Category: Spring 1995

By last spring many in the industry knew that Confederation Life was in dire financial trouble. Only four years earlier the company had posted earnings above $100 million. But by 1992 those profits had dropped to $1.9 million, and last year the company lost $29 million. Oddly, the Report on Insurance that ran in The… Continue reading Report on Silver Linings

The job listing posted in the student lounge at Ryerson’s journalism school sounded great: it invited “university graduates interested in working in the magazine industry” to apply of a position that would offer experience in “many aspects of magazine production including story conferences, post-mortem and production meetings, fact-checking, copy-editing.” To qualify, applicants had to come… Continue reading All Work, No Pay

For eight weeks last fall, there bruised and angry faces glared menacingly down on passersby from 30 massive billboards around Toronto. The four police-lineup-style mug shots—of an Asian and black man, and two white men, one of whom could be taken as Latino— were stamped with the word “deported” in large red block letters. Underneath,… Continue reading An Ominous Sign

It was the kind of suppertime news story that suspended your fork somewhere between your plate and mouth. It wasn?t a “big” story about “big” names. No dove-releasing picnic of brotherly love hosted by Arafat and Rabin; no prime-ministerial tantrums on Parliament Hill. In fact, what pushed this story to the top of three Toronto… Continue reading Crime-Time News

As Cecil Foster talks about his career, the pain in his voice is haunting. During his dozen years in journalism he has worked as The Globe and Mail , The Financial Post, The Toronto Star, and CBC TV and Radio, written dozens of magazine pieces and two nonfiction books due out later this year, and… Continue reading Too White