The Globe and Mail

Derby’s demise another step in U.K.’s fall from industrialized ranks

Kevin Thomas, a 46-year-old engineer on Bombardier Inc.’s BBD.B-T subway car assembly line, came to work at 6 a.m. Tuesday and was herded into a meeting hall at Britain’s oldest train factory. He and his colleagues all knew what was coming, but the news – the elimination of almost 1,500 of the factory’s 3,000 jobs – still hurt.

“I was gutted,” he said.

Read the full story: Derby’s demise another step in U.K.’s fall from industrialized ranks

Canadian firm makes hay while the sun shines - in Germany

Arise Technologies Corp. APV-T launched in 1996 with the goal of creating Canada’s leading solar energy company.

Over the next decade, the Waterloo, Ont.-based company went public on the Toronto stock exchange and secured about $40-million in funding.

But while it had raised some money and had a great deal of ambition, it lacked the means to turn its idea into reality – it had no factory location in mind, much less enough financing to build one.

Read the full story:Canadian firm makes hay while the sun shines - in Germany

Sprawling Quebec mansion available to highest bidder

There’s an indoor swimming pool, an advanced geothermal heating system, eight bedrooms and a secret passage, but there will be one thing missing when a Quebec mansion hits the auction block next week – an asking price.

The owners of a sprawling estate in Hudson, Que., just west of Montreal, have put their unconditional faith in an American auctioneer to sell the house they have been unable to unload for more than two years through an agent.

They’ll accept whatever the fast-talking auctioneer can coax out of the crowd of potential buyers in a traditional auction Tuesday afternoon on the five-acre property. That means bidders will need to stand before the podium with paddles in their hands, incrementally increasing their bids in an attempt to win the 17,000-square-foot home.

Read the full story: Sprawling Quebec mansion available to highest bidder

Internet firms and broadcasters square off

Channel surfing has taken on a whole new meaning.

Whether it is the dark, dapper Don Draper on Mad Men or the friendly dysfunction of Modern Family, viewers are no longer watching their favourite shows on just a television set. More consumers are using Web-based services for video content – a shift in viewing habits that is rekindling a fight over how television should be regulated and, most importantly, over who should pay the millions of dollars in subsidies that keep Canadian TV production afloat.

Under the current system, both cable and satellite companies and TV broadcasters are required to pay a certain amount of money to fund the production of Canadian programming. But they are competing with new services – most prominent among them Netflix, which now has more than 800,000 Canadian subscribers – that pay nothing.

Read the full story: Internet firms and broadcasters square off