Who Killed Confederation Life

Author : Rod McQueen
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Business failures
ISBN : 0771056311

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Who Killed Confederation Life? by Rod McQueen Pdf

When Confederation Life Insurance Co. was seized by regulators on August 11, 1994, it ranked as the fourth largest insurance company in Canada, and was among the top 30 in North America. With $19 billion (Cdn.) in assets, the company's collapse wiped out 4,400 jobs, threw into disarray owners of 250,000 policies and contracts in Canada, plus another 800,000 outside the country. It also severely damaged confidence in Canada's substantial insurance industry. In a no-holds-barred account of the debacle, financial journalist Rod McQueen documents how it all happened, and shows how Confederation Life's failure was due to the combined failure of the company and the larger public sector. Directors did not hold management sufficiently accountable, officers let things get out of hand, regulators were tardy, then threatened with too small a stick, auditors missed the big picture, politicians showed neither courage nor conviction, and, rather than help, industry representatives dithered. Any one individual among those six constituencies could have affected the course of the corporation's history sufficiently to prevent its collapse. In 1994 McQueen wrote a detailed three-part article in the "Financial Post about the Confederation Life scandal. Now, having extensively researched the history of the company, and having conducted over a hundred interviews, he has written a "whodunit" tale of Canada's biggest business story of the decade.

Author : Rod McQueen,Susan M. Papp
Publisher : Dundurn
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2012-10-20
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781459707979

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Driven to Succeed by Rod McQueen,Susan M. Papp Pdf

The story of what one daring entrepreneur with dreams and determination can achieve. Frank Hasenfratz grew up in Hungary learning to dodge bullets and avoid land mines during the Second World War. When the 1956 revolution erupted, he and his army unit joined the insurgents. After the revolution was crushed, he fled to Guelph, Ontario, where he gambled everything on a one-man operation making oil pumps for Ford. The company he founded, Linamar, today has 15,000 employees in eight countries and is the second-largest maker of auto parts in Canada. To create this global empire, Hasenfratz stayed ahead of competitors through hard work, visionary leadership, a cost-conscious regimen, and a skilled workforce. In 1990, Hasenfratz designated his daughter, Linda, to succeed him as chief executive officer but first put her through a prolonged apprenticeship that took her from the plant floor to head office. Driven to Succeed is the story of what one daring entrepreneur with dreams and determination can achieve.

Author : David W. Peters
Publisher : FriesenPress
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2020-12-16
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781525593994

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Doug Peters by David W. Peters Pdf

Doug Peters was one of the most prominent business economists in Canada between 1966 and 1992 in his role as chief economist of the Toronto Dominion Bank. He was an outspoken critic of the economic policies of the Progressive Conservative government during the last part of his career. Instead of retiring peacefully in 1992, he decided he wanted to help change economic policy in Canada, and ran for parliament in 1993. From 1993 to 1997, he was the parliament member for Scarborough East and secretary of state for international financial institutions in the Liberal government. Doug Peters: Bay Street Economist on Parliament Hill is the life story of Doug Peters, written by his son, David Peters, but largely based on Doug’s unpublished memoirs. Doug did not follow a conventional career path for a business economist. As a teenager, Doug flunked out of university twice. He then spent ten years working in retail banking. With a more serious, mature attitude in his thirties, Doug went back to university. He was the top student in his Commerce class when he graduated in 1963. He then went on to graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a PhD in 1969. This book tells many interesting stories from Doug’s life. Some of the stories are quite amusing, while other stories tell about important decisions that Doug was involved in.

Author : Rod McQueen
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Automobile industry and trade
ISBN : 0773733221

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Can't Buy Me Love by Rod McQueen Pdf

Author : Elizabeth Stewart
Publisher : Annick Press
Page : 199 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2012-07-03
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9781554514946

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The Lynching of Louie Sam by Elizabeth Stewart Pdf

Between 1882 and 1968 there were 4,742 lynchings in the United States. In Canada during the same period there was one—the hanging of American Indian Louie Sam. The year is 1884, and 15-year-old George Gillies lives in the Washington Territory, near the border with British Columbia. In this newly settled land, white immigrants have an uneasy relationship with the Native Indians. When George and his siblings discover the murdered body of a local white man, suspicion immediately falls on a young Indian named Louie Sam. George and his best friend, Pete, follow a lynch mob north into Canada, where the terrified boy is seized and hung. But even before the deed is done, George begins to have doubts. Louie Sam was a boy, only 14—could he really be a vicious murderer? Were the mob leaders motivated by justice, or were they hiding their own guilt? As George uncovers the truth—implicating Pete’s father and other prominent locals—tensions in the town rise, and he must face his own part in the tragedy. But standing up for justice has devastating consequences for George and his family. Inspired by the true story of the lynching, recently acknowledged as a historical injustice by Washington State, this powerful novel offers a stark depiction of historical racism and the harshness of settler life. The story will provoke readers to reflect on the dangers of mob mentality and the importance of speaking up for what’s right.

