Created for Beds are booming. Here in Canada, mattress sales are forecasted to grow more than five per cent annually through to 2028, according to data compiled by Statista. But, while it’s hard to remember a time when going online didn’t mean seeing endless ads for mattress companies, the internet mattress revolution all began with the kind of bad showroom experience that’s familiar to many. “It was 2009 and I was in my early 30s, mattress shopping for the first time, really, ever,” recalls Sam Prochazka, founder and CEO of GoodMorning.com. “Through my 20s, I was just using hand-me-downs ..read more

He’s back! After seven years as Bank of England governor, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is back in Ottawa with a new book, Value(s), about the things we pay for and the things we care about. He’ll talk to Maclean’s senior writer Paul Wells about Brexit, COVID-19, building back better—and what’s next for Mark Carney. The conversation will air on Thurs., March 18, 2021 at 7 p.m. ET on the Maclean’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, as well as at macleans.ca/inconvo. Presented by the Canadian Bankers Association in partnership with the National Arts Centre. Pas ..read more

The tanker trucks normally come by the dozen over the winter road from Fort McMurray, Alta., during the few weeks the ice can hold their weight. They make the 4½-hour northbound trek laden with the same fossil fuel they burn—stuff that Fort Chipewyan, Alta., has long used to generate its electricity. But this summer, the 800-resident hamlet downstream from Alberta’s oil sands expects to shutter its diesel plant for the first time, and instead power its lights and TVs through the warm season with solar energy. The project was several years in the making, a partnership between local Dene, Cree ..read more

Corey Mintz is a Winnipeg-based food writer and author of the forthcoming fall 2021 book The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants As We Knew Them, and What Comes After. Only a couple years ago, it was still hard to convince people that third-party delivery (3PD) platforms like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Skip the Dishes were terrible for the restaurant industry. But in the last year, ignited by the dire situation for restaurants around the world, that dirty little secret has broken through to the mainstream conversation. As these companies grew in popularity, industry analysts predicted that takeo ..read more

‘The new newsmakers’ are No. 41 on the 2021 Maclean’s Power List, a ranking of 50 influential Canadians. Click here to see the full list. San Grewal remembers covering Ontario’s sprawling “905” region with a Toronto Star team that was more than a dozen journalists strong. When he left in 2017, the newspaper was in steady decline and Grewal was its only full-time writer on that massive regional beat. In the city of Brampton, he saw a large news desert thirsting for dogged, impactful journalistic attention. So, on the heels of Patrick Brown’s controversial run for mayor of the city, Grewal ..read more

Wes Hall is No. 16 on the 2021 Maclean’s Power List, a ranking of 50 influential Canadians. Click here to see the full list. The adage “If you can see it, you can be it” is supposed to explain why underrepresented groups need to see faces like theirs in positions of influence so they know that they belong there, too. But, as Wes Hall explains it, broadening who sits at the top is just as much about retraining the rest of society to confront deeply ingrained anti-Black systemic racism. “When I walk into a boardroom and I’m treated like I’m a mail boy, or another low-level employee, the people ..read more

(Illustration by Maclean’s/Photo courtesy of iStock) My family has always been on the front lines of greenhouse gas reduction. My stepfather, Gary Taylor, was part of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting climate change as an existential crisis. Growing up in Toronto in the ’90s, we’d often talk about climate change at the dinner table, and those discussions left a deep impression on me. I got my introduction to electric vehicles in 2001, during my undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at the University of Toronto. I ..read more

Soon after Vancouver’s landmark Dressew Supply went into lockdown mode in mid-March, David McKie, co-owner of the warehouse-style shop famous for its overflowing aisles of buttons, zippers and multicoloured fabrics, began to see surging demand for cloth and elastics by people wanting to make face masks. But there was a problem—McKie had never gotten around to building a website for the business, so a skeleton crew of three, down from Dressew’s usual 30 employees, was left frantically trying to fill orders by phone. Something had to change. So in April, McKie bought a laptop and a camera, and ..read more

Created for The demand for electricity in Québec is expected to rise by 14% by 2032 due to economic expansion and the electrification of the economy. Faced with this ever-increasing demand and a desire to address it in a cost-effective way, Hydro-Québec is urging companies to optimize their energy consumption. It is indeed vital for businesses to start adopting energy-efficient practices and become agents of change. With Hydro-Québec’s Efficient Solutions Program, which provides financial assistance for businesses ready to lead the way in energy efficiency, adopting these practices pays of ..read more

Few moments have challenged our understanding of power as profoundly as the one we’re in. Remember the two or three years before “COVID-19” entered the global lexicon? Root-and-branch change was all around. Social movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter were on the march. Technology had overthrown mainstays of business and the media, and new players were in ascent. Cornerstones of liberal democracy—rule of law; trust in institutions; the very notion of truth—had come under siege. The pandemic has a way of erasing short-term memory. But of course, those forces of change go on. COVID, mean ..read more