VANCOUVER —
The battle over ride hailing is heating up in Metro Vancouver as a group of local cab companies is taking Uber, Lyft and Passenger Transportation Board to B.C. Supreme Court to try and stop service in the region.
Nine Metro Vancouver cab companies have teamed up and filed two legal challenges.
They’re seeking an injunction to halt Uber and Lyft’s Services, while a petition to rescind their licences goes before the court.
Court documents name Yellow Cab, Black Top Cabs, Maclure’s Cabs, Vancouver Taxi, North Shore Taxi, Richmond Cabs, Bonny’s Taxi, Burnaby Select Metrotown Taxi and Queen City Taxi as the petitioners.
They claim the PTB is allowing ride hailing companies to operate on more favourable terms than taxis.
“The cornerstone of the regulation of the taxi industry has always been the limit on the number of taxi licences that are granted for a particular geographic area,” reads the petition.
“These limits have been imposed to prevent the destructive competition that would occur if there were unlimited entry into this field – which would result in none of the participants being able to make a living,” it goes on to say.
The legal challenges aren’t the only strategy the BC Taxi Association is adopting.
“The companies going forward from this day on will not subsidize our accessible vehicles,” said Carolyn Bauer a spokesperson for the association.
“We are stopping our policy plan and we are moving forward with if the drivers go, they go, if they don’t they don’t, we are not going to subsidize any more payments for them,” Bauer told CTV News.
The Taxi Association says it won’t subsidize drivers with accessible vehicles because they are too expensive to operate.
However, that strategy is putting customers who depend on taxis in the middle.
Jonquil Hallgate relies on cabs to get her two and from her Surrey home.
She’s living with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a severe form of arthritis that has left her wheelchair bound.
She says taxi availability and pricing is a major barrier.
“I would like to see ride-sharing here, even though they don’t have accessible vehicles because I hope that means there will be more accessible taxis available for me,” Hallgate told CTV News.
She was on hand for Surrey’s city council meeting Monday night to see what the councillors had to say on the issue.
It was touched on briefly by Coun. Linda Annis during the meeting.
Annis is supportive of ride share and put forth a motion asking city staff for a corporate report on ride hailing, to clarify what the city actually has the power to do and how to best move forward.
She said the purpose of the motion was to prevent the city from being in a standstill.
“To get the city to deal with ride hailing sooner as opposed to later,” Annis said following the meeting.
“The residents of Surrey have been waiting for ride hailing for quite some time now and quite honestly I’m embarrassed that Vancouver is ready to go and Surrey is not,” said Annis.
The report is expected back at the next council meeting Feb. 10.
In the meantime, Uber says it is preparing legal action to stay in the city.
“It is highly unfortunate that the mayor is threatening drivers with fines that have no legal basis,” Uber in a statement.
“The Uber app will continue to be available to the residents and visitors of Surrey within our service area, and we will be preparing legal action to defend the right to access Uber’s apps.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
