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Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Quebec tables bill to begin removing interprovincial trade barriers
Quebec has introduced legislation to start taking down barriers that frustrate interprovincial trade, the latest province to take such action as Canada's political leaders hunt for ways to boost economic growth to counter U.S. tariffs. Christopher Skeete, Quebec's minister for the economy, tabled a bill Friday that facilitates the trade of goods from other provinces and the territories of Canada through a unilateral recognition of product manufacturing standards. This means goods from outside Quebec legally 'commercialized, used or consumed' inside the province without complying with any additional regulations. The bill gives the government the power to exclude some goods from the effort, however, and it has to make those exceptions public. Opinion: How to win a trade war A second piece of the proposed legislation touches on labour mobility. It aims to reduce bureaucratic requirements and make it easier for workers in other provinces who have professional certification to have those credentials recognized in Quebec. Boosting interprovincial trade is 'a priority, particularly in our current climate of uncertainty,' Mr. Skeete said in a statement. 'Our actions will allow us to build an ever more resilient and productive economy without compromising our values and what sets us apart." Premiers, federal politicians and business leaders across the country have been discussing opening up trade within Canada to shore up the country's economy, amid the loss of access to U.S. markets because of the current and potential future tariffs imposed by the White House on Canadian goods. Quebec is the fifth province to introduce or adopt bills aiming to eliminate trade barriers, following Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Manitoba also tabled legislation but it's not as comprehensive as that of the other provinces, according to the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), a free-market think tank. Quebec's bill is 'a major breakthrough for interprovincial trade,' said Gabriel Giguère, MEI senior policy analyst. Still, he warned that the longer its list of exceptions is, the more limited the benefits will be. Eliminating all trade barriers between Quebec and all other Canadian provinces could boost Canada's gross domestic product by $69.9-billion, the MEI estimates. The elimination of trade barriers between Quebec and Ontario alone could boost the country's GDP by $32.2-billion, it says.
Forbes
24-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
From AI Productivity To Organizational Power: An AI Era Blueprint
Using a Large Language Model is More Like Playing This Organ Than a Spreadsheet Wanamaker organ. I interact with many organizations and five consistent questions arise: This is the first of a three part series that will attempt to answer these questions for business leaders. The advice will be humble because things are moving so quickly, executives must act, but also remain curious and flexible. Globally there are billions of dollars flowing into AI. Every nation state sees that AI is central to national defense, and machines learn faster than humans. This flurry of factors means innovation in AI and the symbiosis of people and machines is going to accelerate at an accelerating rate. Generative AI has rapidly moved from novelty to necessity, with over one third of workers willing to pay for the tools themselves. In a recent blog post Ethan Mollick noted that even thought the research shows individual level productivity of 10-40% or more, firms realize much lower levels of at the organizational level. This gap isn't merely about technology readiness. It's about leadership, learning, and strategic integration. In the rush to adopt AI, many organizations are missing the deeper transformation required to turn individual speed into institutional acceleration. To bridge this divide, leaders need a new playbook for preparedness—centered on four critical imperatives: Content, Capability, Community, and Curation. In the Genenerative AI age, leaders can no longer rely on their traditional content diet. AI changes too fast. The best ideas now emerge not just from Harvard Business Review or McKinsey reports but from research labs, GitHub repositories, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, expert newsletters, research papers, product announcements and many other sources. There is robust scientific evidence that people with more expertise in an area perceive the world in a new way. My former