Even after a decade of working with a global energy management company, Susan Uthayakumar says the thought that goes into global expansion continues to change with the times, reported the Financial Post March 31. “Today the world is very different for a truly global company if you want to grow your market,” says the vice-president of partner business for Schneider Electric Canada. “Once you dominate one like North America, you have to look carefully about what’s out there in the world and how you can get a share of that.” As part of that learning process, she focused heavily on international studies at the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA program, where she graduated in 2012. EMBA programs as a whole have evolved with the times, says Andre deCarufel, academic director at Kellogg-Schulich. “There was a time when international business in EMBA programs was just an elective. Now any school you talk to has some kind of global something or other. Read full story.
Canada’s largest medical regulator aims to put an end to controversial gifts doctors receive from drug companies
Canada’s largest medical regulator would bar doctors from accepting almost any gift from a pharmaceutical company under a proposed new ethics policy, reported the National Post March 30. Years of research has suggested that the visits drug reps pay to doctors, the gifts they provide and the funding companies offer for professional development affects physician behavior. Rx&D updated its code of ethics several years ago to bar the most controversial practices, such as taking doctors on expensive vacations, but much interaction remains. The problem is that reps typically promote new drugs or other products, which often are more expensive than older treatments, and have less evidence around their safety, said Dr. Joel Lexchin, an emergency physician and health policy professor at Toronto’s York University. Read full story.
Lisa Raitt is back from the brink
Lisa Raitt has been under pressure ever since [the Lac Mégantic rail disaster] to frame the policy response, reported Maclean’s in its March 29 issue. If Raitt succeeds in moving authoritatively on the rail-safety front, her recovery from a rough start to her cabinet career will appear complete. She was first elected a Tory MP for the fast-growing Halton riding, just west of Toronto, in 2008…. Born in 1968, she grew up in Sydney on Cape Breton Island [and] Raitt was among those who left. She earned a science degree at Nova Scotia’s St. Francis Xavier University, then a master’s in chemistry from the University of Guelph in Ontario, and finally a law degree from Toronto’s Osgoode Hall Law School. After working as a lawyer for the Toronto Port Authority, she was named its president and chief executive officer in 2002. In that role, she clashed with Toronto municipal politicians and with the Liberal government in Ottawa, experiences that she says politicized her and led her to run as a Conservative in the 2008 federal election. Read full story.
Is teaching innovation the path to prosperity?
What can 11- and 12-year-olds learn from some modelling clay and cardboard? The answer may surprise you, reported the Toronto Star March 28. Advocates say that with the right guidance, these simple items can help children learn a crucial skill that is missing from the Canadian economy today — innovation. At Big Ideas camps held [at York University and other campuses] in Ontario last summer, instructors spent five days teaching children how to think like entrepreneurs. First, campers learned how to ask questions and observe potential customers to determine their needs. Then they came up with lots of ideas, sorted them, and built rough-and-ready prototypes using simple materials. Then they learned how to get feedback on their ideas and come up with strategies to highlight their product’s unique selling points. Read full story.
Aboriginal homelessness an ‘epidemic’, York researcher says
Aboriginal people make up more than half the homeless population in Thunder Bay, Ont., a research paper says, reported cbcmnews.ca March 28. The recent study shows First Nations people make up a disproportionate amount of Canada’s homeless. In some cities, more than 90 per cent of those living on the streets are aboriginal. When York University researcher Caryl Patrick examined previous studies from across the country, she found a disturbing trend: “Aboriginal homelessness in Canada is a crisis, and should be considered an epidemic.” Read full story.
A Political Science Professor’s Spiritual Pilgrimage To Nelson Mandela’s Funeral
The news of former South African President Nelson Mandela’s death punctured, for me, the ordinary course of life. I had for a long time deeply, deeply, admired this paragon of courage, peace and grace. I admired him for his resolve to bring to South Africa equality, freedom, democracy, justice and government under the rule of law. As much as I had yearned to meet him – or at least see him – I had never taken steps to do this, wrote Glendon College political science Professor Radhakrishnan Persaud in Pride: Canada’s Weekly African Canadian and Caribbean News Magazine March 26.
Read full story.