote device, you pass the view around.

"I think the utility (of Google Glass) to policing should be obvious," Stross says, reminding me that fellow science fiction writer Vernor Vinge (the inventor of "the singularity") has proposed contact lenses doing the same thing in a slightly more distant future.

Stross's Specs are a substitute for a cell phone, a hands-free camera, a verbal notebook, a heads-up computer screen and a link to all the information in private and public databases.

Google Glass isn't there yet, but now that it's actually appearing in the real world, you don't have to be a science fiction junkie — or a writer as imaginative as Charles Stross — to see the potential.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Does New Brunswick have the answer to Canada's pension funding crisis?

The city council of Saint John, N.B., heard some blunt language in November 2012. Faced with a pension plan that was underfunded to the tune of at least $195 million, one pension consultant told council the city had "the worst pension plan I've ever seen."

That consultant, Susan Rowland, suggested that council switch the city's beleaguered pension plan to a new kind of pension plan – a shared-risk plan – that promised to be more sustainable, more secure and more predictable.

Shared-risk pension plans are largely an unknown quantity in Canada. But Rowland knows all about them. She had just chaired a pension task force in New Brunswick that had recommended the adoption of the shared-risk model in the province. Enabling legislation was subsequently passed and the shared-risk pension plan became a reality last July.

Saint John eventually voted to adopt her shared-risk suggestion to address its pension problems – something several unions and other groups in New Brunswick have also done.

There's no question that the buzz around these plans is growing. Observers say they will likely spread across Canada as their benefits become better known.

Risks are shared

So what's so attractive about these plans?

To answer that, we need to look at the two main models that currently exist for pension plans – whether public or private.

For employees, defined benefit, or DB plans, are the so-called gold standard. These plans, which are common in the public sector but much less so in the private, guarantee a pre-set lifetime pension. The better plans include partial or full inflation indexing. Both the employee and the employer contribute. But it's the employer's responsibility to make sure that the plan is properly funded to pay the promised benefits. Any shortfalls in the plan's funding must be made up entirely by the employer.

In the case of public sector employers, that means the taxpayer is responsible for solving the pension deficit problem. Because of the perfect storm of longer life expectancies, earlier retirements, an aging population, low interest rates and lacklustre capital markets, many defined benefit plans are facing big deficits. Every public sector pension plan in New Brunswick, for instance, is underfunded.

In the private sector, many employers have dealt with the pension deficit problem by closing their defined benefit plans to new enrollment and require new hires to enrol in the other kind of plan – the defined contribution, or DC, pension plan.

These plans, as the name suggests, define only the contributions that employees and/or employers make to the plan. There are no targets or guarantees about the final pension benefit the employee can expect; their pension income in retirement will depend entirely on how the plan's investments perform.

Usually, it's the employee who must decide how the funds are invested. Because there are no payout guarantees, the employer is not on the hook for future pension plan shortfalls. That's why more and more employers are choosing DC plans; the risk under a DC plan is transferred entirely from the employer to the employee.

All the stakeholders in New Brunswick – government and unions alike – could see the writing on the wall for its underfunded DB plans. The province, facing its own deficit problems, no longer had the capacity to guarantee huge pension deficits or to underwrite guaranteed cost-of-living pension benefit increases. The unions were worried that their members would see their pension security thrown overboard – especially for younger employees – if the province said it had to abandon ship on some of its funding requirements.

"We knew we had to do something," said Ralph McBride, co-ordinator of CUPE Local 1252, which represents New Brunswick hospital employees. Their pension plan had a funding ratio – that is, the ratio of its assets' market value to its liabilities – in the mid-70s, a very long way from the desired 100 per cent.

The search for a workable compromise – common ground that would provide pension security for workers but affordability for government – led New Brunswick's pension task force to check out a European solution. To put it mildly, they liked what they found.

The compromise

The Dutch were the first to come up with the shared-risk pension model. It has since spread across much of northern Europe. New Brunswick is the first jurisdiction in North America to adopt it.

"Shared risks" implies just what it says. With defined benefit plans, the funding shortfall risks are entirely borne by the employer. With defined contribution plans, the investment risk is downloaded entirely to the members. Shared-risk plans represent a kind of hybrid – with a new joint focus on risk management.

Workplace pensions have come under increased pressure from corporate and public-sector cost-cutting. If that continues, Canadians may need to place a higher priority on personal savings for retirement. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

"It is not fair or realistic to encourage New Brunswick workers to rely on [an old] pension scheme which is not sustainable," said New Brunswick Premier David Alward when he unveiled the new plan in May 2012. "And it is not fair or realistic to expect New Brunswick taxpayers to backstop huge swings in pension valuations because of the performance of pension plan investments."

Both opposition parties supported the shared-risk model.

In New Brunswick's case, the new model provides base retirement benefits that are strongly funded by both employer and employees at predictable and affordable levels.

Contributions aren't wildly volatile, so employers like the cost certainty. Employees get the safety and security of knowing that their benefits will be there when they need them.

Base benefits are not guaranteed, but are considered more secure than those in many other pension plans. Stress-testing through 20,000 computer simulations found a 97.5 per cent probability that targeted base benefits would not be reduced.

Indexing conditional on returns

Cost-of-living increases, which were formerly guaranteed, will now depend on investment returns. If they're poor, there will be no indexing. If they're robust, there will be. Funding surpluses can also be used to make up for earlier years when poor returns resulted in no indexing.

Pensions will also be based on an "enhanced career average" formula, rather than the employee's highest-earning years. Employees will also have to pay "marginally" higher contributions and the targeted retirement age will rise to 65 from 60 over a 40-year phase-in period.

Shared-risk plans – which are considered target benefit plans – have attracted the support of the C.D. Howe Institute, which has long sounded the alarm bell over underfunding in Canada's public pensions. "In the public sector, the exposure of taxpayers to funding shortfalls needs to be mitigated by converting DB plans to target-benefit plans in which benefits adjust depending on the funding level," according to a recent report from the think tank. It said "the recent New Brunswick model could be used as a guide."

That model has now been adopted by a number of public and private sector pension plans in New Brunswick, including union pension plans that represent nurses, hospital employees, pipe trades workers, Co-op Atlantic workers and, as mentioned earlier, the city of Saint John.

If task force chair Susan Rowland has her way, the shared-risk pension plan model won't stop with New Brunswick.

