The Pros and Cons of Business

He’s a venture capitalist known to crack the core of a begging entrepreneur with a swift and slicing speech; an established brand-builder in the industries of education, computer software and finance, and an overconfident capitalist that once went head-to-head with the berating and uncompromising nature of the late Steve Jobs. He respects his money just as much as he loves the freedom that comes with it, and will never yield to what won’t generate profit.

As co-host of CBC’s The Lang and O’Leary Exchange and unassailable personality on business reality shows Dragons’ Den and its American adaptation Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary is now offering a start-up investment of $100,000 to the frontrunner of his latest venture, Redemption Inc. The prime-time series judges 10 Canadian ex-convicts on their potential to become legitimate entrepreneurs in challenging business settings. Read more

Jian Ghomeshi

City Life Magazine turns the tables on award-winning broadcaster and host of CBS Radio One’s talk program.

CL: Do you believe that someone in your position has a responsibility to give back?

JG: I’ve always been eager to do what I could to create social change; it didn’t come from any sort of ego-driven way. When I was a kid it was more so from the big questions that I had about the world that I couldn’t reconcile and that would really bother me: Why do we live in such an inegalitarian world, why does a woman make 70 per cent of what I make, why does this person get born into poverty and I’m in a middle class suburb? Those are just philosophical questions, something about the way I was brought up and the way I understood the world; it bothered me Read more

Porter Airlines CEO, Robert Deluce

Robert Deluce shows no signs of jet lag after touching down in Toronto just before sunrise. His red eye from California was preceded by a long day of aircraft-fuelled meetings neither distracted nor tempted by the Golden State. When we meet in his office at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport later that afternoon, it becomes apparent that the CEO and president of Porter Airlines isn’t the type of man that mixes business with pleasure, but a man who paradoxically puts forth a company that does.

Deluce gestures warmly towards his office where to the left of his uncluttered desk rests a pile of framed portraits that chronicle his roots and achievements in the aviation industry. Despite their significance, they emit an unpretentious display as they rest on the floor stacked against the walls. Read more

The Tube: London, England’s Underdround

It happens somewhere between a storied London street and a subterranean society that intimidation sets in. I’m studying an intricate map of colour-coded lines, linking and crossing each other like a game of Snakes and Ladders. Choosing dogged pursuit over walking away with my tail between my legs, I duck into a service station to join bobbing tourists on a nexus of travel and history.

England’s London Underground, widely referred to as the Tube, is the oldest of its kind and the busiest in Europe after Moscow and Paris. Much like the octopus of the New York City Subway, the sophistication of the Tube services hundreds of stations across England’s Greater London Area, albeit in a cleaner fashion. Its world-class transit network is the second largest in the world, and like an old, lumbering friend, screeches to a halt for underground visits with Big Ben and St. Paul. Read more

Kim Cattrall and The City

In the dusk of Toronto’s King Street West, the TIFF Bell Lightbox stands aglow as guests hurry in from the cold and into a packed auditorium. The impending event emits a palpable energy that runs between every cushioned seat of the Allan Slaight playhouse.

Within moments, a rapturous applause announces the arrival of Kim Cattrall, who at 55, is no less radiant than when she first began acting as a teenager. She joins the evening’s “In Conversation With … Kim Cattrall” host and CBC senior business correspondent Amanda Lang onstage to partake in a tribute to her career co-presented by TIFF and the Canadian Film Centre. The crowd is soon eating from the palm of her manicured hands. “I can’t believe we’re going to do this in such a short amount of time – I’ve had such a long, long career,” she says with a laugh. “And I remember every single moment.” Read more

Marshall Jay Kaplan, Reaches for the Stars

It’s 3 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon and Marshall Jay Kaplan is in the middle of reviewing an episode of My House Your Money for the W Network, one of five shows he’s produced in recent years, which  includes TLC’s Brides of Beverly Hills and TVTropolis’ Instant Cash. A few hours earlier he received a phone call from a Canadian Forces corporal who wanted to inform him that the base loves his reality show Totally Tracked Down, where Kaplan himself heads to Hollywood and hunts down celebrities from the ’80s and ’90s like Cloris Leachman and Doris Roberts. If we can learn anything from this Vaughan, Ont. resident, it’s that we’re all capable of drawing our own destinies.

Most people would go on to become a doctor after getting a double degree in microbiology and biochemistry, but as you’ll soon discover, Read more

Spice things up with Sheryl Crow

If it makes you healthy, it can’t be that bad. Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow was living the typical rock star life – on the road touring the world as she promoted her latest hits. Her influence on the music industry became undisputable, with nine Grammy awards and other accolades confirming her talent. During that time, though, she was eating on the run, ordering off hotel room service menus, and snacking on chips and Diet Coke in her dressing room. When jolted with the shocking news of breast cancer in 2006, Crow quickly changed her tune. “My cancer diagnosis was a real game changer for me … Never once in my life had I really considered what I put into my body as having a direct connection to my wellness,” she writes in her season-inspired cookbook If it Makes you Healthy (St. Martin’s Press, 2011). Co-authored by produce lover and chef Chuck White, their guide to good food is packed with vitamin and Read more

Q&A: Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida

The insight of a musician is often nuanced by a lyrical approach, with words tumbling into themselves to uncover unspoken thoughts. Times that by two, and an engaging interview with Canadian singer-songwriters Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida transpires. Married to each other and to their craft, the pair has hits like Feels Like Home, Surrounded, Clumsy and Somewhere Out There between them, but the soundtrack to their lives isn’t solely based on music. With Kreviazuk planning her next album, and Maida releasing his upcoming solo and Our Lady Peace records, the two somehow hit a high note in other areas of their lives. Balancing studio time with three kids and an innate approach to philanthropic endeavours, Kreviazuk and Maida have the synchronicity and grace it takes to turn the ugly into something beautiful. Read more

The Midwives Club

Lucy Sanna was pregnant with her second child when her maternal instincts for an alternative care option kicked in. She had mused about midwifery during her first pregnancy, but as other women before and after her, wasn’t so certain about its scope of practice. She wondered about its quality of care, safety and benefits. She wondered if there was a fee. Heeding the referrals of others, she placed a call to a midwifery clinic near her place of work in Etobicoke, Ont. “I was trying to figure out what to do. I have two cousins of mine who went with midwives as well, and they tried to convince me from the beginning with my first [pregnancy] to go, and the second time, I said, ‘that’s it, I’m going to do it,’” recalls the Bolton, Ont. resident. Nine months later, Sanna welcomed a full-term, healthy baby girl she and her husband named Mariah. Read more

Andre Agassi: BREAK, FAULT, LOVE

At his last Wimbledon appearance in 2006, the same tournament that embraced him with his first Grand Slam win, he stepped onto the sacred grounds of the All England Club wearing a necklace given to him by his son, a choker of block letters spelling ‘Daddy Rocks.’ He certainly did cause seismic effect in his young days, juxtaposing the very essence of tennis refinement by sporting hot lava tights, denim shorts and mullet toupees. During that tumultuous period of his life, however, he was just a boy, tormented by his hate for the lonely sport of tennis; a man-child choked by his unfound identity while finding his volleys and fine-tuning his backhand. Long before his departure from the game, the American athlete did break free from breaking convention with the clothes his enthusiasts often imitated; with John Varvatos and the sentimental accessory that spheres his neck now part of his signature look. He didn’t know then who he was as he took centre court, but the sport and his devotees certainly Read more

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