For over two decades the Taseko mining company has been embroiled in a battle with the First Nations people. Taseko wants to open up a new copper mine at Fish Lake, an area for which First Nations have claimed hunting, fishing and trapping rights. Taesko has faced barrier after barrier when trying to open up the mine.

First, they had to completely revise their original plan which would have destroyed the lake so that the new plan would keep the lake intact. However, even after revising the plan the federal government has rejected the mine. The provincial government is Taseko’s last hope for mine approval, however chances look dismal. In their most recent move against Taseko, the First Nations have now declared that the proposed mine site area is a part of a new Tribal Park, and therefore has all the protection that comes with this new status. This new park status combined with ongoing legal battles, negative press and lack of government support offers very little hope that Taseko will ever be able to overcome the external factor of the First Nations People.

An interesting blog I have come across is a blog run by the Harvard Business Review. The blog is not like most blogs in the traditional sense that it is written by one author or one group, but rather it serves as an access point to a network hundreds of posts written by different authors, all under the umbrella of the “Harvard Business Review”. Posts cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from “Fighting Ebola Means Managing Fear” to “Integrate Analytics across Your Entire Business”. Not only are the posts relevant and up to date, but additionally they offer solutions and advice that pertain to many business problems, and even some that are relevant to this course. There are posts about marketing, accounting, management and many other topics that are applicable to our Comm 101 class. Furthermore, because the blog utilizes an assortment of authors, there are lots of different perspectives and areas of expertise. All the authors on the blog are also credible academic sources, and their credentials are listed at the end of each post. I would highly recommend anyone who has trouble finding interesting articles to write about for their own blog to check out this one.

One of my peers, Rachel Meadow, wrote an interesting ethics article on CVS’ recent policy change to exclude the sale of cigarettes from all their stores. In her post, Rachel argues that this is an example of Ed Freeman’s stakeholder theory. She says that by cutting out cigarette sales CVS will be losing $2 billion in sales per year and so “this decision doesn’t agree with Milton Friedman’s idea that when in business, the main goal should be to legally maximize profit.” I believe, however, that CVS’ decision had nothing to do with ethics at all, and everything thing to do with maximizing profit. CVS would not have cut a huge source of revenue purely for moral reasons. Rather CVS saw an opportunity to be gained and acted upon it. Although they lose a large source of revenue by eliminating the sale of cigarettes, the removal allows them access to a new, and potentially much larger market—the health care market. CVS currently operates over 880 health clinics, and is expanding. With the introduction of Obamacare, the face of health care in the States is changing and CVS hopes to capitalize on this new and growing market. Selling cigarettes would be in direct conflict of its plan to re-brand itself as a healthcare provider, and so CVS chose to cut out cigarette sales in order to gain profit elsewhere, all whilst appearing to be ethically superior.