Canada’s top CEOs saw average pay increase of almost $100k in 2020

“Before lunch hour on the first working day of 2022, Jan. 4, Canada’s highest-paid CEOs will have already racked up the same amount of pay that will take the average worker the entire year to accrue,” said an annual report released Tuesday.

By Francine Kopun

City Hall Bureau

TORSTAR
Tue., Jan. 4, 2022

Canada’s top 100 CEOs saw their incomes rise in 2020, even as the pandemic wreaked havoc on the Canadian economy, according to an annual report released Tuesday.

Their pay during the first full year of COVID-19 averaged $10.9 million each, up $95,000 apiece since 2019.

“As a result, those 100 CEOs now make, on average, 191 times more than the average worker wage in Canada,” according to the report, entitled: Another Year in Paradise, CEO pay in 2020.

The data is compiled annually by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

“Before lunch hour on the first working day of 2022, Jan. 4, Canada’s highest-paid CEOs will have already racked up the same amount of pay that will take the average worker the entire year to accrue,” the report says.

The highest-paid CEO in Canada in 2020 was David Klein, who officially took over Canopy Growth Corp. in January 2020, according to the report. Company stock was then trading at about $31 a share. By the end of that year, it was trading for roughly a dollar more. Klein’s total compensation during that time was $45.3 million, including $281,715 in salary; $10-million in share-based awards and $33.3 million in option-based awards, according to the CCPA analysis.

Canopy Growth Corp., which produces, distributes and sells medical and recreational cannabis, closed at $11.04 a share on the TSX on Monday.

“One of the issues we’ve seen with income inequality is that when the economy does poorly, it’s often just the low-wage workers that suffer, it’s not the CEOs that suffer, and that was really highlighted by the pandemic and the data for 2020,” said David Macdonald, a senior economist with the CCPA.

While income earned by Canadian CEOs is theoretically based on merit, the report found that among the richest 100 CEOs, 30 headed companies that received the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), 14 saw the structure of their bonuses changed in order to protect them from the impact of COVID-19 and five experienced both.

“The CEWS was meant to go to businesses that saw large declines in revenue during the worst of the pandemic, but some companies with the highest-paid 100 CEOs in Canada continued to pay their CEOs extraordinary amounts while receiving the CEWS,” according to the report.

“The philosophical justification of extreme bonuses — that they are merit-based — is on thin ice. Executive compensation isn’t variable or merit-based but rather, it’s part of the c-suite culture.”

Also according to the report, there was no requirement that the CEWS be put toward worker’s wages. The rules were amended in June 2021 to prevent companies who paid their executives more in 2019 from receiving the subsidy.

The gap between the average worker and the highest-paid CEO narrowed in 2020, but only because about half of all workers who are paid $17 an hour or less either lost their job or the majority of their working hours in the first few months of the pandemic, according to the report.

Macdonald said some progress has been made: Prior to July 2021, only 50 per cent of the value of stock options was considered taxable. That’s now been capped at the first $200,000 of stock options.

The second-highest-paid CEO in Canada is José Cil, of Restaurant Brands International, which owns and operates Burger King and Tim Hortons. His total compensation in 2020 was just under $27-million, including nearly $24-million in share-based awards.

The report recommends taking steps to reduce the gap between CEO salaries and employee wages by capping the allowable corporate deductions for executive compensation at $1-million. There is currently no cap. It also recommends making all income from stock options taxable — currently only half is taxable.

It also recommends a wealth tax on the ultra-rich, generally defined as a tax on those with a net wealth of more than $10 million.

Alberta doctors upset with provincial move to restrict PCR testing: ‘Absolutely absurd’

By Jill Croteau Global News
Posted January 3, 2022 
Updated January 4, 2022 

In an effort to conserve supply and to reserve spaces for high-risk individuals, the province is asking Albertans to report results of at-home tests to their family doctor. Jill Croteau reports on the impact of this decision.

Family physicians around Alberta have expressed serious concern about the province’s move to recommend self-reporting.

On December 23, Alberta health officials restricted access to PCR testing to conserve supply and reserve spaces for high-risk individuals.

There is a recommendation to rely on the ‘at home’ rapid tests. But that move, according to Dr. Mukarram Zaidi, stifles the true scope of the Omicron spread.

“AHS has the capacity to expand and do the PCR test,” Dr. Zaidi said.

“Patients are calling and trying to book appointments that are 7-8 days away. What’s the point when you’re sick today?”

On December 28, Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw advised Albertans who test positive for COVID-19 to use an at-home antigen rapid testing kit to notify their family doctors in order for the diagnosis to be kept on file.

READ MORE: Long lines as COVID-19 rapid tests now available for all Albertans

Dr. Hinshaw added they wouldn’t be included in daily case counts. But there is a worry about the verification of the results.

Rapid response COVID-19 antigen test. THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Lars Hagberg

“Somebody can take a picture of anybody’s test or from internet send it in now Dr. Hinshaw wants us to document that as a positive antigen test. It’s mind blowing,” Dr. Zaidi said.

“The fundamentals of this request is absurd.”

“The onus of the reporting should be on the government and not the individuals,” Dr. Zaidi said,

“It’s a huge medical dilemma for family physicians to be charting something that may or may not be true in our charts.”

READ MORE: Alberta’s isolation period for COVID-19 cases drops from 10 days to 5

Calgarian Anne Yates-Laberge said the changes are flawed. She said her family was potentially exposed to COVID-19 by a close contact, but because they’re asymptomatic they don’t qualify for AHS PCR testing.

Anne Yates-Laberge. Jill Croteau/Global News

“I need to make sure I’m not asymptomatic spreading this all over the place,” Yates-Laberge said.

Because of her work with vulnerable people she called 811 for guidance. She said the health worker instructed her to pay for a private PCR.

