Andrea Mandel-Campbell

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critique litteraire
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Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson can be purchased at all major Canadian bookstores or online Amazon or Chapters Indigo.
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Book Reviews

“one of the year’s most important books”

Wallflowers, it's time for a new stage of nationhood
Monday, July 30, 2007
Globe and Mail

Take China, the time bomb. Take India, Brazil and Russia. They are four ascendant economic powers. Take Canada and measure where its stands in terms of trade and commerce with them. Essentially, we're on the nil scale with each. A new economic world is emerging and we're primed, it seems, to take on a wallflower role. Canada's current feel-good situation – all those percolating economic stats and indicators – masks a dismal reality.

Read more of Lawrence Martin's review

Lawrence Martin,
columnist the Globe and Mail

Corporate Canada, proud and ... parochial
JEFFREY SIMPSON
Globe and Mail

June 5, 2007 at 3:47 AM EDT
Andrea Mandel-Campbell asks a disturbing question in her provocative new book: Why do Canadians drink Corona, a beer Mexicans don't consider their best, whereas Molson never even tried to crack the Mexican market and is now a subset of an American brewing conglomerate?

With Algoma, Ipsco and Dofasco being sold to foreigners and now Stelco up for sale, with Alcan a takeover target, with most mining companies under foreign control, and yes, with both major "Canadian" brewers gone, what's been happening to Canadian capitalism?

The answers are not pretty, and Ms. Mandel-Campbell explores them mercilessly and a trifle breathlessly in Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson.

The prime answer - there are many - is the Canadian mindset.

Canadians, although believing the world loves and need them, seldom think globally. They lack confidence. They are instinctively protectionist in too many areas. They think small. When they lift their commercial eyes, they see only the U.S. market.

Not many capitalists in the Canadian Council of Chief Executives or the Canadian Chamber of Commerce are going to like Ms. Mandel-Campbell's book. She's hardly a predictable, anti-globalization, head-in-the-sand leftie. If anything, she's a free-enterprise kind of analyst.

She therefore lists the usual government policies that shield Canada from global pressures: supply management, a social welfare fishery, unemployment benefits (10 weeks work for 42 weeks of benefits). She adds the list of complaints from business about corporate taxes and excessive regulations.

But her more telling criticisms are directed at business itself... Read more of JEFFREY SIMPSON's review.

Double-barrelled wake-up call
David Zussman, Citizen Special
Published (The Ottawa Citizen): Monday, June 04, 2007

It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment that competitiveness and productivity moved from the isolated arenas of academia and think tanks to Bay Street and Main Street.

Perhaps it was the steady media reports, over the past year, of significant takeovers and mergers of important Canadian businesses. For example, the mergers of well-known Canadian corporate giants such as Falconbridge, Vincor, Inco and Four Seasons Hotels have reinforced the general view that the influence and importance of corporate Canada is diminishing, especially when compared with some of Canada's comparator countries, such as Australia, Sweden and Finland.

Reports of a bidding war for Alcan have heightened concern about the impact of the hollowing-out of corporate Canada, even though Canadian business has been actively acquiring companies as well.

Two recently published books, the first by highly regarded Citizen columnist Andrew Cohen, titled The Unfinished Canadian and another, by Andrea Mandel-Campbell, with the most provocative title of Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson, are raising serious concerns about Canada's prospects as a nation and as a competitive economy....

"Journalist Andrea Mandel-Campbell may provide a clue in her scathing critique of Canada’s business community in Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson (Douglas and McIntyre, 2007). She makes a persuasive case, noting the timidity of Canadian companies that have been spoilt by the proximity to the U.S., combined with their lack of leadership and vision, which has resulted in a frittering away of our jackpot of natural resources. This, she claims, is at the cost of building viable multinationals that are ultimately our country’s first defence in a globalized world..."

READ MORE

---Ronald L. Doering,
FOOD IN CANADA - JUNE 2007.

"Andrea Mandel-Campbell, a former business reporter in Latin America, blends economics and evangelism to produce what should be a blockbuster on Canada's role in global trade...Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson is a hit about to happen. It's mix of evangelism, apocalyptic pronouncements and facts should make it a must-read by managers and mandarins."

---The Literary Review of Canada

"This is the single best thing that has ever been written about Canadian business. I share your world view and find myself nodding along with your points at every turn. It is devastatingly and unflinchingly effective.”

