If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
We don't know for sure who will be tapped for the job of Governor of the Bank of Canada. What we do know is that the individual will be a Canadian. No other nationalities were invited to apply. But, in 2013, does such a citizenship restriction even make any sense? Or is it just another manifestation of good, old-fashioned Canadian parochialism?
Today, it was revealed that not only were Asian features deemed unworthy of appearing on bank notes, but also Black, Aboriginal, South-Asian and Gay ones, as well. A pattern of institutionalized xenophobia is emerging, and it ain't pretty. The Bank of Canada fiasco is only the latest incident in a long chain of slights.
Well, I mocked and I teased but in the end, I couldn't resist. Year-end retrospectives might be trite, but dagnabbit, they're also a lot of fun. So here's my picks for the "Top Five Media Bites Moments of 2012", also known as the "Top Five Times the Canadian Press Was Inadvertently More Interesting Than the Stories They Were Trying to Cover."
No one can control what events will shape our world in any given time period. But collectively we can choose what stories we allow to shape our memory. That's why murderer Luka Magnotta was the wrong person for the Canadian Press to choose as Canada's 2012 Newsmaker of the Year.
What an exciting time to be a political addict in Canada. Who says Canadian politics is boring? People who aren't paying attention, that's who. First, the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, was removed from office. Second, we find out that Mark Carney got headhunted to the U.K. And elections, you know, the best sport ever? There were three! And they weren't boring, at all.
Mark Carney, the Bank of Canada governor who's been appointed to head the Bank of England, may go down in history as the best prime minister Canada never had. Carney has a Harvard and Oxbridge background. He is bilingual, with George Clooney good looks, and the ability to deliver pithy sound-bites. Overall, Carney, 47, was seen as the very antithesis of Justin Trudeau, 40, whose most challenging management mission to date was teaching a high school drama class. Why, then, did he slam his door on this opportunity?
The striking appointment of Mark Carney as the new governor of the Bank of England can be interpreted in a wide number of ways -- from a view that highlights the global governance dimension to British and Canadian-specific aspects of the story. From a transnational perspective, Carney's appointment is another sign of the rise of free-agent technocracy in an age of crisis.
Mark Carney has accepted a position as the Governor of the Bank of England effective next July. The Bank of England needs a man like Mark Carney. His expertise is understandably in high demand. Our Canadian economy has immensely benefited from his tenure at the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of England is now fortunate to have him.
Today the UK chancellor announced that the head role at the Bank of England would go to none other than the current Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney. The bet is that Carney can wave the same magic wand for the UK, though it's going to take more than a doctorate from Oxford to overcome the relatively larger challenges facing that country versus Canada, with its proximity to a troubled Eurozone.
Governor of the Bank of Canada Mark Carney has been selected as the next Governor of the Bank of England, a bold move by one of the world's oldest central banks. His term at the head of the Bank of Canada was due to end in 2015, and so the move is surprising for many Canadians.
If there is any basis to the speculation that Liberals and other Canadians are calling on Mark Carney to enter the public arena by seeking the leadership of the party, count me among them. I believe in talent and the power of ideas. Carney has both. This guy would be a game-changer in all the right ways, not only for the Liberal Party, but also for Canadian democracy.
On Friday, Mark Carney told us that advocates of the so-called Dutch Disease theory have it wrong. A bit of data is a good thing in a heated debate. Consider Statistics Canada latest (seasonally adjusted) monthly manufacturing sales numbers covering June 2012 sales. And when you do, ask yourself a simple question: does the data support Dutch Disease -- or are we seeing a case of a Central Canadian Cold?
Mark Carney's right, corporations do have dead money, but they also have dead staff, and this is also what is really killing productivity in North America. I call this Death of a Workforce. Current leadership isn't creating the climate for innovative employees. Although many corporations will claim their workforces are engaged, or that their engagement numbers are off the charts, neither their productivity nor their innovation measurements reflect these high engagement numbers.
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, probably has the best personal brand of anyone in Canada right now. Carney has created a spotlight for himself by taking some risks, all of which could have blown up in his face. I think he managed to avoid disaster by focussing on some key principles about personal branding.
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney took a lot of flack last week for articulating a fact: companies have a lot of "dead money" on their balance sheets. But Carney was getting at a larger issue: Canadian companies take caution to an extreme and do not think and act more globally. Carney may have been too polite to say it, but many senior executives and boards in Canada are slow, bureaucratic, self-satisfied, defensive and extremely conservative. What Canada needs more of are corporate leaders who have the drive, the fire in their belly, and the thirst and sophistication to conquer the world.
After much indignation from Canadians, some who do not fit the "neutral ethnicity" the Bank of Canada's P.R. team had seemingly invented, Bank governor Mark Carney, offered a carefully worded statement this morning. Though the governor "apologizes to those who were offended," admitting that "the Bank's handling of this issue did not meet the standards Canadians," there were many points missing from the statement. The Twitterverse is abuzz about the underlying problems in Canadian society which proclaims allegiance to multiculturalism.