Instead, she asked her family doctor to do a house call to test the family.


“I feel like they’ve thrown the towel in and are contributing to this issue. It’s a bad example of government to be this negligent. All of a sudden they don’t want numbers so they won’t test — it makes no sense.”



Dr. Keegan performing test on Yates-Laberge’s son. Courtesy: Anne Yates-Laberge

Her physician Dr. David Keegan said they need to be done by an objective person in order to be verified.

“That’s one example of how health providers across Alberta are hacking the system and doing it appropriately but getting around things that could have and should have been predicted,” Dr. Keegan said.

He said concrete data is needed.

“We are going to get voicemails, emails and things dropped off and we need some order to this chaos,” Dr. Keegan said. “Then, if an insurance company comes we can say it was reported but we can’t verify at-home test results because we didn’t take it.”

NDP leader Rachel Notley said more needs to be done.

“Not only do many Albertans not have family doctors, also many family docs aren’t set up to administratively receive phone calls and keep these kinds of records,” Notley said. “The government needs to go back to the drawing board.”

READ MORE: Alberta makes ‘very modest’ changes to COVID-19 gathering rules ahead of holidays

Alberta Health spokesperson, Lisa Glover said self-reporting is a challenge being faced by many provinces.

“We currently recommend that people connect with their family doctor to discuss health implications of their diagnosis,” Glover said in a statement.

“We are looking at other provinces and working together to determine what solutions have been implemented in other jurisdictions that have moved earlier Omicron then we have had to. We hope to have an approach we can share with Albertans soon.”

Alberta Health is expected to provide a COVID-19 update on Tuesday.

How the pandemic has some Ontario employers switching to a 4-day work week

& FOUR HOUR DAY FOR FORTY HOURS PAY

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Some companies are paying workers the same to work less,

others using ‘compressed’ weeks

Lisa Xing · CBC News · Posted: Jan 03, 2022

Starting in the new year, Juno College's 45 employees will begin transitioning into working four days a week. Staff won't be making up the time, and they won't get paid any less.  (Lisa Xing/CBC)

The concept of a four-day work week is gaining traction as the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, with some employers re-evaluating their priorities. 

That's been the case for Heather Payne, CEO and founder of Juno College, a vocational school in Toronto that teaches tech and web skills.

For the decade that she's been running the company, Payne says her focus has been on growth. But over the summer, she says, she had an "epiphany."

"I realized that's not what matters the most," she told CBC News. 

Now, starting in the new year, her 45 employees will be gradually transitioning into working four days a week, starting with one week in January, two in February and so on. Staff won't be making up the time, and they won't get paid any less. 

It honestly seems like the right thing to do.- Heather Payne, CEO of Juno College

Payne is just one of a handful of employers who have decided to make the change to boost productivity, prioritize workers' health and, in some cases, retain talent. The Ontario Liberal Party has also promised a four-day work week pilot if elected this spring.

"It honestly seems like the right thing to do. It's something I want for my own life as well," said Payne. 

The 40-hour work week was adopted in 1914 when Henry Ford scaled the work week down from 48 to 40 hours, correctly believing productivity would improve.

Companies experimenting with a four-day work week include Toronto-based recruitment firm The Leadership Agency, Tulip Inc., a software company in Kitchener, Ont., and a small municipality in Nova Scotia. Iceland's capital started a pilot as far back as 2015 that involved 2,500 people. 

'A more relaxed atmosphere'

Some of those pilots inspired managers in Zorra township, about 30 minutes east of London, Ont., to test out a compressed work week as well, which began in September 2020. The township's 14 staff worked four days a week and an hour extra per day. The work is split into two shifts, with one group working Monday to Thursday and the other working Tuesday to Friday. 

Human resources professor Margaret Yap at Ryerson University says a four-day work week will boost productivity. (Submitted by Margaret Yap)

The second phase of Zorra's pilot recently wrapped, and its chief administrative officer Don MacLeod has called the project a success, especially since it means extended opening hours. 

"There's something about it that makes people happier to come to work," said MacLeod. "Everybody seems to have embraced it." 

MacLeod said news of the pilot has also helped retain talent, and staff reported more interest from people wanting to work for the township.

Similarly, an Angus Reid poll from 2020 suggested many Canadians support the idea. Fifty-three per cent of people polled said a shortened week would be a good idea. That's up from 47 per cent in 2018. 

Benefits to productivity, but not everyone's on board

Many of the workplaces that have tested the four-day model have reported benefits to both employee and employer. That doesn't come as a surprise to Margaret Yap, an associate professor in the department of HR management and organization behaviour at Ryerson University. 

"It will increase productivity," she said. "Employees are going to think employers are taking care of them."

The trials in Iceland, which took place over four years, found productivity remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces. A similar pilot in Guysborough, a community in Nova Scotia, which Zorra's experiment was modelled after, found employees experienced a boost in morale, too. 

• Could a four-day work week benefit municipalities? French River thinks so

Yap says the four-day model requires commitment from an employer to set an example so staff aren't reaching for their phones or turning on their computers on that extra day off. 

She also said it's easier for smaller workplaces to make the transition. 

But not every employee is a fan of the new work week, says Payne. While her company has received an increase in job applications since announcing the change, some staff have decided to leave in search of other opportunities. 

"It's a different strategy for the company, a lower growth strategy," she said. "I can't fault anyone for [leaving because of] that."

• 4-day work week with fewer hours, same pay could become a reality in some workplaces post-COVID-19

• Why Iceland's 4-day workweek pilot was an 'overwhelming success'

The history, and the future of British Columbia’s Brucejack mine

Amanda Stutt | January 3, 2022 

Brucejack mine, under construction in 2016. (Image courtesy of Pretium Resources.)

