“This has been a wonderful week for Canadians. We are going to have vaccines in this country on Monday,” Anand said, speaking in the House of Commons during question period on Monday.
While officials had said that vaccines arriving on Monday was a good possibility, no government voice had given firm confirmation that Dec. 14 would definitively be the day the newly approved Pfizer coronavirus vaccine would be arriving on Canadian soil.
Speaking on Wednesday, Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, who is leading Canada’s vaccine distribution plans, said the doses would ship from Belgium on Friday and could begin arriving on Monday or Tuesday.
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“We expect vaccines to be shipped very soon – by the end of the week,” he said, adding that the final details would become clear as the shipping process gets underway.
2:08 Coronavirus: Health Canada official outlines process for approving Pfizer vaccine
Coronavirus: Health Canada official outlines process for approving Pfizer vaccine
It appears those details may have been clarified, given that Anand spoke firmly about the vaccine doses arriving on Monday. Her confirmation comes just one day after officials announced the vaccine’s approval for use in Canada.
Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical advisor with the regulatory branch of Health Canada, announced the news in a press conference on Wednesday. She said the approval marked a “momentous occasion.”
“It’s an exceptional day for Canada,” Sharma said.
“In a year where we haven’t had a lot of good news, this is a bit of good news. And I think we should take a moment to acknowledge that — and then we’re all going to get back to work.”
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Since the approval, details about the vaccine’s distribution timeline have been trickling out. Ontario Premier Doug Ford confirmed on Thursday that health-care workers in Toronto and Ottawa would get the province’s first doses next Tuesday, while Alberta says it plans to distribute the doses starting next Wednesday.
The federal government has said that the plan is to roll out initial vaccine doses to four priority groups: residents and employees at long-term care homes, Canadians aged 70 and above, front-line health-care workers and adults in Indigenous communities.
7:46 Coronavirus: BioNTech CFO on vaccine shipments, doses Canadians can expect
Coronavirus: BioNTech CFO on vaccine shipments, doses Canadians can expect
The Public Health Agency of Canada added that the plan is to begin vaccinating the general population in April, with the goal of inoculating the entire country by the end of September.
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“I mean, the geek in me is amazed. No one would have thought, even when we looked back at the first discovery of the virus, that less than a year later we’d be authorizing and then distributing a vaccine,” Sharma said on Wednesday.
Health officials have also stressed that while the approval process happened fast, it was as thorough as the process for any other drug that has been given the go-ahead for use in Canada.
Still, some questions remain about the vaccine. The Pfizer vaccine, which is the first and only vaccine to be approved for use in Canada to date, is not approved for use on those under the age of 16 – that’s just shy of 17 per cent of Canada’s population.
1:13 Coronavirus: Trudeau praises Pfizer vaccine approval in House of Commons
Coronavirus: Trudeau praises Pfizer vaccine approval in House of Commons
The next steps for immunizing those under the age of 16 are still unclear, as well as the plans for inoculating those who are allergic to the Pfizer vaccine’s ingredients.
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The concern comes after two vaccine recipients in the U.K. had allergic reactions to the jab. While both had previous histories of significant allergic reactions, Health Canada is closely monitoring for any adverse reactions to the vaccine.
As it stands now, Sharma has said those with allergies to the vaccine’s active ingredient or any of the vaccine’s other ingredients “should not take it.”
Additionally, there is still more research required with respect to the longevity of the protection afforded by the newly approved vaccine – though Sharma said there are promising early findings in this area.
Canada is currently evaluating three other vaccine candidates from Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. The approval of any of these vaccines could speed up the timeline of Canada’s vaccination efforts.
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.
