EDMONTON AND TORONTO — As protests that have stalled railway traffic across parts of Canada drag towards a week, CN Rail announced it would be shutting down “significant” portions of its rail network, raising questions about the stability of Canada’s transport system and concerns about the enforcement of court orders putting an end to the protests.
In a Tuesday statement, the rail shipper, which operates some 30,000 kilometres of rail across Canada and the U.S., said a variety of shipments — food, construction materials, lumber, aluminum, coal and propane — have been affected by the rail blockades just east of Belleville, Ont., and in New Hazelton, B.C.
Near Belleville, members of the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory have parked a large dump truck with a plough along the tracks. The protests have stopped Via Rail passenger trains as well as CN trains, cutting off routes between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Kingston.
Protestors delayed the start of the spring session of the B.C. legislature by physically blocking access to the B.C. Legislature building in Victoria on Tuesday.
The protests, which began on Thursday, are in solidarity with the five hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation who opposed a pipeline project that partially crosses their traditional territory in the B.C. interior.
In an emailed statement, CN warned that the blockades could have a spillover effect to ports in Halifax, Montreal and Prince Rupert, as blockades in Ontario and British Columbia have cut off main CN lines.
OPP Sgt. Diana Hampson of the liaison team, middle, speaks with members of the Mohawk Territory in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, near Belleville, Ont., on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020. The members have blocked the CN/VIA train tracks for six days in support of Wet’suwet’en’s blockade of natural gas pipeline in northern B.C.
Lars Hagberg /
THE CANADIAN PRESS
“The impact is also being felt beyond Canada’s borders and is harming the country’s reputation as a stable and viable supply chain partner,” the statement said.
But, in statements to the Post, neither the Montreal Port Authority nor the Halifax Port Authority seemed overly concerned at the moment.
“So far, we have had little major impact on the movement of goods, as we are served by two other major networks: CP and trucking,” said an emailed statement from Mélanie Nadeau, director of communications at the Montreal port.
Of course, that could change. Lane Ferguson, a spokesperson with the Halifax Port Authority, said it was “too early” to say what “the specific impact” of the protests could be. He suggested there could be problems if the storage yards in Halifax fill up or if products can’t be transported out by rail. If those things occur, international importers might avoid the port altogether.
“A partial or complete port shutdown would be devastating to the reputation of the Port of Halifax as an efficient and reliable international gateway,” Ferguson wrote in an email. “It would also impact confidence in the stability and reliability of the Canadian supply chain.”
Brad Cicero, a spokesperson for Porter Airlines, a short-haul carrier, said it has seen an uptick in passengers along its Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor that’s more than would normally be expected this time of year.
Local residents Angela Lammes (left) and Annette McIntosh show their support for the First Nations anti-pipeline protestors at a rail crossing at Wyman Rd., south of Old Highway 2, east of Belleville, Ont. on Tuesday February 11, 2020.
Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia
Key to the affair is whether or not police enforce court injunctions to clear out the protesters in Belleville, Ont. and New Hazelton, B.C. As yet, that has not happened, although police in other parts of the country — including those blocking Vancouver and Delta ports and the Wet’suwet’en protesters in interior B.C. — have made arrests.
The RCMP began moving into Wet’suwet’en territory and arresting land defenders last Thursday.
On Tuesday, Marc Garneau, the Liberal transport minister, called the blockades “illegal” but said the federal government would not do anything. It’s up to the provinces, Garneau said, to enforce the court orders.
“The government of Canada is seized of the issue. We’d like to resolve it as quickly as possible, but it’s a complex issue. Hopefully we’ll resolve it as quickly as possible,” Garneau told reporters.
Previous instances where Indigenous protesters have blocked rail lines have led to crises in the rule of law. In December, 2012, an Ontario judge issued a court order that First Nations protesters blocking a CN spur line in Sarnia, Ont., be cleared out.
Police did nothing until January 2013.
“We seem to be drifting into dangerous waters in the life of the public affairs of this province when courts cannot predict, with any practical degree of certainty, whether police agencies will assist in enforcing court injunctions against demonstrators,” wrote David Brown, who now sits on the Ontario Court of Appeal.
A large protest took over Dundas Street as it left Wellington on the way to the RCMP offices on Talbot Street in London, Ont. They were protesting in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation who are blockading the Coastal GasLink pipeline in BC Photograph taken on Tuesday February 11, 2020.
Mike Hensen/The London Free Press/Postmedia Network
On Tuesday, Bill Dickson, a spokesperson for the Ontario Provincial Police, said “the situation is unchanged” and that police were aware there was an injunction, and they’d read it to protesters. He declined to speculate on what else police might do.
“The hope for the resolution is that through dialogue and through discussion, the individuals will back away from the rail line and allow the trains to move again,” Dickson said.
Jason Kenney, the Premier of Alberta, expressed his concerns on Twitter: “It’s about time that our authorities demonstrated that Canada is a country that respects the rule of law. Allowing mob rule to override the express democratic wishes of First Nations is unacceptable, and it has to end,” he wrote on Tuesday
A November 2019 rail strike could provide some insight into what effect the rail stoppage could have on the economy, said Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO. How long the delays go on, Porter explained, would determine just what the economic consequences might be.
“That strike lasted just over a week and was national, and clipped GDP by less than 0.1 percent that month,” Porter said in an email.
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.