The $2.8 billion acquisition by Australia’s 2nd biggest gold miner, Newcrest (ASX, TSX: NCM) of Canada’s Pretium Resources (TSX, NYSE: PVG) late last year marked a new beginning for the Brucejack mine, Pretium’s former flagship asset and one of the highest grade gold mines in the world.


The Brucejack project spans 1,200 square kilometres in the heart of British Columbia’s Golden Triangle, which has a 100-year mining history and also hosts the Red Chris, Eskay Creek and Snip mines. The important Brucejack deposit was prospected as early as the 1980s.

But the real Brucejack mine story started 1999, when it was acquired by Silver Standard, which held a 60% interest at the time of what consisted of about 3,000 hectares and a few exploration prospects. The story really started to gain momentum in August 2009, when Silver Standard reported an intercept of 16,948 gram per tonne gold over 1.5 metres.

In 2010 Pretuim IPO’d on the TSX, raising C$280 million via private equity, offtake agreements, and a precious metals stream. It acquired Brucejack from Silver Standard for $450 million in October that year.

But the road to production would prove to be rocky.

Five years later, on September 5, 2015, construction began at Brucejack, somewhat of an anomaly when it comes to the persistent permitting processing backlogs in British Columbia miners have to contend with.

It began commercial production on July 1, 2017, financed during one of the most protracted mining downturns in history, when few investors were putting money into new mines, somewhat of an anomaly in mining when it comes to cash flow in the mining sector.

Shares in Pretium tanked in early 2018 after the company announced disappointing production and cost forecasts. From the outset the company failed to achieve production guidance with consecutive results reporting lower-than-expected mine grades and higher all-in sustaining costs.

However, a 2020 technical report estimated gold production of 311,000 ounces per year, at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of $743 per ounce, over a projected mine life of 13 years. In 2021, the mine is anticipated to produce between 325,000 and 365,000 ounces of gold. That’s a far cry from the $1 billion mine’s initial commitment to producing roughly 500,000 ounces gold annually for the first eight years of the mine’s 18-year mine life, at an AISC of $446 per ounce of gold.

High-grade, gold-silver mineralization at the Valley of the Kings occurs in steeply dipping and predominantly east- to northwest-trending quartz stockwork veins and breccia zones, inside a broader halo of clay alteration and low-grade mineralization.

Brucejack consists of the Valley of the Kings deposit, and the result is that the gold mineralization is “nuggety,” which makes it hard to mill with predictable output.

Enter 2021

As of January 1, 2021, Brucejack’s Valley of the Kings deposit held a compliant proven and probable reserve base of 11.5 million tonnes grading 8.7 grams per tonne gold and 9.8 grams per tonne silver, for 3.2 million ounces ad 3.6 million ounces of gold and silver metal, respectively.

The West Zone also holds proven a probable reserves totalling 29 million tonnes grading 6.8 grams per tonne and 278.5 grams per tonne for a respective 600,000 ounces gold and 26 million ounces silver, respectively.

Brucejack and surrounding tenements are within the traditional territories asserted by the Tsetsaut Skii km Lax Ha and Tahltan Nation, and in the Nass Area of Nisga’a Nation.

That year, Pretium Resources did not disappoint when it made a new high-grade gold exploration discovery at the Golden Marmot Zone at Brucejack.

The company said it had received assays for the first nine drill holes, eight of which intersected gold with a highlight of 53.5 metres grading 72.5 grams per tonne gold including 05 metres grading a bonaza 6,700 grams per tonne gold and 3,990 grams per tonne silver.

“Initial results from Golden Marmot are exciting and affirm the district-scale potential of the Brucejack property,” president and CEO Jacques Perron said in an October 2021 statement.

In November, Newcrest made its move and announced the acquisition.

“We are delighted to be expanding our presence in this highly prospective region in British Columbia. Brucejack is a Tier 1 mine in a Tier 1 jurisdiction and will deliver immediate production, free cash flow and earnings diversification to Newcrest and will fit seamlessly into our long-life, low-cost portfolio,” Newcrest CEO Sandeep Biswas said in a media release.

“The combination of Newcrest and Pretivm will create the leading gold miner in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle, operating both the Brucejack and Red Chris mines,” Biswas said.

“Newcrest specializes in what I call tier-one deposits,” Biswas said in a recent interview with The Northern Miner. “We have a clear strategy where we want to continue to gain exposure to tier-one deposits, which in our terminology is typically 300,000-plus ounces per year equivalent, comprising copper if available, and gold.”

Newcrest will bring its extensive block-caving and epithermal vein experience to the table, which could entail a philosophical step-change for how the future Brucejack asset will be operated.

While Brucejack’s past has seen some hiccups, its future seems bright given the experience a top-tier miner like Newcrest has.

One-party rule is now the credo of Trump and his followers

An illiberal democracy, similar to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, is increasingly the model for Republicans

Supporters of President Donald Trump gather for a rally with Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, on the Ellipse near the White House in Washington. 

 Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

Lloyd Green
Tue 4 Jan 2022 

The first anniversary of the invasion of the Capitol approaches, our cold civil war grows hotter by the day, and the numbers tell the story. A majority of Republicans view the attack as a defense of freedom (56%) and just under half (47%) cast it as an act of patriotism. For good measure, one in six Americans approve of the events of 6 January 2021, including nearly a quarter of Republicans.

America’s Reichstag fire continues to smolder. A staggering 64% of Americans believe democracy here is “in crisis and at risk of failing”. Beyond that, two-thirds of Republicans agree that “voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election”. Disturbingly but not surprisingly, the Republican party’s credo is now “heads I win, tails you lose”.

Then again, the last time a non-incumbent Republican won the presidential popular vote was George HW Bush in 1988. The fact that recent Republican-backed post-election “audits” have failed to yield a different outcome, has not dulled the party faithful’s devotion to the false and Trump-driven proposition that the election was stolen.