"There's widespread interest across the country," she told CBC recently. "It's a model that will work with almost every pension plan."

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

'Social reading' the next phase of e-book revolution

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Ya ain't seen nothing yet!" -- Al Jolson, The Jazz Singer (1927)

Those were the opening words spoken in the first feature-length talking picture. They proved prophetic for the movies, which have gone through constant, disruptive change ever since. And they could apply equally well to another cultural industry that in the past decade has gone through its own upheaval – publishing.

The United States leads the world in the growth of e-reading, but Canada isn't far behind. The latest figures show e-book sales have soared from practically nothing five years ago to about 16 per cent of all books sold in Canada in 2012.

That's worth sales of roughly $300 million CDN a year, up from $100 million when my collaborator Dave Redel and I produced a CBC Radio documentary for Ideas in early 2011 called Closing the Book. In making our sequel, Opening The Book, which airs Feb. 25, we learned that e-books promise to fundamentally change the way we read.

According to Bob Stein, a digital pioneer, the future of books is "social reading."

Digital booksellers, like Amazon and Indigo, have harnessed social media from the start. They and other sellers encourage their customers to comment on books in company-controlled chat spaces.

But these digital walled gardens are way too limited for Stein, who heads up the Institute for the Future of the Book and was the founder of the Criterion Collection, the celebrated video-distribution company where he dreamed up the idea of adding commentary tracks to movies on DVD.

Based in New York, Stein is working on a new application called Socialbook, which is like those Amazon and Indigo chatrooms — on steroids.

'Social reading'

Rather than limiting discussion of a certain book to a digital room in e-readers such as the Kobo or Kindle, Socialbook lets all your friends in your personal digital network know what you're reading and invites them into the conversation. Furthermore, Socialbook puts participants right into the text of the book, where they can scribble notes in the digital margin of the book, highlight portions, pull out quotes and even re-arrange the content. Socialbook is an app that lets all your friends in your personal digital network know what you're reading and invites them into the conversation. (Canadian Press)

Stein believes Socialbook and networked technologies like it make discussion about books far more social, dynamic and powerful. "I'm quite sure that this concept of social reading is much deeper than anything I've done before," Stein told us. "Criterion was cool, re-imagining the page [with CD-ROMs] to include audio and video. Great idea, I'm glad we did it and it was important, but the idea that media is becoming fundamentally social is much deeper."

Stein believes online sharing may become the dominant way of both consuming and producing stories.

"This idea that we read by ourselves is a relatively recent idea and is going to go away," he said. "The reality is that once you start locating texts inside of that dynamic network, you start opening up the possibilities for the book to become a place where readers can start to congregate and start to talk to each other, and once people start to see the power of that, they won't want to go back."

'This idea that we read by ourselves is a relatively recent idea and is going to go away'—Bob Stein, Socialbook developer

James Bridle, a London, UK-based editor, publisher and self-proclaimed book futurist, isn't as sold on the intense online socialization of reading and writing.

Bridle notes that in the 18th century, the French writer Montaigne sat in his lonely garret and basically invented the modern essay, not knowing if it would connect with readers. It turns out his essays did – and to great public acclaim, too.

Bridle thinks digital technology could be used to enhance one-on-one relationships between author and readers, which he thinks will be just as valuable in the future as social online reading and writing.

Stein, however, contends that social reading actually brings our culture full circle. In the pre-historic, preliterate era, storytelling was communal, as tales were told around the campfire.

New business models

Up until now, books in both paper and digital form have been pretty resistant to networking. They've been closed silos of information that publishers have been keen to keep inside their own covers (even if they're virtual covers). After all, publishers are in the business of selling access to that information in order to get you to buy a copy.

But Hugh McGuire, the Montreal-based founder of online publishers Pressbooks and Libravox, thinks that business model — pretty much the one in place for the last 500 years — is ready to be blown away. Digital pioneers say the old business model that's existed in the publishing industry for the last 500 years -- that books are closed silos of information -- is about to be blown away. (John Jaques/Pueblo Chieftain/Associated Press)

McGuire, who co-edited the recent anthology Book: A Futurist's Manifesto, believes the old model will be replaced with one that makes all the information in all future books open, accessible and free for analysis.

"One of the things I believe is that a lot of books will end up totally on the web, and that's something that horrifies people for, I think, cultural reasons," said McGuire.

He said a lot of people think "books are important and the web is for Twitter and Facebook and silly things. I say this is a ridiculous notion. First of all, there's an awful lot of schlock and not very good stuff which is published as books, and there's an enormous amount of serious information that is on the web."

To get at that serious information, read it and discuss it freely, McGuire thinks within the next five years, every page of every book will become its own searchable webpage with its own URL.

He also thinks nearly every book will come with an application programming interface (API), which is a sophisticated programming tool that will allow you to manipulate the information in weird and wonderful and highly informative ways.

Every book its own webpage

Say you and your friends are reading Bram Stoker's classic Dracula together online and you become interested in the bloodsucking count's extensive travels through Europe. McGuire says an API-coded version would allow you to produce a sophisticated map with just a few keystrokes. The map could then interface with a travel website, which would allow you to book transportation to London, a key location in the novel.

After your arrival in the UK capital, you and your friends could take a walking tour with smartphone in hand. After surfing to the book's website, the embedded API would synchronize with the GPS in your phone. And that would then give you various Dracula-themed literary references as you pass locations mentioned in the book, making for a much more interesting visit to London.

Of course, for a scenario like this to work, McGuire stresses the information in books has to be free and web-accessible, and that shatters the carefully guarded silos of the publishers.

"This is the great challenge that we have every time the media goes through a great transition," McGuire says. He likens it to the publishing landscape when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century.

"I imagine that [if there were] radio programs in the 1400s with interviews with Gutenberg asking him about how this was going to impact the business model of the scribes who copied bibles at the time. He didn't know … and it wasn't until [Martin] Luther came along that a good business model was found. So, we don't know!"

Sean Prpick and Dave Redel's CBC Radio documentary, Opening The Book, airs on Ideas at 9 p.m. (9:30 NT) on Feb. 25.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Major grocers sell canned fish years past shelf life

A woman who bought lobster pâté at a Wal-Mart recently and felt ill after eating it said she was shocked to find the can should have been pulled from circulation more than a year ago.

