Author: Donald J. Savoie
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773576304
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
Donald Savoie grew up in a small Acadian village and went on to become an accomplished writer and academic whose books have profoundly affected Canadian public policy and public administration. I'm from Bouctouche, Me is not only his story but a story about Canada, the Acadian people, and the evolution of French Canada.
Author: Donald J. Savoie
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773590242
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
The only rival to Harrison McCain’s entrepreneurial success was his deep attachment to his Maritime roots. From McCain’s beginnings in Florenceville, New Brunswick, the early mentorship he received from K.C. Irving, to the global success of his corporate empire McCain Foods, Donald Savoie presents a compelling and candid biography of one of the most famous and down-to-earth figures in Canadian business history. Savoie, a longtime friend to McCain, describes a driven, charismatic, and energetic man who had a keen wit and a deep commitment to his business and hometown. Through unprecedented access to McCain’s papers and interviews with family members, friends, and colleagues, Savoie details the decisions that McCain made alongside his brother and business partner, Wallace McCain, from the company’s humble beginnings to its expansion in Europe, Australia, India, and China. McCain saw the potential of globalization before others did. Despite conflict between the brothers and the eventual fracture of their partnership, Savoie presents the McCains’ dedication as so immersed in the development of their company that they had little time left for second-guessing. At a time when New Brunswick struggles to reinvent itself economically, Savoie points to former government policies and programs that helped the company thrive and holds up the example of Harrison McCain with the hope of seeing Canadian success stories like this in the future.
Author: Donald J. Savoie
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228018447
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
Canada’s political structure runs contrary to North America’s economic geography and the north-south economic pull. Canada imported political and administrative institutions designed for a unitary state, and its political leaders have struggled to make them work since the country was founded. Because of this, many Canadians, their communities, and their regions view themselves as victims, to a greater degree than groups in other Western democracies do. Our federal government has shown a greater willingness to apologize for historical wrongs than other Western countries. Canada also outperforms other nations in helping victims make the transition to full participants in the country’s political and economic life. Donald Savoie maintains that Canada continues to thrive despite the many shortcomings in its national political institutions and the tendency of Canadians to see themselves as victims, and that our history and these shortcomings have taught us the art of compromise. Canada’s constitution and its political institutions amplify rather than attenuate victimization; however, they have also enabled Canadians to manage the issue better than other countries. Canadians also recognize that the alternative to Canada is worse, and this more than anything else continues to strengthen national unity. Drawing on his extensive experience in academe and as an advisor to governments, Savoie provides new insights into how Canada works for Canadians.
Author: Naomi E. S. Griffiths
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 1552778967
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 381
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Book Description
This book explores the life and times of Roméo LeBlanc, one of Canada's most popular and successful politicians and statesmen. Probably best known as the long-standing fisheries minister in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet from 1974 to 1982, LeBlanc's career spanned the golden era of Liberalism in Canada. He capped his career during the nineties as the country's twenty-fifth governor general. Historian Naomi E. S. Griffiths spent many years reading through LeBlanc's papers and interviewing many of his colleagues to explore the worlds he moved in -- Paris in the late forties and early fifties, world capitals during his time as a journalist, and then Ottawa. As a writer with an in-depth knowledge of the Acadian communities of the Maritimes, she knows his roots very well. Her biography covers his early years in New Brunswick where he was born into rural poverty, his years as a journalist in Ottawa, his heyday as a minister in Trudeau's cabinet, and his years at Rideau Hall. Along the way, Ms. Griffiths reveals many intriguing insights about her subject's contemporaries, including Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, and Jean Chrétien. She also discusses the importance of LeBlanc's Acadian heritage in animating all that he did. This engrossing biography illuinates the life of one of Canada's most beloved politicians and statesmen and, with it, a fascinating era in our history.
Author: Donald J. Savoie
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773597956
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
Recent decades have shown the public's support for government plummet alongside political leaders’ credibility. This downward spiral calls for an exploration of what has gone wrong. The questions, "What is government good at?" and "What is government not good at?" are critical ones - and their answers should be the basis for good public policy and public administration. In What Is Government Good At?, Donald Savoie argues that politicians and public servants are good at generating and avoiding blame, playing to a segment of the population to win the next election, embracing and defending the status quo, adding management layers and staff, keeping ministers out of trouble, responding to demands from the prime minister and his office, and managing a complex, prime minister-centred organization. Conversely, they are not as good at defining the broader public interest, providing and recognizing evidence-based policy advice, managing human and financial resources with efficiency and frugality, innovating and reforming itself, being accountable to Parliament and to citizens, dealing with non-performers, paying sufficient attention to service delivery, and implementing and evaluating the impact of policies and programs. With wide implications for representative democracy, What Is Government Good At? is a persuasive analysis of an approach to government that has opened the door to those with the resources to influence policy and decision-making while leaving average citizens on the outside looking in.