From the looks of things, the Republican party’s fealty to democracy appears tenuous at best, no longer willing to accept the finality of the ballot box or the courts. Even after the insurrection, the majority of congressional Republicans opposed certifying the election. And the base is definitely with them.

Donald Trump leads all challengers for the 2024 Republican nomination. He leads his closest rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, by more than 40 points. Trumpism is more than a cult: it is a movement.

In that same spirit, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert and Matt Gaetz lie at the party’s enraged and performative core. During the last 12 months, these attitudes have managed to congeal and fester. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are outliers in a party driven by and suffused with grievance.

Cheney is dead-on when she says the choice is between the constitution and Trump. But it is only the coastal elites who are listening. During the 2016 campaign, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, thought Trump needed to show some “authoritarian power”. The Republican party knew who it was getting and what it wanted.

Back in the day, Republican congressional leaders ushered Richard Nixon to the door. Now, crossing Trump is met with the prospect of a primary or the inevitable resignation. In Georgia, Trump is supporting the opponents of Brian Kemp, the incumbent Republican governor, and Brad Raffensperger, the incumbent secretary state, because they declined to bend to his will.

In the aftermath of the election, they refused to “find” votes for Trump where there were none to be found despite relentless pressure from the White House or to overturn the will of their state’s voters. Indeed, Trump’s phone call to Raffensperger was a key event in Trump’s second impeachment.

Fittingly, on Monday Trump issued his “complete support and endorsement” for the re-election bid of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister and an outright proponent of “illiberal democracy”. In office, Orbán has curbed the press and tilted his country’s constitution and laws in his personal favor.

One-party rule is his goal. Think of Mar-a-Lago along the Danube and you get the picture.

Beyond that, Orbán has thrust blood, soil and Christianity into the forefront of Hungarian politics, to the approval of name-brand Republicans. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president, and Jeff Sessions, Trump’s discarded attorney general, have travellled to Budapest and paid homage to Orbán and conservative social values. Likewise, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson spent time broadcasting from Hungary.

The nexus between the Republican party and religion grows at a moment in time when fewer Americans can be found in the pews, and religious “nones” occupy a growing space in public debate and the Democratic party.

Frequency of worship is as valid a predictor of how white Americans will vote as any other. It is no longer a simple matter of denominational affiliation. In a sense, America is enveloped in a bloodless but rage-filled 16th-century-styled religious war.

Meanwhile, for all of Biden’s campaign rhetoric about bridging our political chasm, his presidency has failed to narrow the breadth and intensity of the partisan divide. Booming job and stock markets have not papered over the country’s fault lines, which have only grown deeper and more acrid during his tenure. And it is not just the debacle in Afghanistan or even inflation.

On that score, the 46th president and his allies refuse to acknowledge that in US politics if you want to move to the left on economics, you had better move to the center on social issues. Culture still counts – a lot. The lessons of triangulation taught by Bill Clinton three decades ago remain valid.

Sadly, the realities that brought America to its present inflection point are not disappearing any time soon. Tribe, place and resentment stand to define and drive our politics for as far as the eye can see. Barrington Moore Jr once said, “No bourgeoisie, no democracy,” and these days, the middle class feels buffeted by forces outside its control.

A recent Republican fundraising missive framed the debate in the US as between Americans and Democrats. So, this is where we are.

Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992

 

Faculty at Concordia University of Edmonton strike, halting start of winter term

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'Multiple competitive salary offers' have been made to faculty, university says

CBC News · Posted: Jan 04, 2022 

Faculty at Concordia University of Edmonton are now on strike after negotiations with the school's bargaining committee stalled out over the holidays. (David Bajer/CBC)

Faculty at Concordia University of Edmonton walked off the job Tuesday morning after the union and the school's bargaining committee failed to strike a deal following months of negotiations.

The strike, a first for faculty associations in Alberta, is expected to halt the start of the winter term. More than 2,500 students were expected to return to virtual classes Tuesday.

Starting at 9 a.m., a picket line formed outside the Magrath Mansion, a historic property in Edmonton's Highlands neighbourhood recently acquired by the university.

The  Concordia University of Edmonton Faculty Association (CUEFA) issued formal strike notice to the university's administration on Dec. 22, warning that members would walk off the job in the new year if the school's bargaining team failed to strike a deal.

The association is the bargaining agent for 82 full-time professors, librarians, placement coordinators and lab instructors at Concordia.

Professors and instructors formed a picket line outside the Magrath Mansion, a historic property in Edmonton’s Highlands neighbourhood recently acquired by the university. (David Bajer/CBC)

As a result of the legal strike action, all instruction will be halted until further notice, the university said in a memo to students Monday.

"The strike comes in spite of bargaining that occurred over the holiday break," the university's bargaining unit said in the statement.

"The university's bargaining team is particularly disappointed by the brevity of a mediation meeting last weekend. Earlier negotiations on major issues such as workload have been successful. 

"The university's bargaining team has presented multiple competitive salary offers which are in line with those recently accepted by some of Alberta's largest public-sector unions."

Sticking points

After months of negotiation last year, the university and faculty association signed off on more than half of 41 articles of a new collective agreement but, as of last month, sticking points remained.

Should a new agreement be reached, faculty would be expected to teach fewer courses to make up for an increase in research. However, the association remains concerned about workload for non-faculty staff and salaries, among other issues.

Mediation was "unsuccessful at helping to resolve any remaining issues," the association said in a statement Tuesday. 

"Our faculty association is dismayed that the administration rejected our reasonable salary proposals," CUEFA president Glynis Price said in the statement.