"It was scary. Very frightening," said Margaret Radomski, 78, of Leduc, Alta. "So, then I thought, how did this get on the shelf? There is something wrong here."

Radomski said the Clover Leaf pâté smelled and tasted too fishy. A few hours after eating it, she said she felt odd.

"I started to see stars in my eyes … a crawling sensation on my face," she said. "I got weak in my legs."

Radomski is convinced it was the pâté that made her feel sick, because she said she is normally healthy and has no allergies.

She checked the bottom of the can and found it had a "best before" date of July 2011 — a year and a half before she bought it.

Long past shelf life

This can of pâté recently purchased by Radomski should have been pulled from the shelf in July 2011. (CBC)

"I would have never bought this can of lobster pâté if I had seen the date on it … because I'm usually pretty careful about that," said Radomski.

"I feel insecure now. When I go to the store, I've got to study more of what I am buying."

Radomski said she refused Wal-Mart's offer of $50 compensation and decided instead to go public to warn others.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Felicia Fefer said the company's policy is not to sell any products past their best before date..

"We take this issue very seriously," she said. "We regret this incident, and remain committed to ensuring outdated products are removed from our shelves."

Not an isolated case

Walmart said it regrets what happened and its policy is to not sell any products past their best before date. (CBC)

Go Public visited 17 major grocery stores in the Vancouver area and found one-third had outdated cans of fish and seafood on their shelves.

Old cans of tuna and shrimp, stamped "best before" 2010 to 2012, were found mixed in with new ones, which were stamped with best before dates as late as 2015.

"When Clover Leaf is notified that product is on a store shelf that is past its best before date we will send an employee to that store to co-ordinate that product's removal," said Peter Clarke, the company's marketing director.

Manufacturers say canned tuna and seafood has an approximate shelf life of three years after packing, before the best before date kicks in.

After that, manufacturers say the taste, texture and nutritional value deteriorates. Unless the can is damaged, Clarke said it is still safe to eat, indefinitely.

"This has nothing to do with product safety in any way. We do this because consumers do not wish to purchase product that has passed its best before date … best before does not imply bad after."

The store where Go Public found the most outdated products was Safeway. Three locations were selling canned tuna and shrimp between one and three years out of date.

Stores respond

"We are very disappointed with your findings and are taking this issue very seriously," said Safeway public affairs manager Betty Kellsey.

Go Public found outdated cans of fish and seafood in five Vancouver area grocery chain stores. (CBC)

One Safeway in Coquitlam, B.C., had canned shrimp from Indonesia, with a shelf life that ended in August 2010.

"Our stores conduct rotating weekly date checks," wrote Kellsey. "Products that are nearing the best before dates are pulled from the shelf and discarded.

"Your investigation has identified opportunities for improvement."

Go Public also found outdated cans at one Thrifty's and one Price Smart, which are owned by major grocery chains. Both said outdated food is not supposed to be sold.

"It is pulled and sent back to the vendor or recycled or discarded," said Thrifty's communications manager Erin Kelly. "If a consumer finds it, they can bring it back for a full refund."

A statement from Overwaitea, which owns Price Smart, said: "The last date of sale for a best before date of tomorrow is end of day today. Tomorrow morning we remove all products with that date."

No rules on outdated goods

Cans of imported shrimp dated best before August 2010 were found on a Safeway store shelf in Coquitlam, B.C. (CBC)

In Canada, there are no government rules against selling outdated canned goods. Most manufacturers stamp best before dates on cans voluntarily, however, some dates are embedded in a code that consumers can't decipher.

Food safety experts say there is no proof eating canned fish or seafood after the best before date has passed will make anyone sick. However, they say there are no independent studies proving it won't.

"There is not enough data, so it's hard to judge," said University of B.C. professor of food engineering Siyun Wang. "It certainly is not good to have food past the best by date in terms of the quality."

"There can be BPA [Bisphenol A] in containers, particularly from imported canned fish," said Xiaonan Lu, another UBC expert. Canada has declared BPA a toxic substance.

Consumer group urges diligence

After being contacted by Go Public, the Consumers' Association of Canada also checked seven major stores in various cities and found outdated canned fish in every one.

"One of the stores in particular had stuff five years out of date, so how long had that been in the can?" said president Bruce Cran.

Safeway has initiated a Canada-wide audit of all canned fish, seafood and meat on store shelves, as a result of Go Public's findings. (CBC)

Because grocers have to absorb the cost of pulling old product and getting rid of it, he said there is little financial incentive for stores to be more diligent.

"If they are doing a weekly check, then how come some of this stuff is years out of date?" said Cran. "Some of what the stores are telling us doesn't make any sense.

"The big message for consumers here is to check the dates on the back of the can. That's what the dates are there for, even if we can't figure out why."

As a result of Go Public inquiries, Safeway is undertaking a national audit.

"We are very concerned about this situation. As a result, we have immediately initiated an audit of the best before dates of all of our canned meat and fish inventory across our Canadian operations."

Submit your story ideas to Kathy Tomlinson at Go Public

Follow @CBCGoPublic on Twitter

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bank profits may hint at economic slowdown

Canada's biggest banks are likely headed into a challenging year as consumer lending growth slows alongside persistent economic weakness, analysts suggest.

The combination could provide a dark lining to what are expected to be good earnings results for the first quarter when most banks report starting this week. But it will also set the stage for a cautious remainder of the year.

Analysts expect most of the big banks will increase their dividends in the period.

Much of the concern lies in the domestic retail banking operations, the side of the business dedicated to consumers, which has fared well in recent years. The division could weigh heavy on the banks' overall growth, as Canadians face record-high debt levels and the housing market comes off its highs.

Consumer lending

"It's just a matter of the magnitude of (the consumer lending) decline and what it means for the underlying financials," said Tom Lewandowski, financial services analyst with Edward Jones in St. Louis.

He said the focus will be on whether the banks are able to offset the decline through other lending venues to businesses.

Last month, Royal Bank chief executive Gord Nixon said the bank was experiencing a weakness in mortgage lending due to the slowdown in the real estate market. He said that while he expects the country's housing market to remain solid, lending would likely slow to mid single digits.

Bank of Montreal will be the first to report its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Consensus expectations are for earnings per share of $1.47 and $3.88 billion in revenue, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

On Thursday, Royal Bank is expected to post earnings per share of $1.32 with revenues of $7.6 billion. TD Bank expectations are for $1.93 earnings per share and revenue of $6 billion.

