OTTAWA – Airlines and travellers say a slew of questions remain about the federal government’s decision to require passengers returning to Canada to show negative results on COVID-19 tests taken abroad.
Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced last Thursday that air travellers overseas will have to present proof of a negative molecular test – known as a PCR test, conducted with nose and throat swabs – that was taken within 72 hours of departure, unless such testing is unavailable.
The Transport Department has yet to provide a list of foreign agencies whose tests are considered acceptable or to establish how airline employees should determine whether a test certificate is valid, said National Airlines Council of Canada chief executive Mike McNaney.
“With less than a week to implement, we do not have the interim orders in writing – it’s from the interim orders that you base your operations and obligations,” he said.
McNaney said the new rule, which mandates a 14-day quarantine in Canada regardless of the test result, will cause uncertainty and “frustration” for carriers and passengers alike.
“We’re very concerned about the confusion that’s going to occur and the disjointedness of implementation that’s going occur. And it all could have been avoided,” he said.
Air Transat vice-president Christophe Hennebelle says Ottawa announced the requirement, which takes effect this Thursday, without any prior consultation.
“It kind of came out of the blue … We had no advance notice,” he said.
“We feel that all that is a bit improvised … and basically the feeling we have behind that is that the government wants to stop travel but does not say it.”
Transport Canada did not immediately respond to questions Monday.
Garneau said last week the Jan. 7 start date was designed to provide airlines with enough time to comply with the new rules, and that the government will try to provide information on where testing is available abroad.
His announcement comes as a devastated airline sector continues to bleed cash following a collapse in demand caused by the pandemic.
It also arrives amid growing criticism of the federal sick-leave benefit that pays $500 per week for up to two weeks to Canadians quarantined after touching down from abroad, including after vacations.
Some federal and provincial politicians are among those who chose to travel beyond Canada’s borders over the holidays, despite public health recommendations against non-essential travel.
As of 12:01 a.m. Thursday, passengers returning from countries where PCR testing is “unavailable” will be required to stay at a “designated quarantine facility” for two weeks upon arrival in Canada, rather than at home the way test-toting passengers can, according to Transport Canada.
Whether “unavailable” means non-existent or simply hard to access is unclear, as is how passengers can prove the tests’ unavailability to a customer service agent at a check-in counter.
Co-ordinating a test with takeoff presents another potential hurdle.
For the past several months, major Canadian airlines have cancelled the majority of their flights several weeks in advance due to a lack of ticket purchases. That passengers often find their flights rescheduled for days later, rendering any test taken 48 hours before the initially planned departure invalid for the rebooked flight.
“We have to scramble around. If the flight has changed it makes it worse, especially if we took the test,” said Perry Cohen, a 74-year-old Torontonian who spends roughly half the year in Florida.
“That’s not right. That’s not fair. It’s just going to aggravate people, and they’ve got enough stress with COVID. They don’t need this on their heads,” he said from a retirement community in Deerfield Beach, Fla., about 65 kilometres north of Miami.
“The 7th is not far away. And they didn’t even set the rules to the game yet.”
Airlines had hoped for a testing framework that would cut down quarantine times, modelled after pilot projects launched last year.
One ongoing program tests Canadians voluntarily on arrival at the Calgary airport, with mandatory self-quarantine for up to 48 hours. If the results of that COVID-19 test are negative, participants can leave, but must monitor their symptoms until a second swab six or seven days after touchdown.
Many countries rely on testing to curtail quarantines.
“If you get to Finland, which has very good results in the control of the pandemic, you get rapid testing at the airport and then you take a second test a few days later, and if both tests are negative then you can snap out of the quarantine. That makes sense,” Hennebelle said.
Under two per cent of all coronavirus cases reported in Canada stem from foreign travel, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Nonetheless, fears around increasingly infectious strains of the virus identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa have rekindled fears around the risks of international travel.
Travel insurance will not cover the cost of a COVID-19 test abroad, said Marty Firestone, president of Toronto-based Travel Secure Inc.
“Absolutely not, it’s not an unexpected medical emergency, and it won’t,” he said.
“From an insurance perspective, say my insurance is expiring tonight at 12:01, what do I do if I can’t get on that plane because my test results aren’t accepted?” he asked.
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.
