TSAWWASSEN —
The provincial public safety minister, B.C. mayors and ordinary citizens are all frustrated with travellers and visitors flouting the instructions of the province’s top doctor during a global pandemic.
BC Ferries sailings were mostly full on Friday as driving routes out of Metro Vancouver were busy with vehicles, many of them towing boats and campers. Some people insist they were travelling on important errands that met with Dr. Bonnie Henry’s instructions to avoid non-essential travel to continue the downward trend of infections in the province.
“It certainly is disappointing and frustrating that we are seeing a minority of people who are ignoring the provincial health officer, Dr Bonnie Henry’s, instructions for this weekend that this is not the weekend to be travelling,” said a visibly exasperated Mike Farnworth, the Public Safety Minister. “It’s a weekend to stay close to home and to maintain your social distance.”
Despite the repeated exhortations to exercise close to home and avoid being closer than two metres to others, CTV News found a mixed bag of behaviour throughout Metro Vancouver.
At Deer Lake Park, visitors were few and far between, but in White Rock a steady stream of cars brought waves of people to the area — even though they couldn’t access much of the beach or the famous pier.
And, despite messaging and tweets from BC Ferries advising against non-essential travel and saying “the coast isn’t going anywhere & neither should you,” CTV News spoke with several people who felt camping plans exempted them from the instructions to avoid travel because they wouldn’t be in contact with others.
One traveller said his travel was essential because he was resuming custody of his dog, while another woman said they were returning to Campbell River after picking up a motorcycle. Another said he was returning to his home in Nanaimo after spending time with his father on the mainland, but planned to spend much of the weekend dirt-biking, camping and “enjoying nature.”
Mayors: Come some other time
“Please do not come now,” said Gibsons Mayor Bill Beamish. “ Not today or not this weekend. Not until the medical health officer tells us it’s safe for all of us to travel again.”
He’s one of many mayors fearing long-weekend travellers could bring COVID-19 to communities ill-equipped to handle outbreaks of the disease.
By the province’s own numbers, roughly one-in-five people infected with the virus need hospitalization.
“We look forward to your visit, and to the time when we’ll all be able to visit our friends and families in other parts of the province,” said Beamish. “We all need to work together to keep everybody safe and to keep our communities safe.”
Kelowna’s mayor echoed the sentiment, noting that he hasn’t even considered what a relaxing of the rules will look like since he hasn’t heard anything from Henry.
“It absolutely pains me to say this given that our economy is so dependent on tourism, but we have to ask people to follow the advice of Dr. Bonnie Henry an the provincial government and please stay home,” said Colin Basran. “Certainly, when the time is right, Kelowna will welcome visitors with open arms and we will be more than prepared to have you come and visit.”
One man’s frustration boils over
As political leaders use their platforms to discourage travellers and visitors on a sunny and warm weekend, a White Rock man is taking it upon himself to send a personal message discouraging visitors with a hand-drawn sign on the community’s busy main drag.
“If you don’t live in White Rock don’t be heer (sic): stay the fuck home, stupid,” reads the sandwich board-sized sign scrawled by Aaron Craig in big block letters.
“I’m extremely frustrated,” Craig said to CTV News. “I personally locked myself in my house for 3 weeks now and all I’ve seen is thousands and thousands of people that just aren’t paying attention, that don’t care.”
While CTV’s camera was at the promenade, it recorded several people simply moving barricades and walking around them to access the beach, while dozens of people jostled against each other along the sidewalk.
“If you’re not in this community, stay out of this community — everybody needs to stay home right now, it’s really important,” insisted Craig. “I’m not a big person on being compliant with what the government says to do, but let’s just get it over with because I don’t want to spend my summer up in that room.”
More enforcement to come?
The public safety minister, who’s also B.C.’s solicitor general, says bylaw officers are authorized to crack down on people in parks and other crowded places who are obviously violating the provincial order to keep two metres apart and stay home as much as possible.
Farnworth says police will also be enforcing the two-week mandatory quarantine for travellers returning to Canada by land and air.
“Obviously, we’ll review what happens after this weekend and there may be further steps that need to be taken because clearly some people don’t get the message,” he said. “That’s unfortunate because the vast majority of the people in this province are doing what they’re supposed to do.”
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.
