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Minimum Wage in the N.W.T. to Rise to $13.46 per Hour, a 96-cent Raise for Workers

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Minimum wage in the Northwest Territories is set to increase by just under $1 this spring.

Wages will rise to $13.46 per hour from $12.50 per hour starting April 1, Education, Culture and Employment Minister Alfred Moses announced Wednesday.

This rate is still well below what is considered to be a living wage for the Northwest Territories, according to one study. In 2015, Alternatives North released a report stating workers in Yellowknife need to be paid $20 per hour in order to make ends meet.

About 700 people in the territory currently make minimum wage, according to Andy Bevan, assistant deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Moses stated he believes the wage hike will help grow the N.W.T. economy.

“I am confident that this increase will be both good for workers, who will earn a better wage, and good for business, which will be able to attract workers for minimum wage positions,” he stated in a news release.

Minimum wage last increased in the territory in 2015.

In 2013, the former education, culture and employment minister appointed a minimum wage committee to research and inform the minister on wage options. The committee is made up of representatives from business, labour and community organizations across the territory.

In order to determine how much minimum wage should rise in the territory, the committee analyzed the minimum wage in other parts of Canada and how that relates to the cost of living and the state of their economies.

The N.W.T. government reviews minimum wage every two years.

Minimum wages across Canada:

Alberta — $13.60

British Columbia — $11.35

Manitoba — $11.15

New Brunswick — $11

Newfoundland and Labrador — $11

Nova Scotia — $10.85

Nunavut — $13

Ontario — $14

Prince Edward Island — $11.25

Quebec — $11.25

Saskatchewan — $10.96

Yukon — $11.32

CIBC report says strength in job market even better than headlines suggest

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A “Help wanted” sign is seen in the window of a bakery in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, November 2, 2017.

TORONTO — A report by CIBC says the recent strength in Canada’s labour market runs deeper than just the 420,000 jobs added last year.

CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal says the economy also saw average wage earnings grow and the creation of more higher-paying jobs last year than low-paying ones.

CIBC also notes that youth unemployment rate has been falling faster than the unemployment rate among adults.

Statistics Canada reported last week that the unemployment rate ended last year at its lowest point in more than 40 years as job creation in 2017 reached a pace not seen in a calendar year since 2002.

Tal says the Canadian job market is well positioned to face tests this year, such as minimum wage hikes and the ongoing NAFTA negotiations.

Anonymous Donor Gives Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Record $100M

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Investment will be used to attract talent, support research

An anonymous gift of $100 million to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto will create the Discovery Fund to support next-generation scientists conducting research aimed at directly transforming care.

Canada’s largest mental health hospital has been given $100 million by an anonymous donor, with the goal of developing cures for psychiatric conditions that affect almost seven million Canadians.

The gift to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto will create the Discovery Fund to support next-generation scientists conducting research aimed at directly transforming care. CAMH says it is the largest donation made toward mental health research in Canadian history.

CAMH president and CEO Dr. Catherine Zahn said the money will be invested in fundamental research and clinical innovation to improve the mental health of individuals in Canada and around the world.

Zahn said the fund will enable CAMH to develop the next generation of leading early- and mid-career scientists.

The money will also allow CAMH to foster research focused on understanding disease mechanisms, improving diagnosis, and new ways to predict, prevent and recover from mental illness.

Darrell Louise Gregersen, head of the CAMH Foundation, said such philanthropy is helping to change the future of mental illness.

“We are eternally grateful to this donor for investing $100 million in our capacity to generate world-leading discovery, and to invest in some of the high-risk, high-reward research that usually doesn’t get top funding priority,” she said.

At the CAMH announcement, a former patient of the facility shared his personal story of struggling and overcoming clinical depression and the importance of research to advance mental healthcare.

“No one knows what the next breakthrough treatment of mental illness will be, but we all know that it is donations such as this one that will make it possible,” said Tom Churchill.

