Estate sale Emily Carr painting bought for US$50 nets C$290,000 at Toronto auction

EDMONTON – Alberta’s information and privacy commissioner says she has big concerns – including fuzzy definitions and insufficient guardrails – in two bills now being debated in the house.

The bills aim to amend existing access to information and privacy rules and are touted by Premier Danielle Smith’s government as being the strictest privacy regulations in Canada.

But commissioner Diane McLeod says, to the contrary, the government would be creating legislative holes if the bills are approved.

McLeod outlined her concerns and suggested changes in letters sent Wednesday to the sponsors of the bills: Technology Minister Nate Glubish and Service Alberta Minister Dale Nally.

Glubish’s bill would create a separate act for the protection of privacy while Nally’s bill proposes changes to freedom of information rules. 

McLeod noted Glubish’s bill would allow the personal information of a minor to be shared without that minor’s permission if doing so was deemed to be in the youth’s best interest.

McLeod noted that the bill isn’t clear on who would be responsible for determining the best interests of minors, nor is it clear what best interest means.

“If disclosure is truly ‘in the best interests of a minor’ then it should be with consent,” McLeod wrote.

The commissioner’s letter also says Glubish’s changes don’t account for privacy risks when government bodies use “automated systems” to collect and make decisions around personal data.

McLeod wrote that it isn’t clear what an automated system even refers to or if artificial intelligence would be involved. She says privacy guardrails are therefore critical.

When it comes to changes put forward by Nally to Alberta’s freedom of information rules, “there are many grounds for concern,” McLeod wrote.

She wrote that the proposed changes give the government more power to avoid disclosing information to the public by including in the exempted correspondence “virtually all communication between political staff and (members of cabinet).”

Nally defended this change Wednesday, saying that such electronic communication should be confidential as freedom of information “is about access to government documents, not about political conversation.”

McLeod’s letter says she is also concerned about broad disclosure exemptions for government records relating to labour relations and “workplace investigations,” both of which the bill doesn’t provide a definition for. The letter also says the bill appears to exempt the disclosure of data kept in government databases.

“In my view, this amendment takes access rights a step back, not forward,” she wrote.

Glubish and Nally told reporters they will review McLeod’s concerns and recommendations over the coming days. Glubish also said that the government gave McLeod “unprecedented access” to the development of the legislation, but in a statement Wednesday, McLeod said her office didn’t see the finished bills until they were introduced in the legislature.

Both bills have passed first reading in the assembly and will need to be read and debated three more times before receiving royal assent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nvidia on Wednesday reported a surge in third-quarter profit and sales as demand for its specialized computer chips that power artificial intelligence systems remains robust.

For the three months that ended Oct. 27, the tech giant based in Santa Clara, California, posted revenue of $35.08 billion, up 94% from $18.12 billion a year ago.

Nvidia said it earned $19.31 billion in the quarter, more than double the $9.24 billion it posted in last year’s third quarter. Adjusted for one-time items, it earned 81 cents a share.

Wall Street analysts had been expecting adjusted earnings of 75 cents a share on revenue of $33.17 billion, according to FactSet.

Investors took the results in stride, however, and Nvidia’s high-flying stock slipped about 1% in after-hours trading. Shares in Nvidia Corp. are up 195% so far this year.

“The age of AI is in full steam, propelling a global shift to Nvidia computing,” Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said in a statement. 

Nvidia’s third-quarter data center revenue was $30.8 billion, up 112% from a year ago. That growth was driven by demand for the Hopper computing platform for large language models, recommendation engines and generative AI applications, the company said.

Analysts’ were eyeing Nvidia’s guidance on its Blackwell graphics processor unit, a next-generation artificial intelligence chip that’s seen demand from companies like OpenAI and others building AI data centers. 

Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said Blackwell production shipments are scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 and will continue to ramp into fiscal 2026.

On an earnings call Wednesday, Kress told investors that both Hopper GPU and Blackwell systems “have certain supply constraints, and the demand for Blackwell is expected to exceed supply for several quarters in fiscal 2026.”

“Every customer is racing to be the first to market,” Kress said. “Blackwell is now in the hands of all of our major partners, and they are working to bring up their data centers.”

The company, seen as a bellwether for AI demand, will deliver “more Blackwell than we have previously estimated” this quarter, Huang added.

Nvidia has led the artificial intelligence sector to become one of the stock market’s biggest companies, as tech giants spend heavily on the company’s chips and data centers needed to train and operate their AI systems. 

