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Presents the fifty finalists in Arthur Andersen & Co.'s survey of Canada's best-managed private companies. Importance of customer service and employee morale; ABCO Group Ltd.; Sarsfield Foods Ltd.; ADI Ltd.; More. INSET: The finalists..

Explains how Canada's pulp and paper makers have grown fat on cheap trees, cheap power and political largesse, and describes how to make them more competitive in the 90s. Niche marketing; Embracing new technologies; Diversification; Modernization; Environmental pressure; What is weakening the industry; Integration; Globalization; Conservation.

Presents the Canadian Business 500, a list of the top 500 companies in Canada. Includes their sales, net income, percent return on equity etc.

Discusses conflicting perspectives between labor and management in Canada. Labor bargaining for wage gains based on past performance; Management concerned for global competition and Mexico-US trade relations; Need for a long-term perspective.

Discusses Japanese investment in Canadian industry. Low percentage share; Japanese corporate interests widely dispersed; Developing Japanese investment in natural resources, high technology, automobiles, and real estate. INSET: How Canada stacks up; The five big winners; Three studies in....

Examines market forecasts for baby boomers in Canada. Exotic travel holidays; Sports equipment; Nostalgia; Family-oriented values; Distinction and quality.

Examines the reasons corporate profit margins in Canada are continuing to tighten and how the temporary improvement in the competitiveness index will affect them. Modest labor cost increases; Industrial prices decline; Cutback in capital spendingplans.

Looks at the various aspects of moving at least part of a Canadian business into the United States. Location; Visas; Taxes; Labor; Public relations; Example.

Explores the growing Canadian trend of branch-plant managers who are borrowing money to buy the companies they were hired to run. As a result, special investment pools are originating to provide financing for MBO (management buyout) deals. Advantages of MBOs over company start-ups; Role of advisers and bankers in MBOs; Examples of companies that have undergone an MBO. INSET: Are you tough enough to swing an MBO?.

Lists the 50 fastest growing public companies in Canada. Reasons some companies left the list; Rules for inclusion in list; Manufacturing companies on list.

Editorial. Argues that current calls for educational reform in Canada are laudable but that the goals and methods of education remain pretty much the same, regardless of efforts to change them.

Looks at how charities in Canada are being negatively affected by the economy and companies being forced to tighten their spending and giving policies.

Examines initiatives sponsored by Canadian businesses to reform the educational system and employee training programs. Xerox Canada Ltd.'s training strategies; National Business & Education Centre; 1988 study by the Ontario Ministry of Skills Development; Workforce and attaining a competitive advantage; Ottawa-Carleton Learning Foundation.

Reports on organic waste recycling programs in effect at several Canadian hotels. Machines extract 70 percent of moisture; Mulch up what's left; Have reduced daily flow to the dump by nearly half.

Reports on the Canadian Business/Government Executive Exchange Program started in 1987. Executives in each field trade places for two-year stints; Provides vigorous exchange of ideas and expertise; Helps companies and helps the country.

Points out that although corporate profits have become quite elusive during the current recession, they are really the continuation of a 30-year trend. Fifty years of social democracy and the growing power of labor unions; Competition and labor costs; Difficult to see how the situation will change.

Claims that sales of goods and services in Canada are off because prices are too high. An example of how lower movie prices at Cineplex Odeon caused attendance to increase; Cross-border shopping by Canadians in the United States; The high Canadian labor costs; Emphasizing service; The opening by suppliers of their own warehouse outlets.

Reports on the current problems of Canada's office tower developers. Escalating office vacancies; Sweet deals offered to tenants by landlords to keep them from moving; The ability of the tenants to structure a lease the way they want it. INSET: How to stuff a skyscraper..

Discusses the `EFILE' program of Revenue Canada whereby tax return preparers can file the return by computer. Market-tested in the western provinces; Being expanded; Expected to blanket the country next year; The advantage of faster refund payments.

Describes a unique Canadian federal program which help business research and development by picking the brains of Canada's university research establishment through the joint-venture Industrial Research Chair program. Joint government industry and university funding; A list of several professors, corporate sponsors and funding amounts.

Tracks the economic contributions of about 20,000 business immigrants who came to Canada either as entrepreneurs or investors. Mostly from Asia--chiefly Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea; An investment of about $3 billion into the economy; Creation of about 80,000 jobs.

