Books

A scathing wake-up call castigating the timidity of Canadian companies in international markets, combining bracing analysis and compelling anecdotes with shrewd prescriptions for the future.

Canada has all the makings of a global leader, yet it has opted to become a laggard, frittering away its jackpot of rich resources rather than building viable multinationals that are ultimately the country’s best defence in a globalized world. Andrea Mandel-Campbell interviews some of Canada’s leading executives and behind-the-scenes movers and shakers to reveal the hidden challenges to Canada’s global success and the perils of continued complacency.

A lively and authoritative compendium of never-before-heard tales of Canadian companies abroad, Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson is also a hands-on guide for innovative competitiveness, helping readers to identify the nation’s previously underestimated assets and abilities.

 

 

 

 For years Canada has lived in the shadow of the United States. No more. As the authors argue, while the United States was busy precipitating a global economic disaster, Canada was on a path that could lead it into an era of unprecedented prosperity. It won’t be easy. We must be prepared to follow through on reforms enacted and complete the work already begun. If so, Canada will become the country that Laurier foretold, a land of work for all who want it, of opportunity, investment, innovation and prosperity. Laurier said that the twentieth century belonged to Canada. He was absolutely right; he was merely off by 100 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 In the 1960s, Canada began a seismic shift away from the core policies and values upon which the country had been built. A nation of makers transformed itself into a nation of takers. Crowley argues that the time has come for the pendulum to swing back; back to a time when Canadians were less willing to rely on the state for support; when people went where the work was rather than waiting for the work to come to them.

Thought-provoking, meticulously detailed and ultimately polarizing, Fearful Symmetry is required reading for anyone who is interested in where this country began, where it?s been, and where it?s going.

 

 

 

 

 

 With the onset of the current economic crisis, one chapter in the economic history of the world is ending and a new one is beginning. What role will Canada play in this vastly altered world?

James Laxer examines the anatomy of the crash: the forces that have controlled the global system and the forces that have the capacity to usher in a new global system as the U.S.-centred age of globalization comes to an end. He explores what needs to be done to combat the crash in Canada, and poses the questions we all want to have answered. What comes next for the global economy, and what does this mean for Canada? Where will we fit in? Is an egalitarian economic future possible? What could an economics for humanity look like?

A reflective and useful treatise on where we go from here, Beyond the Bubble is a must-read by one of Canada?s best-known political commentators.

 

 

 

 Back in 1986, Diane Francis’s hard-hitting Controlling Interest revealed the startling fact that one-third of Canada’s wealth was in the hands of just 32 families and five conglomerates. At the time, Bernie Ghert, president of Cadillac Fairview, prophesized, “In a number of years, there will be six groups running the country.” Was he right? Media coverage would have us believe that the last two decades have only increased the concentration of power. Diane Francis disagrees, and she’s here to deliver some good news: a positive transformation has taken place in Canada, with both free trade and tough competition legislation creating a new and better nation. This time the country is driven by players who are ready to offer innovative policies and visions for the 21st century. Combining extensive interviews with Canada’s economic leaders—from individuals to families to international conglomerates— with Francis’s hallmark incisive analysis, Who Owns Canada Now? will be the most important and talked-about business book of the year.

• Of the 32 families who were profiled in Controlling Interest, fewer than half remain major players.
• Of the five conglomerates profiled, only one remains intact.
• A powerful new multinational cast—including Calgary’s Clay Riddell and Murray Edwards, Gerry Schwartz, the Burnetts, the Hos, the Shaws, the Peladeaus and the Aspers—are today’s economic drivers.
• Canadians have been successful at building world-class businesses and investing globally.
• A look at 70 of the most successful Canadians, most of whom are billionaires, shows that many are self-made; 11 were still in school or in foreign countries when Francis wroteControlling Interest in 1986.
• Financial reforms have shifted the balance away from an old boys’ network of risk-averse investors towards daring Canadian innovators.

Websites