Author: Phil Gold
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228018471
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 201
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Book Description
Growing up on St Lawrence Boulevard, Phil Gold never aspired to be a doctor. But working as an encyclopedia salesman, a bottle washer at Molson, and a fur-coat schlepper in textile factories helped him realize and embrace his parents’ desire for him to follow that path. Looking back at his short wander from the Main to nearby McGill University and the Montreal General Hospital, Gold coins a new word, fortunome, to evoke his sense of a lucky life: “Our genome comes from our parents; our environment or epigenome shapes the expression of who we are; but without a good fortunome, life’s odds turn against us.” A born storyteller, Gold recounts the sights and sounds of a bygone era – horse-drawn milk carts, Yiddish neighbourhoods full of Holocaust survivors, furniture chopped up to keep the home fires burning, sacks of grain lugged off ships in the harbour, antisemitism and ethnic street-fighting, the padlocked doors of the Red Scare, his father’s first car. Gold tells the story of dating and marrying the love of his life, Evelyn, studying under the brilliant Sir Arnold Burgen, and his discovery of CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen) in a clear, fast-moving narrative that grips and fascinates. Gold’s Rounds also includes unforgettable stories from six decades of treating patients at the General, scenes from the founding of the famous Goodman Cancer Institute, and reflections on the physician's role and the meaning of a good death. By turns funny, wise, and heartrending, Gold’s memoir of a life well lived will be cherished by both medical professionals and general readers.
Author: Norman B. Keevil
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228017823
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
More than a century ago, a prospector discovered gold at Ontario’s Kirkland Lake and a son was born to British immigrants in Saskatchewan. The boy – Norman Bell Keevil – went on to become a renowned scientist, teacher, and prospector, discovering a small but high-grade copper mine in Ontario. Parlaying that into control of the Kirkland Lake gold mine fifty years later, he formed the fledgling mining company Teck Corporation. In Never Rest on Your Ores Keevil’s son Norman, also a geoscientist, recounts how over the next fifty years, a growing team of like-minded engineers and entrepreneurs built Canada’s largest diversified mining company. In candid detail he tells the story of a company and its makers, of the discovery and creation of mines, of the mechanics of industry financing, and of the role that mergers and acquisitions play in a volatile environment. Along the way he meets fascinating captains of industry and politicians not only in Canada, but in the United States and around the world. Finding an ore body – rock that holds valuable metals and minerals – and promoting its development in order to finance and create a mine, most often in hard-to-access wilderness, is complicated work, comparable to locating and extracting a needle in a very messy haystack. Underlying this history is a constant need to replenish the ore, and this need drives the people involved. Drawing new lessons from the turbulent period between 2005 and 2023, this new edition of Never Rest on Your Ores is both entertaining and instructive, a rare insider’s account of an industry that has been crucial to the building of this country.
Author: Paul T.K. Lin
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773538577
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
Born in Vancouver in 1920 to immigrant parents, Lin became a passionate advocate for China while attending university in the United States. With the establishment of the People's Republic, and growing Cold War sentiment, Lin abandoned his doctoral studies, moving to China with his wife and two young sons. He spent the next fifteen years participating in the country's revolutionary transformation. In 1964, concerned by the political climate under Mao and determined to bridge the growing divide between China and the West, Lin returned to Canada with his family and was appointed head of McGill University's Centre for East Asian Studies. Throughout his distinguished career, Lin was sought after as an authority on China. His commitment to building bridges between China and the West contributed to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Canada and China in 1970, to US President Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972, and to the creation of numerous cultural, academic, and trade exchanges. In the Eye of the China Storm is the story of Paul Lin's life and of his efforts - as a scholar, teacher, business consultant, and community leader - to overcome the mutual suspicion that distanced China from the West. A proud patriot, he was devastated by the Chinese government's violent suppression of student protestors at Tiananmen Square in June 1989, but never lost faith in the Chinese people, nor hope for China's bright future.
Author: Alvin Cramer Segal
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773550186
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
In 1951, Alvin Cramer Segal, at the age of eighteen and without a formal education, started working in the factory of his stepfather’s company in Montreal. Today he is the chairman and chief executive officer of the largest supplier of men’s fine-tailored clothing in North America, and is considered an outstanding business and community leader, at the forefront of policy-making in Canada’s apparel industry, with commitments to philanthropic efforts that echo his business accomplishments. In My Peerless Story, Segal recounts how he learned business from the collar down and from the ground up, transforming a family-owned business into one that would eventually come to licence labels such as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Michael Kors. Sharing anecdotes and personal experiences, Segal describes the history of garment manufacturing in Montreal and his intuitive strategies to leverage growth by improving fabrics, and adapting to innovative changes in the industry, eventually becoming the main inventory source of designer label suits to major department stores. Written from the heart, not as a handbook but rather as the story of a well-suited business career, My Peerless Story nonetheless includes relevant business lessons for the aspiring and inspired.
Author: Anne Innis Dagg
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773599754
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
When Anne Innis saw her first giraffe at the age of three, she was smitten. She knew she had to learn more about this marvellous animal. Twenty years later, now a trained zoologist, she set off alone to Africa to study the behaviour of giraffe in the wild. Subsequently, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey would be driven by a similar devotion to study the behaviour of wild apes. In Smitten by Giraffe the noted feminist reflects on her scientific work as well as the leading role she has played in numerous activist campaigns. On returning home to Canada, Anne married physicist Ian Dagg, had three children, published a number of scientific papers, taught at several local universities, and in 1967 earned her PhD in biology at the University of Waterloo. Dagg was continually frustrated in her efforts to secure a position as a tenured professor despite her many publications and exemplary teaching record. Finally she opted instead to pursue her research as an independent “citizen scientist,” while working part-time as an academic advisor. Dagg would spend many years fighting against the marginalization of women in the arts and sciences. Boldly documenting widespread sexism in universities while also discussing Dagg’s involvement with important zoological topics such as homosexuality, infanticide, sociobiology, and taxonomy, Smitten by Giraffe offers an inside perspective on the workings of scientific research and debate, the history of academia, and the rise of second-wave feminism. A new preface relates Dagg’s experience as the subject of the documentary The Woman Who Loves Giraffes.
