After Marketplace investigated these movers, the police investigated. Now, they’ve been arrested
Following an undercover Marketplace investigation into a group of national moving companies accused of deceptive pricing, Toronto police have arrested two key figures and charged them with a slew of criminal offences.
The charges come after a raid Friday, as the two bosses arrived at a Scarborough, Ont., address where the moving companies are based. Within moments, a large police contingent descended on the premises, seizing the company’s assets and recovering customers’ belongings, including family heirlooms and the ashes of at least one deceased person being held by the movers.
Business partners Cemal Ozturk and Dogan Celik, both 30, have been charged with four counts each of fraud, mischief, possession of property obtained by crime and false pretence, as well as conspiracy to commit indictable offences.
Ozturk and Celik were detained for at least 72 hours, until a bail hearing Monday. None of the allegations have been proven in court.
A police press release alleges customers were “provided with a low-cost contract for moving their belongings,” but once the items were loaded onto a truck, “the men would contact the customers making a demand for more money.”
Customers who wanted their belongings delivered “would be forced to pay the inflated prices,” often in the thousands of dollars.
In an email statement at the time of the Marketplace investigation, Celik said his companies value customers and treat them with respect, and that his companies will be “doing a full review of all of our operations and procedures to ensure that the companies are following these important company values.”
Despite several attempts by phone, registered mail, email and social media, Ozturk could not be reached for comment at the time of the Marketplace investigation. CBC has been unable to identify Ozturk and Celik’s lawyer. Read more
Roadway Moving first quoted the Marketplace producer $895 to move 1,000 pounds. After filling out an inventory spreadsheet, that number jumped to $1,495 before tax to move 3,000 pounds. But on moving day, the estimated weight went up again.
Amid industry-wide delays, Air Canada cancels dozens of daily flights
If you’ve got an Air Canada flight booked this summer, you’ll want to double-check to make sure it hasn’t been cancelled.
The airline will cut dozens of daily flights this summer as it grapples with a series of challenges amid soaring demand for travel.
Flight delays have been a big issue this month across all airlines.
Analytic firm Data Wazo says 54 per cent of flights to six large airports — Montreal, Calgary, Toronto’s Pearson and Billy Bishop airports, Ottawa and Halifax — were bumped off schedule in the seven days between June 22 and 28.
Air Canada’s flight changes would see the company reduce its schedule by 77 round trips — or 154 flights — on average, each day during the months of July and August.
“Three routes will be temporarily suspended between Montreal and Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Kelowna and one from Toronto to Fort McMurray,” said Peter Fitzpatrick, an airline spokesperson.
Most flights affected by the changes are out of its Toronto and Montreal hubs, he said. Read more
An Air Canada flight taxis on the tarmac at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal on May 16, 2022. The airline is reducing its summer schedule by 154 flights. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images)
Nutrition warnings are coming to the front of some packaged foods in Canada
It will soon be easier for Canadians to spot which pre-packaged foods come packed with high levels of saturated fat, sugar or sodium.
That’s because Canada will now require companies to add nutrition warnings to the front of pre-packaged food that meets that criteria in an effort to help grocery shoppers make healthier choices with just a glance.
But ground meat will be exempt from the labels, after ranchers groups objected to Health Canada’s proposal earlier this month.
The government says the labels are meant to help Canadians eat healthier, as the so-called “nutrients of public health concern” have been linked to conditions such as cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
“These regulations are designed to make it easier for us to make informed, healthier choices,” said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. Read more
Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos announces new food labeling in Ottawa on Thursday. Canada will require that companies add nutrition warnings to the front of pre-packaged food with high levels of saturated fat, sugar or sodium, starting in 2026. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Could TikTok be banned from app stores? That’s what this U.S. communication regulator wants to see
TikTok is one of the world’s most popular apps. But a United States communications regulator is flagging serious privacy concerns and warning the app is not just “for sharing funny videos or memes.”
Brendan Carr, a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has written a letter to the CEOs of Apple and Google, alerting them that the wildly popular video-sharing app does not comply with the requirements of their app store policies.
“At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data,” Carr wrote in the letter.
The letter comes after U.S. news outlet Buzzfeed reported last week that data on U.S. users has been repeatedly accessed by entities in mainland China. TikTok subsequently announced that it plans “to delete U.S. users’ private data from our own data centres and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the U.S.,” the company said.
John Zabiuk, chair of the cybersecurity program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, says that if the U.S. does decide to ban the app, Canada is likely to follow suit.
“It’s a hugely popular app and it would make a lot of people upset [but] if we look at the architecture and the way it works, it is an extremely dangerous application,” he said. Read more
TikTok is owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance, which is itself linked to the Chinese government. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)
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VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