Both CIBC and National Bank will be closely watched because they rely most on their domestic banking operations which could make them especially vulnerable to the slowdown.

Barclays analyst John Aiken downgraded both of those banks, with National falling from overweight to equal weight, while CIBC has been dropped to underweight from equal weight with a stock price target of $81.

CIBC, which also reports Thursday, has expectations for earnings of $2.08 per share and $3.22 billion in revenue by analysts.

And National Bank is expected to have $2.01 per share of earnings and $1.28 billion in revenue.

Real estate slowdown

"We favour the banks that have smaller contributions from domestic retail net interest income and have greater exposure to capital markets," Aiken wrote in a note.

If domestic retail banking slows, Scotiabank, BMO, and Royal Bank are the least sensitive, Aiken said.

The last to report is Scotiabank, on March 5, which is expected to earn $1.26 per share and $5.04 billion revenue.

All of the major banks are expected to increase their dividends, with the exception of National Bank and BMO.

Bank earnings are closely watched during the first quarter because executives tend to offer a firm outlook for the coming year, which can help analysts determine if more trouble is afoot.

"Maintaining the trajectory of growth momentum is going to get more and more challenging, it's as simple as that," said Brad Smith, senior financial services analyst at Stonecap Securities.

He also suggested that a slowdown in domestic operations could play out over a longer period of time.

"I think people will come out of the quarter going 'It really hasn't slowed as much as I thought it was going to slow,"' he said.

"We always imagine things will happen more quickly than they do."

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

SNC-Lavalin hires outside exec to oversee business ethics

Troubled engineering giant SNC-Lavalin has hired a former Siemens executive to guide the company on ethics and matters of corporate governance.

Andreas Pohlmann will begin his duties as chief compliance officer on March 1, SNC-Lavalin said Friday.

Former SNC CEO Pierre Duhaime and another former top executive, Riadh Ben Aissa, are facing fraud charges stemming from a contract involving the building of the multibillion-dollar McGill University Health Centre in Montreal.

Pohlmann has more than two decades of experience in compliance, governance, public and governmental affairs, and as corporate counsel in the United States and abroad.

He was the chief compliance officer at Siemens AG and oversaw the creation and implementation of its compliance and corporate governance system.

"We are extremely pleased to have someone of Andreas' calibre join our team as we work towards developing the best standards possible at SNC-Lavalin," said president and CEO Robert Card.

"In addition, he has lived through experiences similar to ours, albeit on a different scale, so we are confident that his expertise will serve us well in the months to come as we move beyond the past and towards the type of world-class compliance system that he helped install at Siemens," Card said in a statement.

Duhaime was relieved of his duties in March 2012 after an independent review showed he signed off on $56 million in payments to undisclosed agents. The company called his abrupt departure a "retirement."

Duhaime was arrested last November by Quebec's anti-corruption squad.

Ben Aissa was arrested in April 2012 in Switzerland and is awaiting a trial there on charges relating to alleged corruption, fraud and money-laundering in North Africa — a region where SNC-Lavalin also has major operations.

The Montreal company is one of the top engineering and construction groups in the world and is currently working in some 100 countries.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Monthly federal budget deficit widens

The federal government's latest numbers on its budget deficit give few clues about whether it will come in on target with its $26 billion forecast.

The federal finance department said Friday it ran a deficit of $600 million in December, bringing the total for the first nine months of the current financial year to $13 billion.

The December deficit was $100 million higher than in the same month of 2011 but the nine-month total remains $3.1 billion lower thanks to savings in previous months of the current financial year.

TD Economist Jonathan Bendiner suspects Ottawa may come in a little lower than the prediction it made in November.

"The current nine-month reading of the cumulative deficit points to a moderate outperformance versus the $26 billion target announced in the federal fiscal update," he said in a commentary.

"However, given the lack of momentum currently seen in the Canadian economy over recent months, there may be room for the deficit to grow in the final stretch of fiscal year 2012-13."

"There have also been signals that the depressed oil price environment faced by Canadian oil producers will have an impact on fiscal coffers," Bendiner said.

Finance minister Jim Flaherty acknowledged earlier this month that his planning for the next federal budget expected in March has been affected by the fact that Canadian crude is being sold at a substantial discount to international prices.

Countering that effect on revenue, however, is that debt servicing costs have been kept down by low interest rates.

Revenues grow

That's something Bendiner predicts will continue, "given the Bank of Canada's recent dovish stance on interest rates at its last fixed announcement date.

The December deficit grew as program expenses increased by $700 million from a year earlier to $20.3 billion for the month.

Payments for benefits for the elderly increased by $200 million, while employment insurance benefit payments increased by $200 million. Children's benefits increased by $15 million.

Meanwhile, major transfers to other levels of government increased by $600 million, while direct program spending was down $200 million.

The federal government's revenue grew by $600 million to $22.2 billion, with personal income tax revenues up $1 billion and corporate income tax revenues were down $400 million.

Non-resident income tax revenues were down $200 million, while excise taxes and duties were up $400 million, due to an increase in GST revenue.

EI premium revenues were up $44 million and other revenues were down $200 million.

Public debt charges dropped by about $100 million.

For the first nine months of the 2012—13 fiscal year ending March 31, the federal deficit stood at $13 billion, compared with a deficit of $16.1 billion in the same period a year earlier.

With files from The Canadian Press

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Google Glass: No longer just the stuff of science fiction

CopSpace sheds some light on matters of course... There's the green tree of signs sprouting over the doorway of number thirty-nine, each tag naming the legal tenants.

That sounds a bit like someone describing how you might use Google Glass. A real-world image of an apartment building entrance, with an overlay of virtual information about the people who live there.

If that also sounds like science fiction, well, that's because it is.

As well as my interest in economics, I have always been a reader of science fiction. I am convinced the two go together well — the best science fiction helps you disconnect from the present and imagine possible futures.

Today, Matt Galloway, the host of the local CBC Radio morning show here in Toronto, was enthusing about Google Glass. Produced by the world's largest search company, it's a computer device that you wear on your face like glasses, and it's now selling for $1,500 by lottery only. Even while lusting after them, Galloway wondered aloud about what possible use Google Glass could have.

"I don't know why I'd want something like that," Galloway told me later, "but I want something like that."