Author : Joe Martin
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2009-09-19
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781442697157

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Relentless Change by Joe Martin Pdf

Casebooks in business history are designed to instruct students in classrooms and boardrooms about the evolution of business management. The first casebook for the study of business history in a Canadian context, Joseph E. Martin's text will help students, both in the classroom and the boardroom, understand the Canadian economy and guide them in making sound decisions and contributing to a healthy, growing economy. Thirteen original case studies from the mid-nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries deal with different industry sectors as well as individual corporations and managers. Overviews provide context by examining major public policy decisions and key developments in the financial system that have affected business practices. Martin also presents eight original tables that trace the evolution of the 60 largest Canadian corporations between 1905 and 2005. Relentless Change is an invaluable resource for instructors and business students and clearly demonstrates how businesses are affected by the interaction of individual decisions, policy changes, and market trends.

Author : Rod McQueen
Publisher : Viking
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015080856027

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Manulife by Rod McQueen Pdf

Author : Dennis Campbell,Susan Woodley
Publisher : Kluwer Law International B.V.
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2004-01-01
Category : Law
ISBN : 9789041122759

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Trends and Developments in Corporate Governance by Dennis Campbell,Susan Woodley Pdf

The 2003 Special Issue of the Comparative Law Yearbook of International Business deals with issues relating to Corporate Governance. Following a series of scandals involving reporting by public companies in the United States, there has been an increase in the number of measures dealing with, among other things, the liability of directors and managers when submitting company financial returns. The first and most well-known piece of legislation to be introduced was, of course, the United States Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act covers matters including the establishment of audit committees, disclosure committees, and codes of ethics, with an emphasis upon the disclosure of information and transparency. It describes, for example, the principle of ¿vicinity of Insolvency¿ and the relevant information to be disclosed to shareholders and creditors. The issue of directors¿ duties and responsibilities is addressed, together with the consequences of insider trading and conflicts of interests. The Act also contains provisions on whistleblowers and introduces new criminal sanctions for company wrongdoings, as well as enhancing those penalties already in place. As a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, many countries have followed suit and adopted their own measures to combat corporate failings, corruption, and the misuse of power. Among those covered in this publication are South Africa, China, a number of eastern and western European states, and various Asian jurisdictions. Other specific topics discussed are, inter alia, generally accepted accounting principles, insolvency, the banking, securities and insurance industries, foreign issuers, and close private companies. Corporate Governance is an extremely topical subject which is of great importance and relevance to anyone involved in company affairs. Many corporate practitioners will, therefore, find this publication highly useful when advising clients on their various rights and responsibilities.

Author : John Kennedy Toole
Publisher : Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Page : 414 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2007-12-01
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780802197627

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A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Pdf

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).

Author : Peter Borscheid,Niels Viggo Haueter
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 752 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2012-08-23
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780191632303

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World Insurance by Peter Borscheid,Niels Viggo Haueter Pdf

Since the end of the eighteenth century, the insurance industry has cast a safety net around the world, first in the British Isles and then further afield, irrespective of cultural, political and ideological divides. Unlike previous publications on insurance history, which tend to discuss the development of national markets or individual companies, this book focuses on the creation of networks across borders from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day. Distinguished international economic historians draw upon examples from twenty countries across the continents to demonstrate how what was called the 'British system' of risk management spread out in waves, and describes the forces that made this possible - first among them migration from Europe and international trade. The book explores the economic, political, religious, and cultural obstacles that blocked the path of this European invention - not only religious law and traditional practices, but above all protectionism, inflation, and political ideologies. It examines the process of transformation through which modern insurance supplanted traditional forms of protection against perils and risks and was able to keep on offering new ways of dealing with the risks of modern life. As well as discussing primary insurance, it also considers the role played by reinsurance, without which the losses arising out of today's natural and man-made disasters would be immeasurably greater. Finally, taking modern-day disaster scenarios as examples, the book shows just what the limits of insurability are and what risks worldwide networks entail.