colleague Prof. Jim Cash used to call this more educated perspective, 'visual literacy'. Leaders who are not schooled in what is happening in AI just can't see the opportunities and possibilities. Therefore, if you want your organization to understand the potential for AI, you need to read and consume new information and inputs. The goal isn't technical mastery—it's strategic literacy. Content Changes Minds Leaders Need New Content sources AI-literate leaders ask better questions. They spot emerging opportunities faster. And crucially, they model curiosity for the rest of the organization. You need to change the content you consume before you can change the context in which you lead. Working with a large language model is not like implementing a technology, it's more like playing an enormously complex instrument. If you walked up to the Midmer-Losh organ at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City New Jersey has 33,112 pipes, 7 keyboards, hundreds of stops, and over a dozen foot pedals and play chopsticks on the middle keyboard, it's not that impressive. The reason it's not impressive is your lack of playing ability, not the quality of the instrument. The only solution for this is to have hands on experience for everyone in the firm – especially the senior management team and the board. Leaders Build New Skills – To Win A New Race Knowledge and Know How Are Critical For The Entire Leadership Team Capability-building must be enterprise-wide. Some firms are launching 'AI centers of excellence.' Others pair junior 'AI natives' with senior managers to cross-train. All should ensure that learning is active, continuous, and contextual—focused not just on the tool, but also its use in the firm. As Generative AI reshapes job roles, the capability gap becomes a bottleneck. The future belongs to AI-complemented workers, not just AI-aware ones. In fast-moving domains like AI, no single organization can learn fast enough alone. That's why executives must foster internal and external learning communities—spaces where employees, peers, and partners can share use cases, prompts, failures, and insights. Internally, this might mean AI guilds, cross-functional prompt libraries, or weekly 'show-and-tell' sessions. Externally, it means plugging into peer forums, academic collaborations, conferences and vendor ecosystems. AI Communities Amplify Learning Leaders Learn From Leaders Crucially, these communities should include both technical and non-technical voices. The best Generative AI ideas often come from unexpected places—an HR manager using GPT to rewrite job descriptions, or a field technician using vision models to pre-screen repairs. Communities not only accelerate learning—they amplify culture. They signal that AI is not a top-down mandate, but a shared frontier. Most organizations are still using Genenerative AI tools as consumer products—ChatGPT for writing emails, Midjourney for visuals. But the future of enterprise AI lies in curated stacks of specialized tools, integrated with workflows, data, and business logic. Few organizations are happy with simply waiting for their main vendor, whether it is Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, or others, to serve all their AI needs. The innovation lanscape is just too varied and wide. You Can't Just Wait For Big Suppliers To Move You Fast Enough The World Is Abuzz With Innovation: Curate a Wider Network of Supply. Executives must curate their own ecosystem of AI suppliers strategically. That means identifying best-in-class tools (from copilots to agents to orchestration layers), vetting vendors for security and compliance, and creating internal 'AI marketplaces' for easy access. Equally important is curating the right partnerships. Collaborate with startups, integrate open-source models, engage with AI research hubs. The supply chain of intelligence is changing—don't wait for the big consultancies to catch up. Also, you will need to have a group of main stream big suppliers as well as a network of small innovators. Remember: every supplier choice you make either accelerates or inhibits transformation. The first productivity revolution is personal. The second must be AI era won't reward passive adopters. Organizations that treat Generative AI as a set of apps will see temporary productivity bumps—followed by competitive obsolescence. Those that lead strategically, through the 4 Cs (Content, Capability, Community, and Curation) of AI Preparedness, will not only boost productivity but reinvent how they operate. Leaders who embrace this moment with intentionality will shape the future of their organizations—not just survive it.