“I send a heartfelt thanks to the donor… thanks from me and thanks on behalf of all the people who this funding will help over the coming years.”

LG and SideChef Aim to Sync Recipes with Smart Home Integration

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The innovative cooking app SideChef already made entries into the smart home market earlier this year when it announced a new app for Sharp’s smart connected home appliances. Now SideChef is taking a similar approach with LG Electronics, for whom SideChef will provide seamless recipe integration that works with LG ovens’ smart commands.

In addition to SideChef’s built-in features, including voice commands, timers and step-by-step photos and videos, LG’s smart kitchen appliance — powered by the manufacturer’s proprietary LG SmartThinQ technology — will automatically preheat, adjust temperatures and cooking duration based on each step in the recipe. It’s not quite, “Alexa, cook dinner!” but this is certainly a step in that direction.

SideChef is available for free on both iOS and Android devices, and claims to have inspired over 1 million meals and cooking sessions in home kitchens around the world. The app itself can access over 5,000 SideChef recipes from more than 300 experts who range from Michelin-starred chefs to culinary celebrities.

The cooking app company has been branching out since it launched in August 2015 with partnerships with dozens of cooking blogs as well as The Campbell Soup Company and subscription services Plated, Blue Apron and Chef’d. Earlier this year, the SideChef team launched an IndieGoGo campaign to launch “Chip,” a smart cookie oven, raising nearly $125,000.

“Our goal at SideChef has always been to build a seamless cooking experience that inspires users every time they head into the kitchen, we’re thrilled to bring this to the next era with advances in the open network format we’ve adopted with world-class partners such at LG,” said founder/CEO of SideChef, Kevin Yu. “Together we bridge the hurdle of ‘how-to-cook’ with savvy smart kitchen appliance controls that give home cooks consistently foolproof results at every meal, which not only allows anyone to conquer the kitchen, but for them to become a ‘side chef.’”

LG is showcasing its smart ovens and ranges already integrated with SideChef at CES 2018 this week, with plans to bring select models to market later this year.

“With the most extensive range of Wi-Fi enabled appliances available today, LG appliances with SmartThinQ technology are delivering cutting-edge performance and convenience to make life good. Our collaboration with SideChef helps consumers enjoy great meals at home while getting the most out of their LG appliances,” said Chul Lee, senior vice president for LG Electronics. “Partnerships with leaders like SideChef are possible because LG offers a future-ready open platform, enabling LG to work with a range of advanced partners to make life easier and more enjoyable.”

Top Google Recruiter: Google Uses This ‘Shocking’ Strategy to Hire the Best Employees

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When it comes to hiring, most companies use this standard formula: You speak with an HR representative, you interview with your potential boss, you may meet with other senior level employees within the company and then one person makes the final hiring decision.

Google takes a different approach that may “shock” some, according to a Google Partners podcast. The company’s global staffing lead and senior recruiter Lisa Stern Haynes says that the tech giant is able to employ the very best because a group of people have to agree on each person that’s hired.

A hiring manager can say no to an applicant for any reason, says Haynes. On the flip side, a hiring manager cannot single-handedly give the “final yes” to extend a job offer. All suitable candidates must be passed along to a hiring committee for review.

“When managers come to Google for the first time and hear this, especially after years and years of having it a very different way at their previous companies, they’re shocked,” says Haynes.

But the tech giant stands by its strategy of making hiring decisions through a team consensus. “Research tells us that team’s that have diverging opinions can make better less biased decisions. And that also applies to the way we make hiring decisions too,” Haynes explains.

The senior recruiter admits that utilizing a hiring committee does slow down the hiring process, although this approach is beneficial for the company in the long run. Haynes explains that you often see employers rushing to settle for a candidate because of time pressure, or even hiring someone due to a preexisting relationship or as a favor to someone.

This can lead to a bad hire, which has a really “long lasting negative effect on a team or a company’s culture,” says Haynes. “It’s way better to take the time and go through a very robust hiring committee on the front end and then identify the best possible candidate the first time around.”