When I first heard about Google Glass last year ("Google glasses" back then), I didn't have to wonder what they could be used for. I knew. Galloway's comments this morning forced me to rush around the house searching for a book by Charles Stross called Halting State.

Google founder Sergey Brin demonstrates Google Glass glasses at a New York Fashion Week event in September 2012. Google has announced a lottery that would allow people to purchase the $1,500 glasses prior to their wide release later this year. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters )

Stross is a supernerd, sort of an updated version of the similarly polymathic Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon). Although he can write accessible romantic prose (such as his Merchant Prince series), Stross is most spectacular in his dense, technologically aware science fiction, like Halting State. Anyone who wants a realistic portrayal of the near tech future should read it.

'Geographical information systems'

Stross, who has a degree in computer science (and one in pharmaceutical science – did I say polymathic?), used to write about Linux for a tech magazine. But he has the imagination to take us a few steps forward into a world where the virtual and the real have merged.

"When I sat down to write Halting State (circa 2005-2006), I decided to do some clean sheet extrapolation to figure out from existing industry road maps what sort of level of technology would be available by 2017 when the novel is set," said Stross in an email today.

He says this is the world where Google Glass is leading us.

In the world of Halting State, data storage is in practical terms infinite. Data is stored geographically, according to its location in the real world. Think of a Google map, where photographs of nearby locations are available by clicking on boxes that appear as an overlay on the map.

This is a real world science called Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and it is increasingly how information is stored today. The idea is that if the city wants to know how recently the water pipes on your street were updated, for instance, they look at a map-based computer system that may also show natural gas pipes, sewage pipes and electrical conduits on your street and maybe even the billing information for your house.

"CopSpace," as it's called in Stross's book, "is basically a distributed geographical information system mapped onto a police intelligence database, using the glasses to provide a heads up view of local crime-related features," Stross explains.

Halting State, a 2007 novel by Charles Stross, imagines a future world in which police use a wearable computer very similar to Google Glass. (Ace Books)

In Halting State — which concerns a bank heist within a virtual reality that has financial effects in the real world — Stross demonstrates some of the practical uses of a technology similar to but even more advanced than Google Glass. In his novel, Stross calls them "Specs," and as in the quote at the top of this article, geographical information overlays physical information in the police officer's field of vision, providing a directory of who lives where.

Staring at a computer

If the officer gets the right permission, he can look at more information about each of those tenants.

"This is the twenty-first century, and all the terabytes of CopSpace have exploded out of the dusty manila files and into the real world, sprayed across it in a Technicolor mass of officious labelling and crime notes," says Stross in the book.

The other thing CopSpace allows you to do is record what you are seeing in real time. Crime scenes, statements, important communications are evidence-logged and stored. This sounds farfetched — until you think of all the Russian drivers who are already doing it. Crazy crash reels on YouTube and the spectacular photographs of the recent meteor are a product of a "dash cam culture" where Russian drivers keep a continuous record of their driving as proof against corrupt officials.

So much for science fiction. Sorry, Charlie, it's hard to keep up.

But Stross has more. When you want your colleague (an expert? a supervisor?) to see what you are seeing, or if you want to observe the view from a remote device, you pass the view around.

"I think the utility (of Google Glass) to policing should be obvious," Stross says, reminding me that fellow science fiction writer Vernor Vinge (the inventor of "the singularity") has proposed contact lenses doing the same thing in a slightly more distant future.

Stross's Specs are a substitute for a cell phone, a hands-free camera, a verbal notebook, a heads-up computer screen and a link to all the information in private and public databases.

Google Glass isn't there yet, but now that it's actually appearing in the real world, you don't have to be a science fiction junkie — or a writer as imaginative as Charles Stross — to see the potential.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Restaurant diners staying home in bleak U.S. economy

For the first time since the 2008-2009 recession, Americans have largely stopped going out to restaurants for dinner and are deciding to stay at home to eat instead, the OpenTable Restaurant Industry Index released this week suggests.

OpenTable is a publicly traded U.S. company that lets its 10 million customers make restaurant reservations online at 27,000 restaurants across the globe.

The company tracks activity across its network and monitors the level of reservations made in major U.S. cities and for the country as a whole. On a quarterly and annual basis, it releases that information.

Two chefs prepare a dish in a high-end restaurant. There are signs that U.S. diners are staying home lately. (Reuters)

This week, the data showed that in the final three months of 2012, fewer people went out for dinner than did so in the same period a year earlier.

Although the decline was a fairly small 0.5 per cent, it's the first time that's happened in more than three years, dating back to the third quarter of 2009 when America was just emerging out of recession.

"Restaurants in the New York and Washington, D.C., area were hit particularly hard during the quarter, while growth in other major metro areas and the U.S. overall was essentially flat year-over-year," OpenTable chief executive Matt Roberts said.

The company also cited the impact of Hurricane Sandy for playing a role in the data. But if the slowdown is the start of a larger trend, it would be a discouraging sign for an American economy that's still sputtering along, trying to spur itself back into growth territory after several moribund years.

A decline in restaurant meals would be bad news in the real economy, since it means fewer dollars being circulated in the retail service sector. But it can also be easily construed as a sign Americans aren't feeling confident about their own economic prospects.

The index works by tracking more than 9,000 restaurants. Every percentage point indicates an increase or decrease in the number of guests served in those restaurants, and it includes diners who made reservations or simply walked in and got a table.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

The perils of hiring like-minded people

While we have yet to perfect the cloning of employees, many employers go to great lengths to repeatedly hire in their own image.

Some employers hire those who went to the same schools, have had similar career paths or come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Why, they sometimes even look alike, and are all roughly the same age.

In a recent study published in the American Sociological Review, half of the employers studied looked for the baseline of technical skills first but really wanted people who they will bond with, who they will feel good around, who will be their friend.

More than half ranked 'cultural fit' — the similarity to a firm's existing employee base in leisure pursuits, background and self-presentation — as the most important criterion at the job interview stage.

People surround themselves with people from their network who they can relate to, Pierre Battah writes. (Supplied photo)

It should come as no surprise that people surround themselves with people from their network who they can relate to. It is much easier to get buy in on your ideas when you surround yourself with individuals who think like you, talk like you and act like you.

However there is great danger in hiring in your own image, not only systemic or even racial or gender discrimination but other implications as well.