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AI Helps Fuel New Wave Of Creative Destruction
Will AI wipe away cobwebs from business thinking? In the late 1990s-early-2000s timeframe, the term 'creative destruction' came into vogue, as digital-native businesses swept away cobwebs in their respective markets, spurring an ensuing wave of re-invention across established companies. Now, some say artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era of creative destruction – but what exactly is being creatively destroyed, and what's replacing it? And is it on the level of the digital and e-commerce wave of the 1990s and early 2000s? We are entering a new period of creative destruction, claim the authors of a recent study of 2,000 business leaders by the IBM Institute for Business Value. As AI proliferates, 'it's burning away outdated habits that suffocate growth,' they noted. 'While it's unclear what exactly will emerge from the ashes, this reset makes room for fresh ideas to flourish.' Tellingly, 68% of leaders say AI changes aspects of their business that they consider 'core,' the survey finds. As a result, leaders are rethinking everything—"from the products and services they offer to how they run their business. And this creative destruction is redefining entire markets," the IBM authors stated. 'Manufacturers aren't just making things anymore,' they explained. "They're retooling their operations to become software companies – developing AI-powered predictive maintenance solutions that optimize product performance and customer outcomes. Retailers aren't just selling products. They're asking their teams to sell experiences—making AI-enabled immersive and personalized engagement essential." A number of industry leaders aren't just concurring with the IBM report's conclusions – they are living them. Jim McCullen, chief technology officer at Century Supply Chain Solutions, for example, is seeing a shift away from an emphasis on AI productivity and toward autonomous decision-making, negotiation, and self-evolving logistics ecosystems across trading networks. Imagine, for example, self-reconfiguring supply chains that can reroute around global trouble spots, tariff zones, or weather events. "Instead of tweaking existing logistics networks, AI could design entirely new trade routes, distribution hubs, and manufacturing locations based on real-time market shifts, bypassing traditional constraints,' McCullen predicted. Another example of creative destruction is autonomous negotiation systems, McCullen continued. 'AI-powered agents could handle contract negotiations between shippers, carriers, and suppliers without human intervention. Freight rates, capacity planning, and even trade agreements could be optimized dynamically, shifting logistics from a reactive to a predictive model.' There will likely be three distinct stages of the AI-driven creative destruction process that will extend over the next decade, said Amir Barsoum, founder and managing partner at InVitro Capital, an AI-focused venture studio: At the same time, much of the creative destruction ahead may not be loud and attention-grabbing --rather, it may take the form of a more 'quiet evolution,' said Bryan Sapot, vice president of smart factory at Nulogy. Make sure there is a well-designed replacement before tearing down older technology and processes, he urged. "AI is overhyped and due for a reset in which manufacturers recognize it isn't a magic solution,' he said. 'AI isn't going to design your ERP from scratch and it isn't going to take over factories,' Sapot continued. 'But it can quietly make individual processes -- maintenance, quality, diagnostics -- smarter and faster.' This takes the right data, and building a supportive framework is going to take a number of years, he added. Business leaders in the IBM report also signaled caution before leaping into AI transformation, with only 25% of AI initiatives having delivered expected ROI over the last few years. A majority, 64%, acknowledge that the risk of falling behind drives investment in some technologies before they have a clear understanding of the value they bring to the organization. Only 37% say it's better to be 'fast and wrong' than 'right and slow' when it comes to adoption. The IBM report's authors urged leaders of even the most established organizations to think like start-ups. 'Be willing to break with the past. Lean into what you want your business to look like in three years – even if it seems impossible today.' Part of this involves taking a product development approach to transformation, "encouraging teams to quickly adopt new strategies, measure their success, and then iterate based on what they've learned to avoid executing on outdated long-term plans."
The Sun
16-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
Cheap train fare schemes pushed by eco-idiots & WFH brigade is insanity – hardworking taxpayers are left to foot bill
I NORMALLY try to write about things that interest the maximum number of readers. Which is why I rarely cover railway ticket prices, or Scotland. But this week, the subject matter is railway ticket prices, in Scotland. 