"We have bargained since the late spring of 2021 and plan to continue bargaining in good faith to push the administration to improve the workloads and pay of all of our members."

• Historic Magrath Mansion acquired by Concordia University of Edmonton

• Concordia University of Edmonton faculty association could be first in Alberta to strike

Price said the university has been approved to lock out staff should they choose. In the case of a strike or a lockout, 72 hours notice is required.

In a ballot in November, 90 per cent of CUEFA members backed a strike mandate. The association said 95 per cent of members voted.

'Jeopardizing their winter term'

Price said the university has the financial resources to resolve the issues, but instead of investing in competitive wages and staff recruitment, administration spent $1.75 million on the Magrath Mansion, "a building without a clear role in the university's core operations."

"We're saddened that the administration has refused to budge and would rather disrupt students' lives and add to their stress by jeopardizing their winter term," Price said in the CUEFA statement. 

• Concordia University of Edmonton faculty association to strike in new year

The university's bargaining team said it is willing to resume discussions with the faculty association "at any time" and will continue to work toward a settlement.

"We regret the disruption to our students, their families, and our university community," the bargaining committee said. "The strike will impact student learning and depending on how long it extends could threaten semester outcomes.

"The university remains hopeful that the strike will be brief."

After months of negotiations, faculty members walked off the job Tuesday morning. (David Bajer/CBC)

Experts question usefulness of masks purchased by province for Alberta students




CTV News Edmonton
Published Jan. 2, 2022

EDMONTON -

Experts are questioning the Alberta government’s decision to purchase medical-grade masks for students in school, saying better masks should be used instead.

Students would have been back in class this week, but the province extended the winter break as Omicron cases rise.

In an effort to protect students and staff when they do return to school, the province plans to deliver 8.6 million rapid tests and 16.5 million adult and pediatric medical-grade masks to schools.

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“What we need to worry about are fit, filter and function… so called “medical-grade masks” are designed for adults, not kids,” said Dorothy Wigmore, an occupational health specialist.

“For a medical mask, the actual design of them is intended to stop someone like a surgeon spitting into a patient that they’re working on, it’s to stop material coming out of the wearer, rather than to protect the wearer,” added Dr. Simon Smith, a retired respiratory filter specialist.

“Without a good fit, you’re going to be breathing air in when you inhale that’s going to take the path of least resistance and bypass the filter entirely.”

Respirator-style masks are being recommended as alternatives which would be better suited to what students will be doing in schools, breathing, talking and learning.

“All of the medical-grade masks have been tested to meet international standards for particle and bacterial filtration, breathability, fluid resistance, and flammability of materials,” said a statement from the premier’s office.

“Medical-grade masks provide an additional layer of protection to lower the risk of in-school transmission, and when properly fitted are 98% as effective as N95 masks.”

One ER doctor in the province argues that “there is no such thing as a well-fitting medical mask.”

“They’re not designed to fit well… they’re basically a barrier,” said Dr. Joe Vipond, the co-founder of Masks4Canada and Protect Our Province Alberta.

“I’m worried the Alberta public will feel reassured that they’re getting these higher quality masks, when they’re completely inadequate for the job… it’s not useless, it’s just not nearly enough for the job.”

He recommends parents get better masks for their children to go to school with, if they can find them. Respirator-style masks are a little more expensive, but Vipond believes they’re worth the investment.

“You can wear (respirator masks) multiple days… up to five eight hour days in a row as long as it’s not smelling bad or obviously soiled… they don’t expire, they don’t get less safe after a day’s use,” added Vipond.

CANADA
Grocery managers BOSSES get big bonuses after boost from pandemic sales

 JAN 3, 2022

The practice of paying executive bonuses has been more researched in the pandemic, especially among companies that employ significant front-line employees who are unable to perform their jobs safely at home.

Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press

Two of Canada’s largest merchants – Empire Company Ltd. and Metro Inc. – paid their executives almost maximum bonuses for their most recent, pandemic-boosted fiscal year.

They joined Loblaw Companies Ltd. to reward their top executives for robust sales over the past 18 months, where many Canadians have replaced restaurant expenses with home cooking and warehousing of essential household items – a winner for grocers.

The practice of paying executive bonuses has been more researched in the pandemic, especially among companies that employ significant front-line employees who are unable to perform their jobs safely at home.

Merchants gave all workers some form of “pandemic wage” – increased wages or bonuses – in the earlier months of the public health crisis, but they lowered or eliminated wages later in 2020. Grocery retailers offered additional one-time bonuses earlier this year (and in Empire cases reintroduced bonuses in regions, where orders for stay at home were imposed). Other benefits, merchants said, included being paid free of vaccinations, discounts and gift card bonuses. But in the spring, Canada’s largest private-sector union, Unifor, called on companies to bring back universal, regular wage premiums for grocery workers during the pandemic.

Together, Loblaw, Empire (the parent company of Sobeys) and Metro have a combined market value of about $ 60 billion. They had $ 100 billion in sales over the past 12 months, with just over $ 3 billion in profits, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. While their single-digit profit margins are modest compared to other industries, they have risen from pre-pandemic levels in the last 12 months.

Empire paid its executives almost the maximum possible bonuses for its most recent fiscal year, which ended May 1, saying it easily exceeded its sales and profit targets.

That meant a $ 2.71 million bonus for CEO Michael Medline, up from $ 1.41 million the year before. Four other top executives received payouts of $ 579,000 to $ 1.01 million. All five bonuses were almost or more than double their incentive pay from the previous fiscal year.

In the year ending May 2020, Empire’s board decided to scale down bonuses for its top executives in recognition of the pandemic – especially because blowout sales in the first three months of the crisis were not part of the annual targets. For the year ending in May, however, Empire incorporated COVID-19 into its targets, setting a sales target roughly in line with the previous year and a lower performance target.