--- Sean Silcoff, Montreal correspondent/columnist
National Post

"Canada sucks. Oh sure, we’re nice people, and we produce great hockey players, but let’s face it: our best companies just can’t compete with the world’s best — or even second best. We’ve become fat on government-sponsored oligopolies and protectionism, and made rich by the world’s need for our abundant raw resources. Our success is really predicated on a fluke of geography. Move Canada next to, say, Romania, instead of the giant U.S. market, and we’d be an impoverished nation trying to scrape into the EU. What we lack is the nerve — the chutzpah, if you will — to get outside Canada’s cosy confines and build an international presence.

That’s the premise, at least, of Andrea Mandel-Campbell’s excellent first book, Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson (Douglas & McIntyre, $34.95). And, unfortunately for Cancon apologists, she’s right. Ever wonder why Molson Canadian isn’t readily available abroad, but Budweiser, Corona and Heineken are? It’s not because Canadian is worse. It’s because Molson was historically quite content to stay at home, where it’s protected by government policies. When Molson did venture to Brazil, as Mandel-Campbell points out, ruthless competitors in a cutthroat market crushed it. That little adventure forms the basis of one chapter in the book, and the title, but it’s a little unfair to single out Molson. After all, it was Labatt that expanded into Mexico during the 1990s,and the locals don’t drink Blue, either. Besides, the list of Canuck misadventures abroad is staggering and reads like a who’s who of Canadian business: Bell, Hydro-Québec, TransAlta, the list goes on and on and on.

Indeed, the lack of Canadian-based global brands is all rather sad and depressing. But there is hope, says Mandel-Campbell. “I hope this is a wake-up call for the future of Canada to really create a ball-breaking country,” says the former foreign Latin America correspondent. And that starts with losing our inferiority complex. “Unless you’re confident in who you are, you’ll never be able to project yourself internationally.”

That inferiority complex has its roots in Canadian industrial policies. We’ve been coddled by government for so long that it’s become our Achilles heel on the global stage. A good portion of the book is spent proving that Canada must force its companies to be competitive by setting up an even playing field for foreign firms. We have to allow the banks to merge, get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board and other national marketing agencies, and eliminate foreign ownership restrictions in all industries, especially telecommunications.

Canada ignores such advice at its own peril. To steal the last line from Mandel-Campbell’s book, Canada is “one of the best nations in the world…but we really could be the best.” It’s time to wake up."

---Andy Holloway
Canadian Business magazine, April 23, 2007.

“I am a high school student in Pickering Ontario, and I wish to let you know that your book was truly an inspiration. In more ways than one it was an eye-opener, I was not the least aware of the problems discussed in your book until I read it, and I think it was a remarkable educational experience. I have highly recommended your book to my Economics and Politics teachers and to my friends, hoping that with more people who understand the crises we face, we gain a greater chance in improving our stance in the world.”

--- Johan Harjono, high school student
Pickering, Ontario

“[Andrea Mandel-Campbell] has produced an ambitious, frank and sharp assessment of what ails Canadian business.”

---Glen Hodgson, Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist
The Conference Board of Canada

" A raft of new business books land in my in-tray each month, sent by publishers hoping for a mention in the magazine. Most of them are of the Chicken Soup for the Soul variety. They offer platitudes and anodyne prescriptions on how to climb the corporate ladder. And most aren’t worth my time, let alone yours. But a recent arrival, Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson: Rescuing Canadian Business from the Suds of Global Obscurity, stood out for its ambition and the urgency of its central question: Will Canada be a contender on the world stage or just a playground for giant foreign companies? The author, Andrea Mandel-Campbell, a Canadian reporter who spent 10 years in Latin America, witnessed first-hand corporate Canada’s failed attempts at breaking into this region. She argues persuasively that Canadian companies, pampered by government and made complacent by inborn advantages (our resource wealth and proximity to U.S. markets), have been far too timid about pursuing opportunities overseas. Hence Mandel-Campbell’s title. Mexicans don’t drink Molson, but Canadians do drink Corona. "

--- Gary Salewicz, editor
Report on Business magazine. March 30, 2007.

"Andrea Mandel-Campbell has illuminated Canada's shortcomings in the new global economy - and how to overcome them - as well as any economic guru or think tank. She correctly identifies that too many of our business leaders and government policies are aimed at perserving what we have rather than playing to win. This book is essential reading for any Canadian who cares about the kind of Canada we are building for future generations."

---Roger Martin,
Dean, Rotman School of Management and Chair, Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity.

Here are several other references to the book:

www.thecommentary.ca/ontheline/20070430b.html

www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/313485387028803.php

www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/april/25/beer/

www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=501369&catname=Editorial&classif

To submit a book review, please email Andrea.