Comments on the three kinds of students in the University of Toronto's MBA Program; The full-timers, the part-timers and the experienced middle managers selected by their companies for the program; Profile of representatives of each type.

Comments on how high-tech machinery and common sense are making Canada's factories more successful. How free trade has produced a flurry of innovation; Revamping old systems; Some examples.

Reports that the Canadian natural resource industry is alive and well thanks to extraordinary reductions in production costs. Falling prices and global competition; The forest products and mining industries churning out more product with fewer workers; Investment in more productive equipment.

Presents the 1992 `Canadian Business' list of Canada's 500 largest companies.

Examines `the pension gap,' the growing gulf between what the Canadian government allows companies to fund in pension benefits and what senior executives need to retire in the style to which they've become accustomed. Explains how the pension gap could become a financial nightmare for companies and pensioners. The $60,000 federal ceiling on how much a pensioner can receive from a company's registered pension plan; New reporting requirements.

Presents short profiles of the top 50 corporate executives in Canada. Backgrounds; Major challenges and accomplishments; Lynton Wilson, chief executive officer of BCE Inc.; George Peapples, president and general manager of General Motors of Canada Ltd.; David Morton, chairman and chief executive officer of Alcan Aluminium Ltd.; Laurent Beaudoin, chairman and chief executive officer of Bombardier Inc.

Examines charges of unfair, trade tactics that Canada and the United States are hurling at each other while waiting for the outcome of tariff negotiations conducted under the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Disputes over softwood lumber and Honda Civic cars assembled in Alliston, Ontario; Beer and wines; The United States' use of political force; So-called intermediate goods; Continuation of disputes under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Explains how various products can be classified as North American under the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, even though some components or the bulk material is of foreign origin. Trade lawyers Paul Burns, of the Toronto, Ontario, office of Baker & McKenzie, and Darrel Pearson, of Gottlieb & Pearson (Toronto, Ontario) offer their comments.

Focuses on the enormous environmental cleanup bill that Canadian industry faces. Confusion over who pays for what; Ever-changing demands from regulators; Cleanup bill could exceed 20 billion dollars; Canadian economy is particularly vulnerable because of its reliance on natural resources; The Bata case. INSET: Getting the lead out.;Canada's dirty dozen and how they got that.

Comments on Canada's current encouraging economic situation. Small decline in capital goods spending; Rise in machinery and equipment spending; Investment spending; Significant rebound in productivity in manufacturing sector; Divergence between spending on machinery and equipment, and nonresidential construction; Relationship of strong areas to Canadian competitiveness.

Claims that the corporate raiders had it all wrong and a new breed of acquisitor is demonstrating that profits in the '90s will come to those who put people ahead of plunder. Provides golden rules of the acquisitions game; Stick to what you know; Buy people, not companies; Keep deals simple; Know when to fold; Be a strategic buyer. INSET: Boom and bust at the corner store..

Discusses Liberal premier Frank McKenna's reform programs to lure industry to New Brunswick, Canada, help welfare recipients back into the work force, and improve literacy. Results of the programs; Statistics on unemployment rate; White-Gray Rapids literacy program; Approaches to making outside investors look at the province's strengths. INSETS: Maritime makeover.;Grassroots growth.;Class action.;The three Rs revisited.

Claims that even though Canada has already had more than its share of industrial strategy disasters, a new group of schemers is gearing up to repeat the worst excesses of the past. Crude economic policies of the past; Calls for new initiatives that will stimulate the economy; `Investments in Failure--Five Government Corporations that Cost the Canadian Taxpayer Billions,' by Sandford Borins and Lee Brown; More. INSETS: Where the money went.;Meddlers' who's who..

Claims that paying billions for ill-defined aches and ailments is helping to bring Canada's workers' compensation system to a state of near collapse. Ontario Workers' Compensation Board; Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal; Trumped up claims; Nationwide emergency; Hardest on small firms; What employers can do; More. INSETS: The billion-dollar ache (work-related injuries).;House of pain (new Ontario WCB building in overbuilt Toronto).;Damage control (holding the line on injury claims)..