Empire said sales of $ 28.3 billion topped its $ 26.7 billion target and reported net earnings of $ 701.5 million that were exceeded by the $ 548.1 million target. Putting those numbers into the formula gave leaders almost double their target bonuses, Empire said.

Overall, Mr. Medline $ 7.49 million in the year ending May, including nearly $ 3.1 million in stock allotments. That’s below his $ 13.04 million compensation from the previous year, a figure inflated by a special $ 6.9 million stock reward designed to keep him for another six years. In the year ending May 2019, he earned just under $ 5.5 million.

For the second year in a row, executives at Metro also received almost the maximum possible bonuses after the company exceeded its profit targets. For most, however, the payments were slightly lower than the year before.

Metro paid CEO Eric La Flèche a $ 1.29 million bonus on top of his salary of just over $ 1 million for the year ending Sept. 25. He was entitled to a maximum bonus of just over $ 1.5 million. In the year ending September 2020, his bonus was $ 1.43 million.

Four other Metro executives, who were eligible for bonuses equal to their salaries, received payouts of between $ 450,000 and $ 505,000 – 82 percent to 99 percent of maximum. Their bonuses ranged from $ 450,000 to $ 600,000 in the previous year, with only Executive Vice President Marc Giroux, head of both e-commerce and the Quebec division, receiving the maximum payout for his division’s goals.

For the year ending September 25, Metro set a target of $ 823.6 million in adjusted net earnings – roughly the same amount as it recorded in the year ending September 2020, when more than six months of pandemic purchases increased the results. Metro said that by setting the target, it started by assuming a normal environment and then added pandemic-related sales.

Its adjusted net income came in at $ 854.2 million, above the maximum bonus level for all executives except Mr La Flèche, who has a higher profit threshold for a maximum bonus.

Metro said it saw a sharp increase in food sales in the first half of the year, but will fall in the second half, “as they cycled unusually strong levels” in 2020. It said pharmacy sales were hit by an eight-week labor dispute at Jean Coutu distribution center, and expenses increased due to $ 104 million in pandemic-related costs, including $ 24 million in gift cards for front-line employees.

The executive bonuses are based on a mix of company-wide earnings, divisional performance and individual goals, with Mr La Flèche’s bonus being weighted at most to the company’s profits.

In total, he earned $ 5.02 million, including $ 2.24 million in stock and option allotments, up from $ 5.07 million the year before.

Loblaw, which blew through its 2020 revenue targets but missed its profit target, said in April that the board decided that the company’s short-term bonus plan should not pay out more than 150 percent of the target for any target, instead of the 200 percent maximum plan allowed.

Loblaw CEO Galen G. Weston earned $ 3.55 million, down from $ 3.67 million in 2019, including an annual bonus of $ 648,000, which was less than 2019’s annual incentive of $ 764,640. President Sarah Davis, who resigned from the company in May, earned $ 4.53 million, including a $ 1.35 million bonus, down from $ 1.59 million in 2019.

The Globe and Mail previously reported on Loblaw’s compensation figures, which were for the year ending January 2, 2021, in April.

With files by Susan Krashinsky Robertson

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

What investors learned from the Elizabeth Holmes trial: ‘zero’


By ELLEN HUET
STARTUPS
Tuesday, 04 Jan 2022

While the guilty verdict for Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes may not change how venture capital fundraising works, it may have an impact on other women founders, say industry players. — AFP

It took a jury seven full days to conclude that Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes was guilty of four counts of fraud after a three-month trial. The startup world had been watching in suspense, but it was largely for the spectacle of it all – not because anyone thought the verdict would significantly change behaviour in venture capital fundraising.

Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors in the blood-testing startup of hundreds of millions of dollars, which should spur investors to scrutinise their portfolio companies more carefully, especially in the specialised world of healthcare.

And the guilty verdict suggests founders should beware of their optimism slipping into dishonest exaggeration. But in a red-hot startup investing market, no one’s willing to slow down.

"I don’t think a verdict is going to change the way founders and VCs work in the ecosystem,” said Angela Lee, who teaches venture capital at Columbia Business School and runs 37 Angels, an investment network that focuses on early-stage digital health companies. "It's about supply and demand, and there's a tremendous capital supply with the same number of awesome companies.”

When investors are competing to get into a round, one way they can edge out a rival is through speed.

"I can't tell you how many times I hear, ‘So-and-so is in this deal, they're a name-brand VC, you have five days – are you in or are you out?’” she said. "People don't want to miss out. I am not seeing more thoughtful diligence. If anything, I’m actually seeing a sped-up timeline for diligence in the last couple of years.”

Lee said the trial doesn’t seem to be prompting investors to re-examine their diligence practices. "I've heard zero people say, ‘Oh, this should make me look differently,’ – zero,” she said. "It's treated like salacious gossip or an entertaining story.”

Founders can also find it confusing to draw lessons from Holmes’s case, Lee said.

Holmes was excoriated for inflating her company’s partnerships. She admitted during the trial that she had added logos from two pharmaceutical giants onto reports shared with prospective investors that conveyed support by the drug companies for Theranos even though she wasn’t authorised to do so.

Lee said founders face pressure to make similar fabrications all the time, like putting a client’s logo on a pitch deck and suggesting a deal is in the works – or "soft-circled” – when it’s not yet at that stage.

"People will say all the time that something is ‘soft-circled’ when you just had a nice conversation with them,” Lee said. "Is that misrepresentation? I would argue 15% of founders are doing that every single day. ... It is not easy to tell when you’re right up against this line.”

Meanwhile, startup founders who happen to be women working in health tech still are coping with comparisons to Holmes, both implicit and explicit, and the verdict is unlikely to change that.