The hiring committees at Google are usually made up of leaders in the specific organization doing the hiring. Members serve on the committee for three to six months before being rotated out of the committee. However, the individual hiring manager is not part of the committee, which Haynes says new managers also find surprising.

Here’s how hiring decisions are made, she says: The hiring manager first interviews the candidate and then fills out a hiring packet that includes things like the detailed interview feedback, the recruiter’s notes from the initial conversation, internal references if the person knows someone at Google and external references if the person has submitted professional references.

The hiring manager then passes this review on to the independent committees. The best part of this chain, says Haynes, is that unlike the hiring manager, committee members are removed from the urgency of selecting someone and are able to judge the applicant based solely on merit.

“They’re like a layer of objectivity and they’re looking to see does this person match the qualification for this immediate role at hand,” says the lead recruiter. “Also, are they gonna be a good fit for the organization as a whole for the longer term,”

This is particularly important for a company like Google in which employees jump from team to team and from role to role. In fact, Haynes says that the company values applicants who are problem-solvers and who have a “general cognitive ability” over role-related knowledge because positions are constantly shifting.

“If you think about how quickly Google changes, if you just hire someone to do one specific job but then our company needs change, we need to be rest assured that that person is going to find something else to do at Google,” she says. “That comes back to hiring smart generalists.”

Should You Buy Cenovus Energy Inc. or Crescent Point Energy Corp. Today?

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Oil continues to move higher, and investors are wondering which stocks might offer some big upside potential in 2018.

Let’s take a look at Cenovus Energy Inc. (TSX:CVE)(NYSE:CVE) and Crescent Point Energy Corp. (TSX:CPG)(NYSE:CPG) to see if one is attractive right now.

Cenovus

Cenovus had a rough time in 2017. The stock started last year near $20 and bottomed out below $10 per share last summer.

Falling oil prices through the first half of the year contributed to part of the drop, but Cenovus also took a hit after it made a major acquisition.

What happened?

The company bought out its oil sands partner, ConocoPhillips, for $17.7 billion. The deal appeared to make sense, as Cenovus already operated the assets and instantly doubled its production and oil sands reserves.

Cenovus also picked up some attractive properties in the Deep Basin plays located in Alberta and British Columbia.

The market, however, frowned upon the deal and hammered the stock. Investors didn’t like the fact that Cenovus had taken on a $3.6 billion bridge loan to help cover the purchase price while it shopped non-core assets.

As it turns out, WTI oil rallied off its June low of US$43 per barrel, and Cenovus found buyers for several of its legacy assets. The sales are enough to cover the bridge loan, and Cenovus is focusing on driving more efficiency into the business.

At the time of writing, the stock only trades at $13 per share, even though WTI oil is back above US$63 per barrel. A year ago, Cenovus sold for $19.50, and WTI oil was about US$51, so it might still be oversold.

Crescent Point

Crescent Point was a $45 stock back in 2014 when WTI oil traded for US$100 per barrel. Today, investors can pick it up for less than $11 per share.

As with Cenovus, there could be more upside on the way, especially if oil holds or extend its gains. A year ago, Crescent Point traded for $17.

The company just reported a 10% increase in production for year-end 2017 compared to 2016. Management is targeting an additional 7% gain in 2018. Rising oil prices could boost cash flow enough to support increases to the capital plan and help maintain the existing dividend, which provides a yield of 3.3%.

Crescent Point’s debt has been a concern for some investors, but the company remains well within its lending covenants and is selling some non-core assets to shore up the balance sheet. The improved conditions in the market should help the company get better prices for the properties.

Is one more attractive?

Pundits have mixed opinions about the sustainability of the oil rally, so investors should take a cautious approach. However, if you are an oil bull, both stocks could certainly deliver some strong additional gains, even after the recent recoveries off the 2017 lows.

As a contrarian bet, I would probably split a new investment between the two names today.