canada posts

The good news for Canada's four playoff-bound NHL teams is they are guaranteed to have a second-round presence. That's because the Ottawa Senators will face the Montreal Canadiens in the opening round, a matchup that came as a result of Ottawa's 3-2 victory over Boston on Sunday night in the league's final game of the regular season.

In Driven: How to Succeed in Business and in Life, Shark Tank's Robert Herjavec recounted how he went from a Croatian immigrant at eight-years-old to the founder and CEO of The Herjavec Group -- now the country's largest IT security firm and consistently topping lists as Canada's fastest growing technology company.

"We started The Herjavec Group ten years ago with three guys and $400,000 in sales and we finished at $125 million last year and just today, we bought another one of our small competitors that does $30 million a year," he says.

With results like that, it's no wonder he was recently named Ernst & Young's 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year in the technology group and is always pushing the limits of his own success even further. He wants you to reach new heights of success this year too, which is why he wrote The Will to Win: Leading, Competing, Succeeding (HarperCollins Canada) a sequel of sorts to Driven.

While Driven urged readers to take risks, take control of their lives, and stay true to their own visions, The Will to Win pushes them to refuse to accept mediocrity, use their power at the right time and always be willing to adapt and change, with some special advice from Herjavec's celebrity friends like Oprah, Celine Dion and UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre thrown in for good measure.

We caught up to this Ferrari racing, marathon running, cyber security expert just long enough for him to tell us whether he's truly afraid of anything, why it seems like sometimes his investment offers get passed over in favour of the bigger fish in the tank and whether The Millennial Generation needs to invent their own job.

How good is your tax knowledge? Do you know which sources of income are actually taxable, and which are not? You might be surprised. Take our test to find out more!

We all make mistakes, it's only human.

But mistakes during tax season can cost you big time. That's why WalletPop devised a quick quiz to update your knowledge on common tax no-nos before the ultimate test comes on April 30.

Worried about an audit? Curious about late fees? Whether you're a tax expert or in need of some knowledge, you can take the test below for a quick refresher on the best tax practices in times of trouble.

Working from home, I'm generally not awash in the same cultural and marketing nuances that most people are subject to in their day-to-day lives. Maybe that's why the pervasiveness of Tim Horton's roll-up-the-rim contest was and is so striking to me: I left the house the other day, and traveled to another country, and still, there weren't many human interactions lasting longer than ten minutes, that didn't involve mention of those red paper cups, or what people had won (or not) in that contest.

Maybe my family and friends drink more coffee than average, but I don't think so.

This is not a lecture about the cost of take-out coffee and how it adds up over the course of a year. Instead, I was curious: Just what are the odds that you might actually win one of those grand prizes, and how do those odds compare to other lottery or gaming contests?

Tim Hortons has done a pretty remarkable thing here. Not only are they 'the talk of the town,' in virtually every single town with a franchise, but despite the contest's size, people seem to believe in their chances of winning - the contest feels smaller than it actually is.

While we're busily buying Christmas presents for friends and relatives, it seems only right that we should give a thought to those who won't be enjoying the holiday season without a bit of help.

Many organizations have their members put together shoe box gifts for specific needs. Here are a few worthy causes and how $10, more or less, can help give someone a happier Christmas this year.

The question heading into Black Friday is not whether Canadians will save money shopping, but if they'll be going over the border to do it. Last November, 4.2 million Canadians hopped over to the United States, many of them to take advantage of post-Thanksgiving Day deals.


Since 2007, Canadians have been travelling to the U.S. in November in increasing numbers.But in 2012 there may be a change. For one thing, more Canadian retailers are offering deep discounts to compete with their U.S. counterparts. This year has also seen the introduction of more U.S.-based stores across Canada, including the first Marshall's franchises, the discount clothing retailer that opened in Toronto this summer. While the prices at those stores are still higher than in the U.S., their arrival brings more choice as well as more Black Friday-related marketing initiatives aimed at keeping Canadians - and their money - closer to home.




BLACK FRIDAY CANADA 2012:
5 Things You Shouldn't Buy on Black Friday
Black Friday Sales: The Big Guide to Deals, Stores and Opening Times
Where to Find the Best Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals
Survival Tips for Black Friday 2012
Black Friday Shopping Strategies
Walmart Black Friday Starts at 8 pm Thursday

Every car should be equipped with an emergency kit. This is especially important during our Canadian winter, which can, at times, be challenging to say the least. As a jumping off point, here's a link to the Government of Canada's printable check list for what to include in an emergency car kit.

You can buy these kits at Canadian Tire or Princess Auto online but, if you'd rather put one together yourself, here's what essential gear for winter driving should include:

SLIDESHOW: WHAT TO PUT IN AN EMERGENCY CAR KIT

RELATED LINKS:
Get Your Car Ready for Winter: A 10-Point Checklist
Build an Emergency Kit For Your Car
Hypermiling: Save on Gas, Drive Like a Granny

There's certainly a wild array of products and experiences to be had on the cheap, sort of, if you spend enough time trolling group couponing sites.

Most are forgettable, delete-able. What can I say? The endless offers for laser hair removal just don't speak to me personally. As mentioned before too, I won't ever spend money on any mechanic-related deal ever again. (It's a personal choice. You might have better luck.) Some offers too, just aren't that great of a great deal – the prices have been inflated so the discount really doesn't mean much.

There have been one or two recent deals, however, that (for better or worse) stand out among the usual suspects: Online stock trading schools appear to have caught onto the couponing phenomenon, and have started marketing their courses to Canadian consumers, whether they have a presence in Canada or not.

My first reaction was one of disbelief. (You're kidding, right?) That feeling soon gave way to a very healthy dose of skepticism.

Take a room full of 600 high school students, and spend the day trying to teach them about money. Can you say tough crowd?

Across the province and around the country there is a relatively concerted effort going on to develop curriculum for students. In Ontario, for example, there's a widely integrated approach underway to develop a financial literacy program which runs from grade 4, all the way through until graduation in grade 12.

Unfortunately, a lot of the kids graduating this year and next won't have the benefit of that education. It's a gap the Investor Education Fund (IEF) hopes to fill, to some degree, with their school assembly programming. This week, the IEF is kicking financial literacy month by hosting its first-ever youth summit in Toronto.