Roger Wiebe is one of millions of Canadians who has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, despite never contracting the virus.
The Edmontonian was working in a medical supply warehouse when he lost his job after the pandemic struck. He qualified for the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB), the income support program the government rolled out during the pandemic to help people like him with payouts of up to $2,000 a month.
But that program is set to expire on Sunday. Which brings new anxieties and uncertainties.
He and his wife Kim, a legal assistant, used to earn around $6,000 a month combined, but she lost her job in February as work slowed before the pandemic struck, so she applied for employment insurance (EI). That ran out in August, when she was moved to CERB. The couple has relying on government programs and food banks of late.
On top of the financial stress, his wife recently had one of her legs amputated below the knee.
“I’m really I’m trying to stay stable … for my wife … because she’s going through a lot of emotional as well as physical pain due to the amputation,” Wiebe said in an interview. “I’m trying to be a rock for her, but it’s a lot of stress and emotional fatigue on me as well.”
CERB has kept them afloat, but now with rent and bills piling up and the job market looking no better than before — he says and his wife have filled out 150 job applications since the pandemic began — he’s worried.
And almost everyone else, Ottawa says, is likely covered by another new income support programs in the works, the Canada response benefit (CRB), which is designed to cover gig, freelance and contract workers who don’t qualify for EI.
That was previously slated to pay $400 a week, but the Liberals bumped the amount up to $500 after Thursday’s throne speech.
Roger Wiebe says once the the taxi ride to his wife’s doctor’s appointment is paid next week, he’ll be down to his last $7. (Trevor Wilson/CBC)
“That may seem like a small change, but there’s actually two million people … that will benefit from this change,” said David MacDonald, chief economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a progressive think-tank.
Thats the good news. But MacDonald says the current EI plan could still leave more than a million people worse off than where they were under CERB.
By his math, roughly 700,000 people who lost work in the pandemic but managed to take in some paid work will find themselves getting less in benefits.
And MacDonald said there’s a whole other group of roughly 400,000 low income, primarily part-time workers, who will still be making less than they would have been if the government simply extended CERB if they are lucky enough to get back to their regular hours.
Transferring between programs ‘a messy process’
There’s also the problem that whether you are transferred seamlessly from CERB to EI depends on how you applied for it. If you applied for CERB through Service Canada, the government says it will happen automatically. But if you applied through the Canada Revenue Agency, you’ll have to begin a formal application for EI, which can take time.
MacDonald estimates about 900,000 people will qualify for the new CRB. But since none of the programs have been officially created and passed through Parliament yet, there’s uncertainty everywhere.
“The websites aren’t up and running in terms of where people would apply, how they apply, how they find out their status and so on,” MacDonald said. “There are four million people who are on CERB and will likely go through this transition [so] where they should go and where they should apply to is … going to be a messy process.”
Wiebe says he has heard that it can take between six and eight weeks to get a first EI payment. “If that’s the case, I’m not sure what we’re going to do because we can’t go eight weeks with no income,” he said.
Sarah Pacey received CERB after she lost her job while on maternity leave. With the program now ending, she is worried about slipping through the cracks. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)
Sarah Pacey is another CERB recipient who’s worried about the future.
She went on maternity leave from her job providing in-home behaviour therapy for autistic children in June of 2019, but her publicly funded employer lost funding last December. She was laid off while on maternity leave.
When her mat leave expired in June 2020 she applied for CERB.
“With that ending, I’m a little bit just unsure about where I am now,” said Pacey, who lives in Toronto.
She has pored overthe government website explaining EI, but since payouts are based on the amount of paid work you’ve done over the past year, “it doesn’t seem like I really qualify for any of those programs,” she said.
Government confident no one will be left behind
In announcing the changes, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said the government is confident that people like Pacey and Wiebe don’t need to worry.
“I think we’ve created … a much more elegant balance between the need to not disincentivize work, but also support people who, regardless of effort, still aren’t working or have significantly reduced hours,” she said.
WATCH | Carla Qualtrough on the transition from CERB:
Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough says three quarters of Canadians who are currently on CERB will be able to transition seamlessly to EI in the next few weeks. 1:29
Wiebe is fairly confident that he will still qualify for some sort of support program, but his wife may not. Once the couple’s $1,575 in rent and more than $500 a month in medical expenses are factored in, there will be little left for utilities and food.
The couple’s October rent has been paid. But once they take a $20 cab ride to his wife’s doctor’s appointment next week, Wiebe said he will be down to his last $7.
“They talk about the hardships and how they understand it,” he says of the government’s assurances. “But until you’ve actually lived it, you don’t truly grasp it.”
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.
