The Insider

Tony Wanless is the Insider, the top BCBusiness all-purpose business analyst and commenter. Each week in BCBusiness, the Insider delivers trenchant wit and startling erudition on the business issues, broad and fine, emerging each day in BC.

February 07, 2012 The Insider: Health and Pharmaceuticals

Digitizing the Health Industry

The sale of Wolf Medical Systems to Telus signals a strategic shift for the big Telco. Instead of simply enabling communication, it appears to be moving into the delivery of specific digital information.

I always love it when a home-grown innovation is recognized. Even sweeter is when it is recognized by a big, home-grown operation.

Last week, it was announced that Wolf Medical Systems, which pioneered electronic medical records in Canada, was purchased by Telus for its new division Telus Physician Solutions. Terms were undisclosed.

Since I’ve had dealings with Wolf’s...

February 03, 2012 The Insider: Personal Finance

Harper's Public Pension Ploy

We sincerely hope Stephen Harper isn't the fanged monster many think he is for proposing to raise the age for the Old Age Supplement. Instead, he may simply have made the first moves in a campaign to realign the retirement support system.

Like many Baby Boomers, I can now see on the horizon the time when I’m going to need a retirement support system. So, of course I am very interested in Stephen Harper’s recent musing about cuts to the old age system.

Harper has been roasted since he announced at the annual banker bash in Devos, Switzerland, that he was thinking of cutting the Old...

January 31, 2012 The Insider: Economy

What Happened to Canada's Economic Strategy?

Lost in the noisy debate about the oil pipeline that's proposed to run through B.C. to Kitimat is an economic policy that we seem to have abandoned as the promise of billions of dollars is dangled in front of us.

You haven't seen anything so far in this space about the Enbridge pipeline because, like many people, I’ve been torn between the factions for and opposed to the pipeline.

We’ve all been subjected to the mountains of verbiage issued by the pro and con pipeline groups. The pro groups cite the billions of dollars in economic benefits to B.C.; the con groups cite the eminent...

January 27, 2012 The Insider: Media, Arts and Entertainment

An Opportunity in Information Exhaustion

There is so much information available to us today that it's impossible for us to assimilate it all. This will give rise to companies that gather information filtered specifically for our own personal interests.

Since I spent so many years working in newsrooms (see “Journosaur,” previous), I have a fondness for old newspaper movies, some of which will be shown at the Vancouver Film Festival...

January 24, 2012 The Insider: Mobile and Wireless

RIM a Victim of Communication Democracy

RIM tumbled to its current humble position because it didn't continue to innovate. Instead, it chose to maintain a closed, imperious system when communication was being democratized.

Elsewhere on this site, you’ll see a blog post by our own Lindsey Peacock that asks what everyone is thinking about Research In Motion’s sudden changing of the guard at the top – is it too little, too late?

But I’d like to take another tack on the RIM problem. It is a problem: an innovation problem.

January 20, 2012 The Insider: Homes and Real Estate

A Different Future for Vancouver Housing

Despite some beliefs that escalating home prices have created a housing bubble, the Vancouver area real estate market is relatively balanced, experts say. But housing may look considerably different in future.

Okay, folks, relax. Vancouver is not in the middle of a housing market bubble.

But it is damned expensive. And it’s going to change to more condos, more rentals and more mixed-use nodes around transit stations.

This from the folks at the Urban Development Institute (UDI), who held their annual market forecast luncheon yesterday. UDI president Don Forsgren told 1200 senior...