As Dee Hock the founder of Visa famously coined, "it is foolish to replicate your strengths when hiring, idiotic to replicate your weaknesses."

Hock went on to write that "it is essential to employ, trust and reward those whose perspective, ability and judgement are radically different from yours."

The implications of hiring in your own image are that you lose out on differing perspectives, seeing the organisation's challenges from exactly the same viewpoint and developing a sizeable shared blind spot.

Such practices can also lead to groupthink where all go along with decisions for the sake of team harmony. Creativity, innovation and growth can suffer in the absence of diversity, vigorous debate and conflict.

Common traits

Highly effective and diverse work teams often work as a collaborative coalition of those who share a common goal but who bring very different perspectives and see problems and solutions very differently.

Leading diverse groups and hiring people that are smarter than you who will always tell you the truth takes courage not to mention humility.

I have a lot of admiration for organisations and leaders who take the more difficult road of hiring for differences rather than for similarities. Leaders who have the strength to hire those who will disagree with them, challenge them and bring a very different perspective.

Hats off to the managers or supervisors who do not use themselves as a yardstick to recruit or measure others performance. They coach their employees to be their best and help them find their own unique qualities, skills and perspectives far different from the bosses or everybody else's.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Google Glass: No longer just the stuff of science fiction

CopSpace sheds some light on matters of course... There's the green tree of signs sprouting over the doorway of number thirty-nine, each tag naming the legal tenants.

That sounds a bit like someone describing how you might use Google Glass. A real-world image of an apartment building entrance, with an overlay of virtual information about the people who live there.

If that also sounds like science fiction, well, that's because it is.

As well as my interest in economics, I have always been a reader of science fiction. I am convinced the two go together well — the best science fiction helps you disconnect from the present and imagine possible futures.

Today, Matt Galloway, the host of the local CBC Radio morning show here in Toronto, was enthusing about Google Glass. Produced by the world's largest search company, it's a computer device that you wear on your face like glasses, and it's now selling for $1,500 by lottery only. Even while lusting after them, Galloway wondered aloud about what possible use Google Glass could have.

"I don't know why I'd want something like that," Galloway told me later, "but I want something like that."

When I first heard about Google Glass last year ("Google glasses" back then), I didn't have to wonder what they could be used for. I knew. Galloway's comments this morning forced me to rush around the house searching for a book by Charles Stross called Halting State.

Google founder Sergey Brin demonstrates Google Glass glasses at a New York Fashion Week event in September 2012. Google has announced a lottery that would allow people to purchase the $1,500 glasses prior to their wide release later this year. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters )

Stross is a supernerd, sort of an updated version of the similarly polymathic Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon). Although he can write accessible romantic prose (such as his Merchant Prince series), Stross is most spectacular in his dense, technologically aware science fiction, like Halting State. Anyone who wants a realistic portrayal of the near tech future should read it.

'Geographical information systems'

Stross, who has a degree in computer science (and one in pharmaceutical science – did I say polymathic?), used to write about Linux for a tech magazine. But he has the imagination to take us a few steps forward into a world where the virtual and the real have merged.

"When I sat down to write Halting State (circa 2005-2006), I decided to do some clean sheet extrapolation to figure out from existing industry road maps what sort of level of technology would be available by 2017 when the novel is set," said Stross in an email today.

He says this is the world where Google Glass is leading us.

In the world of Halting State, data storage is in practical terms infinite. Data is stored geographically, according to its location in the real world. Think of a Google map, where photographs of nearby locations are available by clicking on boxes that appear as an overlay on the map.

This is a real world science called Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and it is increasingly how information is stored today. The idea is that if the city wants to know how recently the water pipes on your street were updated, for instance, they look at a map-based computer system that may also show natural gas pipes, sewage pipes and electrical conduits on your street and maybe even the billing information for your house.

"CopSpace," as it's called in Stross's book, "is basically a distributed geographical information system mapped onto a police intelligence database, using the glasses to provide a heads up view of local crime-related features," Stross explains.

Halting State, a 2007 novel by Charles Stross, imagines a future world in which police use a wearable computer very similar to Google Glass. (Ace Books)

In Halting State — which concerns a bank heist within a virtual reality that has financial effects in the real world — Stross demonstrates some of the practical uses of a technology similar to but even more advanced than Google Glass. In his novel, Stross calls them "Specs," and as in the quote at the top of this article, geographical information overlays physical information in the police officer's field of vision, providing a directory of who lives where.

Staring at a computer

If the officer gets the right permission, he can look at more information about each of those tenants.

"This is the twenty-first century, and all the terabytes of CopSpace have exploded out of the dusty manila files and into the real world, sprayed across it in a Technicolor mass of officious labelling and crime notes," says Stross in the book.

The other thing CopSpace allows you to do is record what you are seeing in real time. Crime scenes, statements, important communications are evidence-logged and stored. This sounds farfetched — until you think of all the Russian drivers who are already doing it. Crazy crash reels on YouTube and the spectacular photographs of the recent meteor are a product of a "dash cam culture" where Russian drivers keep a continuous record of their driving as proof against corrupt officials.

So much for science fiction. Sorry, Charlie, it's hard to keep up.

But Stross has more. When you want your colleague (an expert? a supervisor?) to see what you are seeing, or if you want to observe the view from a remote device, you pass the view around.

"I think the utility (of Google Glass) to policing should be obvious," Stross says, reminding me that fellow science fiction writer Vernor Vinge (the inventor of "the singularity") has proposed contact lenses doing the same thing in a slightly more distant future.

Stross's Specs are a substitute for a cell phone, a hands-free camera, a verbal notebook, a heads-up computer screen and a link to all the information in private and public databases.

Google Glass isn't there yet, but now that it's actually appearing in the real world, you don't have to be a science fiction junkie — or a writer as imaginative as Charles Stross — to see the potential.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Monthly federal budget deficit widens

The federal government's latest numbers on its budget deficit give few clues about whether it will come in on target with its $26 billion forecast.

The federal finance department said Friday it ran a deficit of $600 million in December, bringing the total for the first nine months of the current financial year to $13 billion.

The December deficit was $100 million higher than in the same month of 2011 but the nine-month total remains $3.1 billion lower thanks to savings in previous months of the current financial year.

TD Economist Jonathan Bendiner suspects Ottawa may come in a little lower than the prediction it made in November.

