Two of the GTA’s Chinatown gateway arches will be featured in a special edition of stamps being issued by Canada Post on May 1 to commemorate Asian Heritage Month….Albert Ng, an artist/designer and York University professor, was chosen to illustrate the Mississauga gateway because of past work with Canada Post on other stamp designs. “I think it’s quite an honour. I really appreciate the opportunity,” said Ng, in the Toronto Star May 1. Read full story.
Toronto will fly with leadership in Porter Airlines plan
“Porter Airlines has announced its intention to acquire up to 30 new Bombardier C-series jets to serve a number of longer-haul destinations across North America,” wrote Schulich School of Business economics Professor Fred Lazar in the Financial Post May 1. “But before Porter can move down this path, it needs the approval of the Federal Government, the Port Authority and the City of Toronto to allow jets to operate at Billy Bishop Airport and to extend the runway by 168 m on both ends.” Read full story.
Canadians’ consumer tax burden is not as onerous as it sounds
“Hidden deep in the bowels of the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, there is an elaborate contraption known as the Canadian Tax Simulator. It generates the data for the Canadian Consumer Tax Index, an annual report that supposedly tells us how much tax is paid by the average Canadian family,” wrote Andrew Jackson, the Packer Professor of Social Justice at York University, in The Globe and Mail May 1. “Taxes, we were told, are shockingly high as a proportion of family income, and now loom larger than spending on the necessities of life.” Read full story.
McCain Foods: An old favourite freshens up
McCain Foods made a surprising leap in the ranking this year to third place among Canadian brands, up from seventh last year…. It’s hard to know exactly what propelled McCain Foods higher. A push that began in 2010 toward natural ingredients in its products could be helping, but the truth is McCain Foods is a remarkably consistent company when it comes to messaging and its brand values….“If you think about what Canadians like in their brands, it’s that sense that they’re the boy and girl next door,” said Schulich School of Business marketing Professor Alan Middleton, in Canadian Business April 28. Read full story.
Drug patents: The evergreening problem
In the pharmaceutical trade, when brand-name companies patent “new inventions” that are really just slight modifications of old drugs, it’s called “evergreening”. And it’s a practice that, according to some who have looked into it, isn’t doing a whole lot to improve people’s health. “Typically, when you evergreen something, you are not looking at any significant therapeutic advantage. You are looking at a company’s economic advantage,” said York University Professor Joel Lexchin, in the Canadian Medical Association Journal April 26. Read full story.
Foreign universities take education to refugee camps
Thousands of education-hungry refugees living in camps in northern Kenya are set to benefit from higher education in a groundbreaking initiative involving a non-profit organization and a host of local and foreign universities, reported University World News April 27. Through the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees initiative at York University and Windle Trust Kenya, refugees will be moved from frittering away their days around camp and in video halls, into virtual classes where they will acquire knowledge for a better life. Read full story.
Paper resumés headed for extinction
While the future of job applications may be more multimedia, there are limits, cautions Robert Hines, executive director of the Career Development Centre at York’s Schulich School of Business. “One thing that there won’t be more of in the future is time. Everyone will be short of it and so no one will have time to go through a video story of your life,” said Hines in The Globe and Mail April 25…. For executive jobs in particular, interviewers still want a summary of qualifications and accomplishments for reference, but he advises job seekers to send it digitally, in a form that’s easy to review or print out, if the interviewer prefers. “Presenting a resumé on paper at the beginning of a job interview makes you look ancient.” Read full story.
The Atlantic Symposium: Art crit as nowhere…or everywhere?
If the Atlantic region has produced or been connected to some of Canada’s top artists, why is the region underrepresented in the national media? This was one of the questions raised this past weekend at the Atlantic Symposium: New Directions for Art Writing, reported Canadian Art April 25….York University Professor Richard Hill spoke from his own experience in the indigenous-art context. “I feel that, as a curator, I have a critical practice. And now we see the critical impulse everywhere except as informed art criticism.” This is actually part of the reason, Hill said, that he has recently returned to writing criticism, in particular criticism focused on indigenous art. Read full story.