Criticizes the proposal to build a 13-kilometer bridge linking Prince Edward Island (PEI) with the rest of Canada. Estimated cost; Private sector financing; Ownership; Ottawa's subsidy to owners; Cost to taxpayers; Possible benefits to PEI; Environmental risks; The BOT concept (building, own, transfer); SCI Engineering & Constructors Inc.'s Strait Crossing Inc.

Profiles briefly three MBA graduates from Canadian universities whose careers have followed unusual paths. Carol Anne Letheren, president, Canadian Olympic Association; Ross Johnson, former CEO, RJR Nabisco Inc.; Author Peter Newman.

Looks at how several Canadian business school professors prove that education pays--doubling or tripling their salaries through outside consulting. Gary Latham of the University of Toronto; Roger Bennett of McGill University; Michael Tretheway of the University of British Columbia; Loren Falkenberg of the University of Calgary.

Examines Canada's fast-growing executive master of business administration (EMBA) program which allows employees to earn a business degree in two years while continuing to work full-time. Demands of the program; Comparison to MBA; Benefits to business; Comments by student Paul Little; Location and program highlights of universities offering the executive MBA. INSET: Earn as you learn (Canadian executive MBA programs)..

Provides an insider's guide of the lowdown on the 27 Canadian schools offering an MBA program. Number of students; Number of faculty; Specialties; Entrance requirements; Teaching methods; University of Alberta; University of British Columbia; McGill University; Simon Fraser University.

Claims that Canadian business journalism was once the domain of empty-headed sycophants but now boasts hard-nosed specialists in billion-dollar bankruptcies. National Business Book Awards; Finalists: `Sigfusson's Roads,' by Svein Sigfusson; `Self-Serve: How Petro-Canada Pumped Canadians Dry,' by Peter Foster; `Winging it: The Making of the Canadair Challenger,' by Stuart Logie; `Border Crossings: Doing Business in the US,' by Wendy Evans, Henry Lane and Shawna O'Grady; More.

Discusses Canada's recent enormous increase in exports of manufactured goods. Report by the Royal Bank of Canada; Weak performances by some of Canada's more traditional exporting industries; Reason for the turnaround; Development of higher-value-added industries; How Canadians respond to crisis.

Focuses on Canadian companies which are providing goods and services (many oil-related) in the former Soviet Union. Bill Gordica, head of Beta Well Service Inc.; Revenue generated by Beta's Russian contract; How the repairs are helping stimulate Russian economy; Other Canadian service firms involved in the former Soviet Union including Bitech Corp., Gulf Canada Resources Ltd., Norcen Energy Resources Ltd.; More.

Presents the CEOs of Canada's 50 largest companies who are engaged in the biggest and most complex challenges of their careers. How they are cutting debt, boosting productivity, redefining markets and meeting fierce new competition; BCE Inc.'s Lynton Wilson, 53, whose profit was $1.4 billion in his first year; Noranda Inc.'s David Kerr, 40; Thomson Corp.'s Michael Brown, 58; Others; Year appointed; Sales; Accomplishments and challenges.

Looks at how Canada's private-sector labor movement is reprogramming itself to deal with the realities of the new economy. Traditional unionism with its emphasis on wage increases and adversarialism; The formation of new alliances between unions and management; Example of reorganization at Inglis Ltd. and other companies; Developments in collective bargaining; More.

Takes a look at Canada's new pension-fund activists who are making sure that shareholders aren't shortchanged by nest-feathering managements. Guidelines to CEOs being issued by pension funds such as the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS); Reason for the activism; Why it isn't shared by the mutual fund industry.

Discusses the investment market for fall 1993. Anticipating the next meltdown by examining the forces that usually move Canadian stocks; Watching the gap between analysts' expectations of corporate earnings and the eventual reality; How to anticipate the next correction on the TSE 300; What is adding to the volatility; The mutual-fund factor; Whether a major correction will occur this fall.

Editorial. States that Canadian culture could be the most puzzling phrase ever uttered in Canada--few agree on a definition, yet all want to fight to preserve it. Whether government protection helps or hinders the cause; Example of Canada's manufacturing sector; Why protection is wrong in the cultural industries; Whether magazines should be an exception; Electronic publishing and user pay, two trends expected to be much bigger than the protection pleas of an industry.