"The current nine-month reading of the cumulative deficit points to a moderate outperformance versus the $26 billion target announced in the federal fiscal update," he said in a commentary.

"However, given the lack of momentum currently seen in the Canadian economy over recent months, there may be room for the deficit to grow in the final stretch of fiscal year 2012-13."

"There have also been signals that the depressed oil price environment faced by Canadian oil producers will have an impact on fiscal coffers," Bendiner said.

Finance minister Jim Flaherty acknowledged earlier this month that his planning for the next federal budget expected in March has been affected by the fact that Canadian crude is being sold at a substantial discount to international prices.

Countering that effect on revenue, however, is that debt servicing costs have been kept down by low interest rates.

Revenues grow

That's something Bendiner predicts will continue, "given the Bank of Canada's recent dovish stance on interest rates at its last fixed announcement date.

The December deficit grew as program expenses increased by $700 million from a year earlier to $20.3 billion for the month.

Payments for benefits for the elderly increased by $200 million, while employment insurance benefit payments increased by $200 million. Children's benefits increased by $15 million.

Meanwhile, major transfers to other levels of government increased by $600 million, while direct program spending was down $200 million.

The federal government's revenue grew by $600 million to $22.2 billion, with personal income tax revenues up $1 billion and corporate income tax revenues were down $400 million.

Non-resident income tax revenues were down $200 million, while excise taxes and duties were up $400 million, due to an increase in GST revenue.

EI premium revenues were up $44 million and other revenues were down $200 million.

Public debt charges dropped by about $100 million.

For the first nine months of the 2012—13 fiscal year ending March 31, the federal deficit stood at $13 billion, compared with a deficit of $16.1 billion in the same period a year earlier.

With files from The Canadian Press

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

SNC-Lavalin hires outside exec to oversee business ethics

Troubled engineering giant SNC-Lavalin has hired a former Siemens executive to guide the company on ethics and matters of corporate governance.

Andreas Pohlmann will begin his duties as chief compliance officer on March 1, SNC-Lavalin said Friday.

Former SNC CEO Pierre Duhaime and another former top executive, Riadh Ben Aissa, are facing fraud charges stemming from a contract involving the building of the multibillion-dollar McGill University Health Centre in Montreal.

Pohlmann has more than two decades of experience in compliance, governance, public and governmental affairs, and as corporate counsel in the United States and abroad.

He was the chief compliance officer at Siemens AG and oversaw the creation and implementation of its compliance and corporate governance system.

"We are extremely pleased to have someone of Andreas' calibre join our team as we work towards developing the best standards possible at SNC-Lavalin," said president and CEO Robert Card.

"In addition, he has lived through experiences similar to ours, albeit on a different scale, so we are confident that his expertise will serve us well in the months to come as we move beyond the past and towards the type of world-class compliance system that he helped install at Siemens," Card said in a statement.

Duhaime was relieved of his duties in March 2012 after an independent review showed he signed off on $56 million in payments to undisclosed agents. The company called his abrupt departure a "retirement."

Duhaime was arrested last November by Quebec's anti-corruption squad.

Ben Aissa was arrested in April 2012 in Switzerland and is awaiting a trial there on charges relating to alleged corruption, fraud and money-laundering in North Africa — a region where SNC-Lavalin also has major operations.

The Montreal company is one of the top engineering and construction groups in the world and is currently working in some 100 countries.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Restaurant diners staying home in bleak U.S. economy

For the first time since the 2008-2009 recession, Americans have largely stopped going out to restaurants for dinner and are deciding to stay at home to eat instead, the OpenTable Restaurant Industry Index released this week suggests.

OpenTable is a publicly traded U.S. company that lets its 10 million customers make restaurant reservations online at 27,000 restaurants across the globe.

The company tracks activity across its network and monitors the level of reservations made in major U.S. cities and for the country as a whole. On a quarterly and annual basis, it releases that information.

Two chefs prepare a dish in a high-end restaurant. There are signs that U.S. diners are staying home lately. (Reuters)

This week, the data showed that in the final three months of 2012, fewer people went out for dinner than did so in the same period a year earlier.

Although the decline was a fairly small 0.5 per cent, it's the first time that's happened in more than three years, dating back to the third quarter of 2009 when America was just emerging out of recession.

"Restaurants in the New York and Washington, D.C., area were hit particularly hard during the quarter, while growth in other major metro areas and the U.S. overall was essentially flat year-over-year," OpenTable chief executive Matt Roberts said.

The company also cited the impact of Hurricane Sandy for playing a role in the data. But if the slowdown is the start of a larger trend, it would be a discouraging sign for an American economy that's still sputtering along, trying to spur itself back into growth territory after several moribund years.

A decline in restaurant meals would be bad news in the real economy, since it means fewer dollars being circulated in the retail service sector. But it can also be easily construed as a sign Americans aren't feeling confident about their own economic prospects.

The index works by tracking more than 9,000 restaurants. Every percentage point indicates an increase or decrease in the number of guests served in those restaurants, and it includes diners who made reservations or simply walked in and got a table.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

The perils of hiring like-minded people

While we have yet to perfect the cloning of employees, many employers go to great lengths to repeatedly hire in their own image.

Some employers hire those who went to the same schools, have had similar career paths or come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Why, they sometimes even look alike, and are all roughly the same age.

In a recent study published in the American Sociological Review, half of the employers studied looked for the baseline of technical skills first but really wanted people who they will bond with, who they will feel good around, who will be their friend.

More than half ranked 'cultural fit' — the similarity to a firm's existing employee base in leisure pursuits, background and self-presentation — as the most important criterion at the job interview stage.

People surround themselves with people from their network who they can relate to, Pierre Battah writes. (Supplied photo)

It should come as no surprise that people surround themselves with people from their network who they can relate to. It is much easier to get buy in on your ideas when you surround yourself with individuals who think like you, talk like you and act like you.

However there is great danger in hiring in your own image, not only systemic or even racial or gender discrimination but other implications as well.

As Dee Hock the founder of Visa famously coined, "it is foolish to replicate your strengths when hiring, idiotic to replicate your weaknesses."

Hock went on to write that "it is essential to employ, trust and reward those whose perspective, ability and judgement are radically different from yours."

The implications of hiring in your own image are that you lose out on differing perspectives, seeing the organisation's challenges from exactly the same viewpoint and developing a sizeable shared blind spot.

