The Globe and Mail - Derek DeCloet Columns

Energy, carbon taxes and the winds of change

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

The newish Terminal 1 at Toronto's Pearson International Airport - light, bright, and cavernous in size - is a monument to the power of debt and to grand visions of the future. Five years ago, when phase one of the $3.6-billion facility received its first passengers on an Air Canada flight from Vancouver, its promoters rhapsodized about how wonderful it was, then turned their attention to the next step of their expansion scheme. Pearson, they boldly predicted, would need to be big enough to handle 50 million people a year by 2020. (It's at 32 million today.)

Silent Heinz and the lost billions

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:00 EDT

ddecloet@globeandmail.comHeinz Schimmelbusch did not smile, did not stray from his script, did not throw verbal punches at his detractors. He didn't apologize - didn't give anything, really, other than bland remarks about how it's the economy's fault and everything will be better some day.

Silent Heinz and the lost billions

Fri, 15 May 2009 19:17 EDT

Timminco story looks like it's coming unglued

Campbell's next test: a new economic vision

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00 EDT

ddecloet@globeandmail.comThe warm breeze that blew in from the West the other night was the product of several thousand Vancouver business executives exhaling simultaneously. Their man, Gordon Campbell, led the B.C. Liberals to a comfortable win in the provincial election, despite a few polls that said it might be tight. Sweet relief.

Say on pay? How undignified

Tue, 12 May 2009 07:14 EDT

Don't expect mutal fund companies to demand changes in the way executives are paid

Just don't call it an 'investment'

Sat, 9 May 2009 00:00 EDT

ddecloet@globeandmail.comOntario's point man on the automotive bailout was on a flight back to Toronto from Vancouver when a fellow passenger quizzed him about the work he was doing on his laptop. ''Is that your undergraduate thesis?'' she asked Michael Bryant, who is 43 years old.

Shaw's TV deal is all about the optics

Sat, 2 May 2009 00:00 EDT

ddecloet@globeandmail.comHow small is the television station in Wingham, Ont.? ''Let's just say I heard the phone ring down the hall when you called,'' quips the pleasant woman from the advertising department. Correction: the pleasant woman who is the advertising department.

When failure is the right course of action

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00 EDT

ddecloet@globeandmail.comThe biggest failure of Barack Obama's first 100 days of managing the banking crisis? Simple: There wasn't enough failure.On inauguration day, the new U.S. President said the battered economy was suffering from ''our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.'' Since that bright January afternoon, 27 American banks collapsed under the weight of toxic assets and bad mortgages and were seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). That's more than the number that failed in George W. Bush's entire first term.

The U.S. days as Automobile Nation are done

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:00 EDT

ddecloet@globeandmail.comIn better days for Detroit, when only flakes and weirdos drove Hondas, a man could take a job at General Motors GM and feel like he was set till retirement. That might be one of the reasons the place is in the state that it's in, come to think of it. From the top, it's full of lifers and people who've known only the GM way and who cut their teeth in an industry their company, despite itself, ruled.