Blog

By Anita Anand

Published in the Globe and Mail on February 21, 2014

Board diversity is a hot topic in corporate Canada. With various European countries passing mandatory quota legislation to increase the number of women on boards and our federal and provincial governments calling for a balanced gender complement, regulators have faced increasing pressure to take a close look at the issue.

But recent evidence suggests that Canadian companies are already responding by voluntarily making changes around the boardroom table. Executive search firm Spencer Stuart has released a study indicating that Canadian companies may be surpassing their American counterparts in women’s representation on boards.

In 2011, the two countries were neck and neck, with 17 per cent women directors on the boards of Canada’s 100 largest companies and comparable U.S. firms. In 2013, Canadian companies were up to 20 per cent, while the U.S. percentage remained unchanged.

This is good news, but should not be confused with the overall picture. For example, of the 445 firms that responded to a recent consultation by the Ontario Securities Commission, nearly 60 per cent did not have a single woman director on their board.

From the Dean of the Faculty of Law

I am writing to provide you with an update regarding our building project. 

Extensive demolition of affected portions of Bora Laskin has occurred since the start of this academic year; indeed much of Bora Laskin is now totally unrecognizable as you will see from the photos on our construction blog site. Although construction has started, for reasons beyond our control it has proceeded somewhat slower than we had hoped. I wanted you to know that we have been working very closely with the University central administration and the project team to ensure that our building project moves ahead as quickly as possible. The results have been positive and we expect that a much more intensive phase of construction will begin shortly. This phase will pose more disruption in the Flavelle House and Bora Laskin area and I will ensure that you are aware when activities ramp up significantly.

Winning poker players face a tough decision every April—to report or not to report. If they choose not to report their poker winnings as income, they may be on the wrong side of the tax law. If they are found to be professional poker players, they will face interest and penalties in addition to the tax they would otherwise have had to pay on their net winnings. Moreover, they may forever face a higher risk of unpleasant tax audits from the CRA. On the other hand, if they report their poker winnings as income, the CRA will be happy for them to pay tax on their winnings. But by volunteering to pay, they may regard themselves as patsies. The taxation of gambling winnings is a grey area in tax law, and no self-respecting poker player wants to be a patsy.

With a recent judgment by the Federal Court in Radonjic, tax matters are now a little more certain, predictable and fair for winning poker players. Of course, Canadian gamblers have long known that generally their losses are not deductible and gains are not included in income. The grey area surrounds an idea that the courts have also embraced, which is that professional gamblers are taxable on winnings. The courts have yet to find that a poker player is a taxable professional, leaving winning players in the confounding dilemma of deciding whether to report or not to report. This is where the recent Federal Court decision in Radonjic (2013) comes in to clarify matters.