Such practices can also lead to groupthink where all go along with decisions for the sake of team harmony. Creativity, innovation and growth can suffer in the absence of diversity, vigorous debate and conflict.

Common traits

Highly effective and diverse work teams often work as a collaborative coalition of those who share a common goal but who bring very different perspectives and see problems and solutions very differently.

Leading diverse groups and hiring people that are smarter than you who will always tell you the truth takes courage not to mention humility.

I have a lot of admiration for organisations and leaders who take the more difficult road of hiring for differences rather than for similarities. Leaders who have the strength to hire those who will disagree with them, challenge them and bring a very different perspective.

Hats off to the managers or supervisors who do not use themselves as a yardstick to recruit or measure others performance. They coach their employees to be their best and help them find their own unique qualities, skills and perspectives far different from the bosses or everybody else's.

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More

Greg Weston: Anti-hacking agency slow to learn about Chinese cyberattack

Confidential documents obtained by CBC News show that when Chinese military spies hacked into the control systems of Canadian pipelines and power grids last fall, this country's official cyber-response agency sprang into action – exactly 10 days later.

On Sept. 10, 2012, Calgary-based Telvent advised its customers that hackers had managed to penetrate the computers at both the high-tech firm and many of its clients, including huge energy companies and public utilities across North America.

But no one, apparently, told the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre, the federal agency set up to respond to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.

Documents indicate the first the agency even heard about the attack was a news report 10 days later, saying a "Canadian energy company" had been hacked.

Even then, it took the organization more than 24 hours to determine the Canadian company hit was Telvent.

The 2012 cyberattack successfully breached a Calgary-based supplier of control systems for electrical power grids, municipal water systems, public transit operations, and most of Canada's major oil and gas pipelines. (Canadian Press)

Part of the problem was the federal response centre wasn't open to respond to anything on weekends. In fact, it was only staffed during banker's hours – eight hours a day, five days a week.

Whatever the cause, the Telvent embarrassment was hardly an anomaly.

Hundreds of pages of the agency's internal emails and cyber "incident reports" paint an organization unable to deal with an almost constant hail of cyberattacks on government and industry.

The documents show the government was consistently slow to respond to what would become Canada's worst cyberattack in the fall of 2010.

China-based hackers broke into the computer systems of at least three federal departments, seven Bay Street law firms, and two multinational corporations – all involved in the ultimately unsuccessful corporate takeover of Saskatchewan's Potash Corporation.

Documents show warning signs of a cyberattack throughout the fall of 2010, but no evidence of a co-ordinated response to it.

In mid-January 2011, all hell began to break loose with attack alerts pouring in daily.

Emails on Jan. 31 indicated the Finance Department and Treasury Board were both being slammed with severe cyberattacks, including significant volumes of sensitive government data being stolen by computers in China.

U.S. offers help after massive cyberattack

But it wasn't until three days later – and many meetings and a mountain of emails – that all of the computers at Finance, Treasury Board and Defence Research, also hit, were finally disconnected from the internet to prevent further loss of data.

Two weeks later, the first media reports about the massive cyberattack prompted the U.S. cyber response agency to offer "help and resources," to its Canadian counterpart, and to inquire if there were ways to mitigate the damage.

In an extraordinary exchange of emails, top officials at the Canadian cyber agency spent an entire day debating whether to share information with the Americans offering to help.

Meanwhile, the attacks were far from over.

Documents show six weeks after the three departments were unplugged from the internet, another federal agency was "severely impacted by a cyber incident."

On May 1, five more were hit, including the Privy Council, the prime minister's department.

Documents show the attacks continued on an almost daily basis through the rest of 2011 and all of 2012.

Experts say most of the attacks on the federal government over the past two years were likely the work of hundreds of different hackers from various countries with a variety of reasons for causing mayhem.

For its part, the Cyber Response Centre issued an unusual report to government a year ago, all but pleading for help.

While the Harper government has long boasted about its "cyber strategy," the report suggests those who had to implement it were not impressed.

The agency complained of "ambiguity of roles in an emergency," and how it is "difficult to prioritize clients and services without clearly defined mission and mandate."

It complained about an "aging" laboratory, and the high turnover of staff at the agency.

Last fall, Auditor General Michael Ferguson hammered the government for its much-touted cyber strategy.

Among many pages of scathing commentary, the federal spending watchdog found that over the past decade, successive governments have promised a lot more in cyber security than they have delivered.

Auditor general critical of federal cyber strategy

Most of the time, he said, the government did not seem to know how much money was available for cyber security, nor what it was being spent on.

The Cyber Response Centre, he concluded, was underfunded and otherwise ill-equipped to do its job.

All of which clearly frustrates security experts such as Canada's former head of intelligence and counter-terrorism , Ray Boisvert.

In an interview with CBC, the recently retired CSIS boss says the growing cyber threats are "as important if not more important than terrorism now."

He says the Cyber Response Centre is "a good start," but the federal government will "have to do far more than that."

"This government has invested some time and some money in this issue of late and I think it's all very helpful.

"But we cannot be the soft underbelly of North America."

Rafal Rohozinski of the SecDev Group is one of Canada's leading cyber experts.

'I think frankly that it requires co-ordination at the upper levels of political authority.'—Rafal Rohozinski of the SecDev Group

He says Canada is lagging behind its allies in making cyber security a co-ordinated effort among all government agencies and the private sector.

"I think frankly that it requires co-ordination at the upper levels of political authority. There has to be a decision made by the Prime Minister's Office that cyber security matters.

"There has to be a national security advisory team that deals with this just like they deal with any other aspect of national security."

Rohozinski says the Chinese attack on Telvent and its big utility customers is another wakeup call for Canada, and a reminder of what's at stake in securing cyberspace.

"It certainly puts us in the position of military potential vulnerability if some of our core assets are penetrated … by a foreign power or entity that can sidestep the securities that we have built within them."

Since the auditor general's scathing report last year, the Harper government has increased funding for the Cyber Response Centre, at least enough to operate 15 hours a day, seven days a week."

This week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seemed to say all's well in cyberspace.

Asked for his reaction to this week's report fingering the Chinese for the cyberattack on Telvent, the PM said: "We are certainly aware of these kinds of security threats and risks that exist.

"We have professionals who constantly evaluate them and work with partners on addressing them."

22.39 | 0 komentar | Read More