Measuring wellbeing

“How are Canadians really doing?” This is the question posed by the first report of the Institute of Wellbeing. Why does it think that we don’t “really” understand Canadians’ wellbeing? Because GDP remains the most common measure, despite the fact that it wasn’t originally intended to be used as such, and that it implies a very narrow idea of what makes life good. Spending on tobacco, natural and human-made disasters, crime and accidents all make GDP go up, but they are hardly signs that Canadians are better off. The Report unveils a better measure, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), in the hope of re-centering public policy and discourse on a more relevant set of priorities.

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Here’s the round-up of the week in the newsfeeds. Below I highlight my favourite articles of the week from each category.

Today’s Top Pick - “Investors Bet on Payments via Cellphone“. Find out more under Business and Entrepreneurship.

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Less radiation for thyroid cancer

Researchers from Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital have presented data at the ENDO 2009 Symposium (in Washington DC) indicating that lower doses of chemotherapy are just as effective as larger doses in adjuvant treatment of thyroid cancer.

Dr. Kumar and colleagues were able to reduce the radiation dose by 70 per cent and maintain the same treatment effect as the standard higher dose.

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Here’s the round-up of the week in the newsfeeds. Below I highlight my favourite articles of the week from each category.

Today’s Top Pick - “Government of Canada Announces $450 Million in New Funding for BDC to Assist Canadian Businesses“. Find out more under Venture Capital.

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Are we locking down on innovation?

The situations in which Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt and senior staff at eHealth Ontario have found themselves in recent weeks have provided the fodder for numerous public accountability headlines. Much has been said about the extent to which a politician must take responsibility for the actions of the civil servants within their portfolios. Absent from this discussion is the inevitable risk that accompanies the triumvirate of change, technology and innovation that is at the centre of these cases.

The danger is that the calls for public accountability encourage risk-aversion and conservative policies. Continuing further down this road would be most unfortunate for Canada.

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Tax talk putting you to sleep?

Flow-through shares… tax credits… income tax act regulations section… maximizing investor potential… qualifying transactions, blah, … Zzzz zzzzzzzzzz. Snore!

Wow, nothing can put a pragmatic, action-oriented cleantech entrepreneur to sleep faster than the tax code. But wake up, cleantech entrepreneurs, the intricacies of flow-through shares might be just the trick to land that key investor.

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Canadians get a Cochrane library card

Last month, Canada joined Australia, Finland, Ireland, India, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom in providing nationwide access to the Cochrane Library, a collection of evidence-based medicine reviews and a critical health sciences resource.

The current pilot project, which runs through the end of 2009, allows all Canadian users to access the complete Cochrane collection from any computer in the country.  The Canadian Health Libraries Association reports that almost 40,000 Canadians were denied access to a Cochrane systematic review in 2007.

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Why do most alliances fail?

This week, John Buckingham drew upon his 30 years of expertise building health care businesses globally in a MaRS Best Practices Series session on effective alliance management, “Partner or Perish: Forging Effective Alliances”.

Alliances are a form of collaboration in which individual organizations retain strategic autonomy while committing resources to a joint activity. The most common types of alliances are formed for operational (e.g. manufacturing) or specific project needs. The right alliance or partnership can help an organization achieve its goals in many different ways: by giving it access to outside expertise, access to flexible resources, reducing its financial risk, and/or increasing its speed of development or of getting to market.

Yet less than 40 per cent of alliances in life sciences meet their objectives.

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Dr. Lorelei and Dr. Rosalind Silverman, Photo by Ashlea Wessel

This morning, I attended an extended citizenship ceremony at MaRS and watched 60 new Canadians swear their oath, while renewing my own oath as a citizen of Canada. It was an emotional ceremony, one that made me feel lucky to have lived here all my life; lucky to be witnessing this group’s first proud moments as citizens.

Wondering why MaRS would be involved in this? I did too. Until, earlier this week, I received an email from Rosalind Silverman-Gavrila and it all became clear. She’s a member of the MaRS community — AND one of this year’s Top 25 Canadian Immigrants. For good reason. She’s an active volunteer as well as acell biologist with a start-up venture.

Intrigued, I interviewed her. This is her story - and the story of why we should all be so welcoming of diversity in our community.

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Oh Canada!

During such tumultuous economic times, positive news is always welcome.  That’s why Canada’s move up four spots to number three on Forbes 4th Annual Best Countries for Business list is such great news.  Forbes analyzed the business climate in 127 countries focusing on degrees of trade and monetary freedom, property rights, innovation, technology, red tape, investor protection, corruption, tax burden and market performance.

Forbes notes, “this is not a tally of economies with high gross domestic product growth, or low unemployment. The goal is to quantify for entrepreneurs and investors the often-qualified information about dynamic economies and what they would consider desirable conditions for business.”

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