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Cohen lives with her family outside Hatley, Que., just this
side of the Vermont border. Together they used to farm 12 acres of asparagus, and
the same again of raspberries. The Cohen family produced about 15,000 pounds of
each a year.
It may surprise you to know that farming a dozen acres of
asparagus would land a Quebecer in the top two provincially. Apparently it takes
years to develop a decent crop. Like so much else, asparagus demands a focus on
long-term returns.
Cohen has nurtured her back-page column with the same care.
Pension Options, launched in May 1989, quickly became a staple as important as the
three that hold our pages together. Her ability to see past the short term sets her
apart from many of this country's financial journalists.
Witness this passage, from her inaugural column. "As a
consequence of lifestyle and value changes, we're making more demands than ever on
both governments and employers--for childcare, enhanced pensions, extended
education, affordable housing, aged healthcare, shares of pension surplus. At the
same time, we want protection from a host of things that individual sovereign
states alone are ill equipped to deliver: international terrorism, transnational
environmental pollution, currency volatility, job migration."
Leave aside the oddly prescient reference to terrorism in
that paragraph. What we see when we look back at Cohen's columns is a well-informed
understanding of the Canadian pension pension plan sponsor's perspective.
Cohen got it exactly right 121/2 years ago, just as she does
now. She is one of a select few writers who have followed Canada's pension scene
long enough to know that many of the biggest challenges facing plan sponsors are
more than a decade old. Our lack of regulatory uniformity, the debate over surplus
and the entitlement mentality Canadian plan members refuse to shake--none of these
are new stories.
That understanding of the long view, coupled with her
willingness to invest as many seasons as it takes to see any project (agricultural
or journalistic) put forth a worthwhile yield, ranks Cohen among this industry's
most valuable commentators.
Dian Cohen is filing her farewell column with us this month.
Like so many of her writings it is thoughtful, challenging and right on the
money.
It has been a privilege being her editor.
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