The company carved out an early lead in AI applications race, in part because of Huang’s successful bet on the chip technology used to fuel the industry. The company is no stranger to big bets. Nvidia’s invention of graphics processor chips, or GPUs, in 1999 helped spark the growth of the PC gaming market and redefined computer graphics. The company’s third quarter gaming revenue rose to $3.3 billion, an increase of 15% from a year ago.

Demand for generative AI products that can compose documents, make images and serve as personal assistants has fueled sales of Nvidia’s specialized chips over the last year. Nvidia, the most valuable publicly traded company by market cap as of Wednesday morning, is now worth over $3.5 trillion, with analysts closely monitoring Nvidia’s path to $4 trillion. 

Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, said the earnings report shows “the AI Revolution is still in the early innings of playing out.” 

“We view this as a Nvidia earnings press release that should be hung in the Louvre,” Ives said. “Blackwell demand is just beginning. Any sell off (in Nvidia’s stock) we would view as short lived, with our view this is a $4 trillion market cap in 2025 as the Godfather of AI Jensen (Huang) drives this spending wave.”

Through the year’s first six months, Nvidia’s stock soared nearly 150%. At that point, the stock was trading at a little more than 100 times the company’s earnings over the prior 12 months. That’s much more expensive than it’s been historically and than the S&P 500 in general. 

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

EDMONTON – Former prime minister Stephen Harper is the new chairman of the Alberta Investment Management Corp., which oversees more than $160 billion in funds, including pension funds and the Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

The move comes almost two weeks after the province’s finance minister fired the Crown agency’s entire board, along with a number of executives, citing ballooning costs and substandard returns.

Premier Danielle Smith said Wednesday in a statement that the appointment of Harper and other board members is a step toward the long-term success of AIMCo.

“Our ambitious goal of building the Heritage Savings Trust Fund to more than $250 billion in the next 25 years requires strong governance oversight, which he will provide,” she said.

The province’s nest egg fund is currently valued at $23 billion.

Harper, the Conservative prime minister from 2006 to 2015, said in a statement he would do the work without being paid.

“I believe it is a meaningful act of public service to my adopted home province of the last 46 years,” Harper said.

“I also feel uniquely positioned to help the organization improve its governance.”

Finance Minister Nate Horner told reporters in the legislature Wednesday that Harper is the right choice to deliver returns and drive down costs.

“Albertans should be grateful and thankful that he would consider doing this. I’m actually surprised that he would – a person of his stature,” said Horner.

AIMCo, in its latest annual report, said it had $161 billion of assets under management as of the end of last year, with 600 employees spread across offices in Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Luxembourg, Singapore and London, U.K.

It handles about $118 billion in investments for public sector pension plans representing thousands of Albertans, including teachers, police officers and municipal workers.

The shakeup at AIMCo has sparked renewed concerns about the politicization of pension policy in Alberta, and comes after a public push by Smith’s United Conservative Party to pull the province out of the Canada Pension Plan.

The province says no decision has been made on leaving the CPP.

But AIMCo has been floated as a potential manager of whatever money the province might be able to negotiate in such an exit. A report commissioned by the provincial government estimated Alberta would be entitled to more than half of the CPP fund’s assets — or $334 billion.

Horner said Harper’s past advocacy for an Alberta Pension Plan had no bearing on the appointment.

When asked by a reporter if it’s a signal the Heritage Savings Trust Fund will be directed into de-risking investments or projects in Alberta, Horner was dismissive.

“You would never want to preclude investments from happening in Alberta … but that isn’t the goal,” he said.

AIMCo’s mandate says it operates at arm’s length from the government, although there is co-operation and collaboration between the two.

In addition to Harper, the government said it’s putting the deputy finance minister – the top civil servant in the ministry — on the AIMCo board, also without pay, to ensure consistent communication between the agency and the government.

Alberta NDP finance critic Court Ellingson said Albertans don’t want politicians managing their assets.

“This move sends a horrific message to Albertans and investors that even organizations with immense fiduciary responsibilities are not immune to political interference from the UCP,” said Ellingson.

Horner said Harper’s appointment didn’t need specific clearance from the ethics commissioner, and there are conflict of interest and code of ethics rules for members of the board. 

Among other roles, Harper is listed as a “working equity partner” for private equity firm Azimuth Capital Management.

Horner said that’s not uncommon. “That’s why the rules are in place.”

Three of the fired board members — Bob Dhillon, Jason Montemurro, and Jim Keohane — were reappointed.

The finance minister did not provide an estimated timeline for when other members of the board might be installed.

When asked about the leaders of Alberta’s nine largest unions demanding seats on the board to have a say in how members’ money is managed, Horner noted that they have seats on their own pension boards.

He said he’s not considering changing the law so that the unions could leave AIMCo and choose another pension manager.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.