Author : Richard Victor Ericson,Aaron Doyle
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2004-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0802085628

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Uncertain Business by Richard Victor Ericson,Aaron Doyle Pdf

We live in an age of increasing doubt about whether our institutions and technologies can provide security against risks, many of which they themselves have created. Uncertain Business is an unprecedented inquiry into insurance industry practices and what they tell us about risks and uncertainties in contemporary society. The core of the book is ethnographic studies in distinct fields of insurance: premature death, disability, earthquake, and terrorism. These studies reveal that uncertainty pervades different fields of insurance, the very industry that is charged with transforming uncertainty into manageable risk. Scientific data on risk are variously absent, inadequate, controversial, contradictory, and ignored. Insurers impose meaning on uncertainty through non-scientific forms of knowledge that are intuitive, emotional, aesthetic, moral, and speculative. Nevertheless, the nature of uncertainty and the response to it varies substantially across the fields studied, showing how contemporary society is characterized by competing risk logics. Insurers' perceptions and decisions about uncertainty - with potential for windfall profits as well as catastrophic losses - create crises in insurance availability and provoke new forms of inequality and exclusion. Hence, while the insurance industry is a central bulwark against uncertainty, insurers also play a key role in fostering it.

Author : Rod Mcqueen
Publisher : Penguin Canada
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2009-04-28
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780143175261

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Manulife by Rod Mcqueen Pdf

In this engaging book, award-winning business writer Rod McQueen examines how the pugnacious personality and hard-driving leadership style of Dominic D'Alessandro led Manulife Financial to its position as one of the largest and most profitable life insurance companies in North America, and the fourth largest in the world. From D'Alessandro's role in the successful demutualization and conversion of the company to public company status in 1999, which set the stage for Manulife to become a world leader, to D'Alessandro's successful completion of Canada's largest cross-border merger, Manulife captures the story of 15 years of outstanding business leadership.

Author : Darcy McKeough,Rod McQueen
Publisher : ECW Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2016-05-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781770908901

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The Duke of Kent by Darcy McKeough,Rod McQueen Pdf

A refreshingly honest memoir about politics and private life Few Canadians have served their nation as well and as widely as the Honourable Darcy McKeough. He was elected Member of Provincial Parliament for Chatham–Kent, Ontario, five times between 1963 and 1977. In 1967 he was mockingly dubbed the Duke of Kent by an opposition MPP, a title he has worn as a badge of honour ever since. As Treasurer of Ontario, Minister of Municipal Affairs, and Minister of Energy during his time in office, McKeough fought to achieve budget surpluses long before it was fashionable, created regional governments that brought more efficient services to citizens, and attempted to tame Ontario Hydro. In The Duke of Kent, McKeough takes readers behind the scenes and into the Cabinet rooms of government, putting on full display the thrust and parry of legislative sittings where he almost always gave better than he got. He brings to life the political and constitutional issues of the day as led, litigated, and legislated by an array of provincial and federal politicians, including Charles MacNaughton, John Robarts, William Davis, John Diefenbaker, Robert Stanfield, Lester B. Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Jacques Parizeau, and Peter Lougheed.

Author : J. L. Granatstein
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Education
ISBN : UVA:X004236516

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Who Killed Canadian History? by J. L. Granatstein Pdf

Have we lost our past, and, in turn, ourselves? Who is slamming shut our history books -- and why? In an indictment that points damning fingers at our education system, the media and our government's preoccupation with multiculturalism to the exclusion of English Canadian culture, historian J.L. Granatstein offers astonishing evidence of our lack of historical knowledge. He shows not only how "dumbing down" in our education system is contributing to the death of Canadian history, but how a multi-disciplinary social studies approach puts more nails in the coffin. He explains how some teachers think studying the Second World War glorifies violence and may worsen French-English conflicts if conscription is mentioned, And he tells how the pride Canadians should feel over their past has been brushed aside by efforts to create a history that suits the misguided ideas of successive ministers of Canadian heritage and multiculturalism. Finally, he shows that there is hope, and there are steps we must take if we are to renew our past -- and ensure our future. With his intelligent and outspoken "blow the dust off the history books" approach to his subject, J.L. Granatstein has produced a brilliantly argued book that addresses a subject too important to ignore. Published to coincide with the anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge (April 9, 1917), and appearing at a time when our education system is coming under ever sharper attack Who Killed Canadian History? is a timely and provocative release. A recent test on Canada given to 100 first-year students at an Ontario university revealed the following statistics: -- 61% did not know that Sir John A. Macdonald was our first English-speaking prime minister -- 55% did not know that Canada was founded in 1867 -- 95% did not know that 1837 was the date of the Rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada -- 92% did not know the year of the first Quebec referendum

Author : Richard V. Ericson,Aaron Doyle,Dean Barry,Diana Ericson
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2003-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0802085741

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Insurance as Governance by Richard V. Ericson,Aaron Doyle,Dean Barry,Diana Ericson Pdf

Analyzes how the tactics and strategies of insurers help govern our "risk society". [back cover].