5 5 Back in 2023, the far left idealogues that run things up there decided to abolish peak-time rail fares. They said this £40million government-funded scheme would cut car use and make everyone happy. And naturally, it didn't work. The number of people using trains went up by just 6.8 per cent. And most of that increase was down to a small number of rich commuters using the train more often. Car use across the country wasn't affected at all. So, the following year, the idea was shelved. You'd imagine that would be that. Aha. But it's politicians we are talking about here, so guess what. It's back. They admit that they tried it, and that it failed. And now they're going to do it again. It's literally the definition of insanity. Trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Needless to say, everyone up there in whisky land seems to be delighted. Eco mentalists say that round-the-clock cheap fares are good for the environment. Business leaders say that it'll help stamp out the practice of working from home. Which is another way of saying 'working from the coffee shop and the gym'. Or 'not working at all'. Obviously, the commuters are thrilled too. And so are the trade unions. In fact, it's hard to find anyone who thinks it's a bad idea. Except me. Because we already know the idea doesn't work. They need passenger numbers to increase by ten per cent to make the scheme self-funding. And that, when they tried it out a year ago, didn't happen. So who's going to pay the shortfall? Yes, you've guessed it. The taxpayer. And as there are only 2.6million people in Scotland who pay income tax, most of the money will have to come from England. This means that if you're a refuse collector in Luton or a nurse in Wolverhampton or a brickie in Huddersfield, some of the money you pay in tax each month is being used to make a Scottish lawyer's weekly trip from Glasgow to Edinburgh a little bit cheaper. What worries me even more is that politicians in Westminster may look at what's happening north of the border and decide we should have a similar system in England. So they'll nationalise the railways, bring back the British Rail sandwich and end up paying every driver more than most Premier League footballers. Then we'll have Ed Sillyband banging on about how it'll contribute to net zero and everyone with pink hair and a Hamas flag will be having street parties to celebrate the return of the 1970s. And they'll expect people who can't use the train — because there's no suitable station nearby — to pay for those who can. It's communism. Sounds great on paper. Doesn't work. PLAN'S ENDED UP IN L 5 When they were first elected, the Starmerites promised that to clear the backlog of people waiting for a driving test, they'd increase the number of tests available every month by 10,000. And guess what? Figures released this week show that the number of people waiting for a driving test has shot up by 80,000 and has now, for the first time ever, broken through the 600,000 barrier. I know. It's hard to believe isn't it? Starmer and his cronies promised something and then didn't bother delivering. Amazing. Except I don't think the waiting lists are a result of government hopeless-ness. Because think about it. The No1 aim of the mad fools who run the country these days is Net Zero. And nothing cuts the number of polluting cars on the road more than not allowing anyone to drive one. SO, David Lammy, who's our Foreign Secretary, says that the man who drove him from a meeting in Italy to a ski resort in France, tried to charge him for the fare twice. And the man at the wheel says he didn't. It really is a case of 'he says this, and he says that', and I guess we'll never know the truth. What baffles me, though, is why anyone would use a taxi for a six-hour, 350-mile drive from the far side of Italy to the French Alps. Anyone who saw Lammy on Celebrity Mastermind knows he's a bit thick. ALE FOR WHAT AILS US 5 AS I'm sure you know, health and wellness enthusiasts always have a miracle cure for whatever ailment you might have. And it's never 'try eating pork scratchings'. Or 'the best cure for syphilis is beer'. They always say you should drink something revolting, like wheatgrass or some kind of liquidised mushroom. Or they tell you to eat magnesium. Which is what they used to make the gearbox casing in a Ford Focus for God's sake. How can eating that cure anything? Just recently, I've been suffering at night from cramp. And a girl who works at a gym said I could cure that by drinking 'water'. Rubbish. Have you seen what it does to the bottom of a boat? The cure for cramp, as most sensible people know, is to leap out of bed and hop about, while swearing. BAN THE RIDERS THERE were calls this week from a road safety group to reduce the speed limit in cities and on country roads to 10mph. The Road Safety Foundation, which has a website and everything, says no one should ever die as a consequence of wanting to go somewhere. Right. So why not lower the speed limit everywhere to one mph. Or give everyone a Formula One car. You can crash those things into a wall at 180 and walk away. Or if you are really serious about cutting the number of deaths on the road to zero, start with this: ban cycling. MY CAR GOES A LOT FASTER WHEN IT'S SUPPERCHARGED 5 BOFFINS announced this week that if you listen to 'fast' music like Queen 's Don't Stop Me Now in the car, you will drive more quickly than if you listen to something slow and Billy Joelish. Put Judie Tzuke's Stay With Me Till Dawn on the stereo and you'll never go faster than three mph. Go for Kenny Loggins' Footloose, which has 174 beats per minute, and you'll be home before you set off. No s**t, Sherlock. For me though, the most dangerous music I listen to in the car is prog rock. Because the drive from my farm to my pub is 8.5 miles, along some of the most beautiful and exciting driving roads in the country. And what I like to do is see if I can complete the journey in the time it takes to play just one track. Easy with Mike Oldfield's Amarok, which goes on for an hour. Trickier with ELP's Pirates at 13 minutes. But I did manage it the other day before Supper's Ready by Genesis was over. That was 23 minutes of tremendous driving and great music. I've lost you haven't I? Sorry.
CBC
15-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Alberta business experts say talk of separation is adding to economic uncertainty
Merely raising the topic of a referendum on separation could deter investment in Alberta, say economists and business leaders.
