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Private foundations would benefit by having diverse leadership

Leave a Comment / The Toronto Star / Bob Ramsay

“Male, pale and stale.” Is this the fate of the foundations that give out billions to Canadians? This summer, Britain’s Association of Charitable Foundations revealed the race, age and gender of the board members of the nation’s 300 biggest private foundations. (Private foundations are the ones set up by families and companies vs. by governments.) What percentage

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Canada’s richest citizens give the least to charity

Leave a Comment / The Toronto Star / ideazone

While the rich are growing richer, their generosity is getting poorer — not just compared to those earning much less than them, but compared to what they gave in years past. It’s old news that Toronto is the income inequality capital of Canada. Each year, the gap between our richest citizens and our poorest keeps

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Arts boards still don’t represent Toronto’s diversity

Leave a Comment / The Toronto Star / Bob Ramsay

Toronto is the most diverse city in the world, yet many of its arts boards are woefully bereft of women and men of colour. Four years ago, I wrote a Star column on the shocking white maleness of the boards of Toronto’s “Big 6” arts groups. Back then, all 25 board members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

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Canada isn’t young, but it’s a great place to live

Leave a Comment / The Toronto Star / Bob Ramsay

Is Canada young? Not any more. If I heard it once this past weekend, I heard it 150 times: “We’re a young country…” But we’re not young at all, certainly compared to the 15 countries that were born after the death of the Soviet Union in 1991. By any measure, Canada is a middle-aged country.

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Fit for a Maharaja: Not Your Traditional Adventure Through India

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized / Bob Ramsay

Everyone who travels to India returns to say a variation of this: “I am inside the most opulent palace in the world—and outside its gates, the most pitiful beggars are pleading for enough rupees to keep them alive.” In other words, the contrasts between wretched wealth and clutching poverty are so inescapable in India that lots

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Canadian Women Are Storming The Ivory Towers

1 Comment / Huffington Post / Bob Ramsay

True, Hilary Clinton didn’t break through the Everest of glass ceilings. True, 44 per cent of Canada’s public companies don’t have even one woman on their boards. True, Canadian women earn just 73.5 cents for every dollar a man makes. But women are breaking through in the very place where their numbers will not only make gender parity a

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Quotas required to have more women on corporate boards?

1 Comment / The Toronto Star / Bob Ramsay

Of the 12 largest European markets, five – France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Norway — have mandatory quotas on women serving on boards. So, 46 per cent of 733 TSX-listed companies have no women sitting on their boards. Not even one. This news, announced earlier this month, in a survey by Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt

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10 Ways To Make Canada’s 150th As Big And Memorable As Possible

Leave a Comment / Huffington Post / Bob Ramsay

Whether it was Big for you or not, you need to start planning for next summer — Canada’s 150th — right now. Because waiting till next June to plan your July 1st will attach a lifetime of bad memories to the word “staycation.” So here are 10 ways to make next summer as big, memorable

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Bike parking falling far short of demand

Leave a Comment / The Toronto Star / Bob Ramsay

Toronto needs a dramatic increase in the number of bike racks — and let’s make them attractive while we are at it. If you own a bike, and more than half of Torontonians do, you may have more routes to ride it on this summer, but no place to park it. Especially downtown where finding a

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How White American Males Can Walk Away From Donald Trump

Leave a Comment / Huffington Post / Bob Ramsay

The news that Donald Trump’s support is falling within his fortress of white males puts many of them in an awkward spot: how to abandon their leader while holding on to their pride. So here’s a 10-point guide to doing that very thing. 1. Don’t vote on November 8. This will be hard since you’ve likely poured

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Where Is This Generation’s Joseph Nye Welch When We Need Him?

Leave a Comment / Huffington Post / Bob Ramsay

Imagine you’re Justin Trudeau’s speechwriter and you’re on the phone with his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeu, who will soon give a speech in support of her husband. She says that one of the people she has always liked is Laureen Harper, Stephen Harper’s wife. Over the phone, she reads some passages from Ms. Harper’s speeches

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When Is A Car No Longer A Car?

Leave a Comment / Huffington Post / Bob Ramsay

We are not car people. Our car is 7 years old and the only route it knows is from downtown Toronto north to Georgian Bay, which it faithfully plies most every weekend. Beyond that, it’s clueless, and so are we. So when a connected colleague said we could have a new BMW 750 to use

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Private foundations would benefit by having diverse leadership

Canada’s richest citizens give the least to charity

Arts boards still don’t represent Toronto’s diversity

Canada isn’t young, but it’s a great place to live

Fit for a Maharaja: Not Your Traditional Adventure Through India

Canadian Women Are Storming The Ivory Towers

Quotas required to have more women on corporate boards?

10 Ways To Make Canada’s 150th As Big And Memorable As Possible

Bike parking falling far short of demand

How White American Males Can Walk Away From Donald Trump

Where Is This Generation’s Joseph Nye Welch When We Need Him?

When Is A Car No Longer A Car?

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