Andy Coravos, the CEO and co-founder of health-tech startup HumanFirst, said she’s all for strict due diligence from investors, especially when it involves patient care, but wants to see it directed at all founders, not just women. "Companies should be held to a high bar and that bar should be universally applied,” she said.

If people see a female founder and think of Holmes, that’s a reflection of how few women found startups, said Deena Shakir, a partner at Lux Capital, which invests in health and science startups.

Holmes shouldn’t be seen as a representative for any particular type of founder, she said: "Are we going to now say that all Stanford founders or all Stanford dropouts exhibit this behaviour?”

 – Bloomberg

Opinion: 

Theranos verdict won’t stop next big fraud


By MICHAEL HILTZIK
Tuesday, 04 Jan 2022

Holmes’ case raises the important question of whether the testimony and result will serve as object lessons for investors confronted with cheery promises in the future. Bet your money that the answer is ‘no’. — AFP


Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of the medical device company Theranos, was convicted Jan 3 on multiple counts of defrauding investors following a four-month trial in federal court in San Jose.

Theranos, which rode a tide of positive publicity in 2013 and 2014 after introducing what it claimed was novel technology for making blood testing simpler, cheaper and more efficient, shut down in 2018 after investigations established that the claims were false. Holmes and her second-in-command, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, were indicted on 12 counts of fraud in 2020 one count was later dropped. Balwani’s trial is scheduled for this year.

The jury acquitted Holmes on several counts related to accusations Theranos defrauded patients who relied on the company to deliver accurate blood test results, and deadlocked on three others related to transfers of funds from investors. For the most part, the jury found against Holmes on charges that she plied investors with claims about the firm’s technology that were largely fabricated. Those counts including three of fraud and one of conspiracy to defraud.

The case raises the important question of whether the testimony and result will serve as object lessons for investors confronted with cheery promises in the future. Bet your money that the answer is “no”.

High-tech investing is predisposed to take even clearly hyperbolic projections as part of the game.

Holmes’ defense argued in effect that the misinformation with which Theranos plied investors was characteristic of tech industry exaggeration at best – that investors were experienced enough to interpret Holmes’ projections as “uncertain”, not fraudulent.

To a certain extent, that’s true. All entrepreneurs making pitches to venture capital funds are inclined to promise castles in the air and riches beyond the dreams of Croesus, or they won’t be invited through the door.

Venture investors know well that most of these claims encompass a sizable helping of hyperbole; that’s why they strive to assemble diversified portfolios, in the hope that the handfuls of successes and tinier handfuls of massive successes will pay for the losers.

The venture investment community is periodically inundated with such a torrent of capital that too much money ends up chasing too few deals. The more than 500 US venture capital funds raised a record US$96bil (RM401.85bil) in the first nine months of this year and closed a record of more than 11,000 deals.

The current frenzy is driven in part by what venture investors call “tourists” – investors coming from outside the venture community and bidding up deal prices.

“When tourists flock to hot vacation spots, the prices jump at the popular resorts, hotels and restaurants,” the Seattle financial data firm PitchBook observes. “The same thing is happening now as these tourist investors pile into competitive venture deals for hot startups, especially at the early stage.”

In 2013, when venture investor Aileen Lee first coined the term “unicorn” for startups valued at US$1bil (RM4.18bil) or more, she identified 39. Today, the venture research firm CB Insights lists more than 900.

The first investments beget further investments in what may appear to be the next big thing, as firms pile in out of FOMO – “fear of missing out”. Sober judgments about the technology underlying entrepreneurs’ promises? Don’t expect them.

The nature of Silicon Valley as a self-reinforcing ecosystem owes much to Annalee Saxenian and her 1994 book Regional Advantage. A professor of information sciences at UC Berkeley, Saxenian identified the key to the valley’s success as a culture in which “not only was risk-taking glorified, but failure was socially acceptable”.

That culture grew within an infrastructure that brought together experienced engineers and venture investors with “lawyers, market research firms, consulting companies, public relations companies” and other service providers specialising in the technology industry.

Starting as long ago as the 1930s with the founding of Hewlett-Packard, but especially from the 1970s through the 1990s. That system worked to foster explosive growth and the creation of many of the signature companies of high technology – Intel, Apple and Google among them.

More recently, however, the system has started to look like a caricature of itself, especially as less discerning investors flow in. Risk-taking and failure are not merely the source and outgrowth of ambition, but almost ends in themselves. The system has shown not only that it can pave the way to success, but reinforce fraud and failure by making them seem like milestones along the way.

To attract investors, a company no longer has to demonstrate that it has a working technology or rational business plan, but merely to promise to “disrupt” an established industry. Uber would “disrupt” the taxi industry. Zillow would disrupt homebuying.

How has that worked out? Uber lost US$8.5bil (RM35.58bil) on US$13bil (RM54.41bil) in revenue in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, and lost US$1.5bil (RM6.27bil) on US$11.7bil (RM48.97bil) in revenue in the first nine months of 2021, and still hasn’t shown that it has a path to profitability.

Zillow, which aimed to capture the gains from flipping homes by applying a high-tech algorithm to home valuations, discovered that the concept doesn’t work in markets as complex as residential housing. Last month it shut down its buying and selling business and announced plans to down the value of its remaining inventory by more than US$500mil (RM2.09bil). Its market value has plummeted from nearly US$50bil (RM209.30bil) to US$15.5bil (RM64.88bil).

Theranos presents a perfect example of the pitfalls of the new dynamic.

First, the promise of disruption. In this case, the target was the medical testing industry.

Holmes asserted that medical tests were immensely overpriced, labs operated by leading firms such as Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics were inefficient, and the sheer volume of blood drawn from patients to perform existing tests evoked, as an admirer wrote, “medicine by Bram Stoker”.

