The Globe and Mail attempts to identify companies that show consistent earnings growth and have exceeded analyst expectations in the most recent quarter in its Thursday, Nov. 19, edition. The Globe's Ian Tam writes in the Number Cruncher column that as the third quarter reporting season wraps up in Canada, he wanted to use this opportunity to highlight the companies that exceeded analyst expectations in the latest reporting period, but also have a history of consistently growing earnings. To achieve this, Mr. Tam looked for companies with stable earnings, positive quarterly earnings surprises, positive five-year earnings-per-share growth rates and positive three-month earnings-per-share estimate revisions. Mr. Tam only considered companies with a market cap greater than $650-million. In addition, he only included companies that are not set to report in the next 20 days, reflecting the fact that they have indeed reported their latest quarter of earnings recently. Mr. Tam's solid earning growers are CGI Group, Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services, Enerflex and Constellation Software.