Fewer Canadians gathered around twinkling Christmas trees to tear open presents with friends and family Saturday as COVID-19 put a damper on festivities for a second straight year, but the holiday spirit still managed to shine through for many.
Public health experts have spent recent weeks urging people to keep their gatherings small and intimate — if they were to go ahead at all — as COVID-19 cases spiked across the country due to the fasts-spreading Omicron variant.
Still, dozens attended a scaled-back noon-hour mass at St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica in downtown Toronto, where churchgoers wore masks and stood two metres apart.
Bernadette Alexander, who attended with a friend, said the service was particularly moving because she had been worshipping from home for so long.
“We were just saying it’s been almost two years. We’ve been watching mass on TV, but this is the first time we’ve been to mass in person in two years,” Alexander said.
“It was amazing. It was beautiful. It reduced me to tears, actually.”
Froila Fernandes, an international student from India who moved to Canada two months ago, attended the service on her own — her first in this country.
“I found this service so spiritually enriching for me today because it felt like that was something I was lacking over here ever since I moved,” she said.
“Being able to experience this was really heartwarming and so touching for me. I kept kind of crying.”
At Saint Gabriel’s Parish in Toronto, Christmas trees and poinsettias were displayed ahead of a small in-person mass service on Saturday.
A pianist played Christmas tunes that filled the church. Green markers signalled where churchgoers could sit among the pews while being physically distanced.
Christine Odunlami of Toronto said she usually spends holidays south of the border catching up with loved ones, but since she suffers from asthma, she didn’t feel comfortable travelling this year.
“It’s still a little lonely in a sense,” she said. “I’m more accustomed to being around family this time of year.”
Odunlami said celebrations this year included a small Christmas Eve dinner with friends, complete with vaccination checks, and a virtual party over Zoom with other loved ones.
Over in Yarmouth, N.S., Const. Ryan Bell worked his first Christmas shift on Saturday. It was quiet, and he and other officers helped out at the Royal Canadian Legion in the small southwestern Nova Scotia town to distribute food and gifts to members.
“Driving around on the roads here in town, we haven’t seen many vehicles,” Bell said.
“With the pandemic, I think a lot of people are staying home, sticking with their families and enjoying Christmas.”
Few provinces reported new COVID-19 diagnoses on Christmas Day, though Quebec was an exception. It saw 9,206 new cases and four added deaths.
In recent days, many provinces have broken records with their infection counts.
On Christmas Eve, Ontario smashed past the record set a day earlier with 9,571 new cases, while British Columbia announced a new high of 2,144 infections and Manitoba broke its record with 742.
Nunavut, with eight infections in several communities, ordered a full lockdown in the territory on Friday.
Back in Ontario, St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Kincardine handed out free Christmas Day meals in drive-thru fashion in the parking lot like they did in 2020 — as opposed to offering sit-down lunches as was the case before the pandemic.
Organizer Sam Finnie said the church had given out 216 meals by Saturday afternoon. The meals consisted of turkey, potatoes, turnip, stuffing, mixed vegetables, gravy, cranberries and dessert. They were made possible with donations from community members, he said.
It meant a lot to be able to give the meals to those in need as well as people who won’t be celebrating the holidays with their loved ones this year, Finnie said.
Toronto-based Dr. Naheed Dosani said finding alternative ways to celebrate was the responsible thing to do during this phase of the pandemic.
“We have come so far and sacrificed so much that, at this time, a decision to put a hold on holiday get-together plans is the right thing to do.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 25, 2021.
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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
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.