By contrast, Holmes said, her tests could cost consumers pennies in relative terms and could be performed on blood volumes that would fit in a container the size of a pain-reliever capsule.

The first journalists to publicise Theranos in 2013 and 2014 made the fundamental error of taking Holmes at her own level of self-esteem.

Joseph Rago, a Wall Street Journal editorial writer, gushed in September 2013 that “Theranos’s technology is automated, standardised, and attempts to subtract human error from the process”, which “means catching disease in its earliest stages before the onset of symptoms”.

Rago quoted Holmes promising “a watershed opportunity to change the trajectory of health costs through price transparency”.

In his Fortune cover story in June 2014 – the piece that really put Holmes and Theranos on the publicity map – Roger Parloff employed the D-word: “Theranos today is a potentially highly disruptive upstart in America’s US$73bil (RM305.57bil) diagnostic lab industry,” he wrote.

He quoted Holmes’ star-struck professor at Stanford University (from which she dropped out to start the company) talking about how at one meeting with Holmes he thought he “could just as well been looking into the eyes of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates”.

Meanwhile, the investment ecosystem had been running at full speed. Among the very first to sign on was former Secretary of State George Shultz, who met Holmes while he was a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution on the Stanford campus.

Shultz joined the Theranos board in 2011. He may have been instrumental in luring other Hoover fellows into the fold, including former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Gen. James Mattis and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

According to John Carreyrou, the Wall Street Journal reporter who finally exposed Theranos, Shultz also brought Theranos to the attention of the Journal editorial board, resulting in Rago’s article.

None of those board members had experience in the biomedical field, but their names alone were enough to give the company credibility. Even veteran venture investors were swayed by the trappings of success.

Carreyrou reported that, on a visit to Theranos headquarters in Palo Alto, the heart of Silicon Valley, the principals of one San Francisco tech investing firm were struck by the tight security on the premises, which signalled to them that Theranos must have something to protect.

Every element of the Silicon Valley ecosystem did its part. In buying their stakes in the private company, venture investors ultimately valued Theranos at a putative US$9bil (RM37.67bil), which led to another wave of adulatory publicity. Holmes owned half of the company, so her net worth could be estimated at US$4.5bil (RM18.83bil). Accordingly, she led the Forbes list of America’s richest self-made women in 2015.

That same year, Time anointed her as one of “the 100 most influential people”, with a blurb bylined by Kissinger. Holmes accepts “only one option: making a difference”, Kissinger wrote. Yet he closed with a curiously qualified judgment: “Others will judge the technical aspects of Theranos, but the social implications are vast.”

That glossed over the obvious point that if the technical aspects of Theranos were fabricated, the social implications might not be too vast – or too positive.

Kissinger, like Shultz and other advocates, seemed to be taken with the charisma of the twentysomething entrepreneur – “striking, somewhat ethereal”, he called her. Her signature all-black outfits á la Jobs and her commandingly deep baritone voice wowed Kissinger, 92 when he wrote his encomium in Time, and Shultz, 92 when he invested, as well as others who met her face-to-face.

The company’s glittery board of directors and self-assured pitch by its founder encouraged investors to ignore the multiple red flags waving over Theranos. Trial evidence pointed to numerous investors who put money into Theranos despite being warned away by experts.

Members of the DeVos family, whose fortune derives from the Amway multi-level marketing company and which includes Donald Trump’s Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, among its members, met with Holmes after the Fortune article appeared.

The family planned to invest US$50 million, jurors were told, but after the meeting raised its stake to US$100 million – in part because the family was led to believe that it was among a handpicked group of investors invited to join in.

Questions had been raised consistently by experts about Theranos’ claims amid the tide of fawning publicity. John P.A. Ioannidis of Stanford Medical School observed for an article in the Journal Of The American Medical Assn. that information about Theranos had appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Fortune and Forbes, “but not in the peer-reviewed biomedical literature”.

In many articles, the company’s choice to develop its technology secretly, as “stealth research”, was treated as a virtue. But to Ioannidis, it presented a risk: “Stealth research creates total ambiguity about what evidence can be trusted in a mix of possibly brilliant ideas, aggressive corporate announcements, and mass media hype.”

Writing in a peer-reviewed journal of clinical chemistry, Eleftherios P. Diamandis, a clinical pathology expert at the University of Toronto, asserted that the company’s pitch was based not merely on exaggerated claims for its own technology, but unwarranted criticism of competing technologies. Most of the tests performed by companies such as Labcorp and Quest cost as little and could be done as quickly as those Theranos was offering, he wrote.

As for the nirvana of personal empowerment produced by on-demand blood tests facilitated by Theranos’ ostensibly quick and easy process and promoted by Holmes in a widely-viewed TED talk, excessive blood testing isn’t universally viewed as a blessing. Holmes argument, Ioannidis asserted, ignored the drawbacks to expanded consumer-driven blood testing, such as “overdiagnosis, false-positive findings, or the potential for... misplaced and perhaps overly zealous diagnostic and screening efforts”.

Fortune’s Parloff, in a mea culpa published two months after the Wall Street Journal’s expose and 18 months after his own cover story, acknowledged that he had been snowed by Holmes, who dodged some of his questions about Theranos technology by citing “trade secrets”. But he conceded that he could have been more sceptical.

“I do believe that I was misled – intentionally,” he wrote. “But I was also culpable, in that I failed to prove certain exasperatingly opaque answers that I repeatedly received.”

How many of the factors that enabled Theranos to raise hundreds of millions of dollars without a workable technology have changed?

None. Investors are still looking for the next big thing, still looking for places to park their millions, still susceptible to superficially persuasive pitches by self-assured confidence schemers, still fearful of being left by the wayside as others pile in.

That’s human nature. The only difference is that the numbers next to the dollar signs are bigger. – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service

(Michael Hiltzik is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.)