Royal Bank of Canada says it regrets customer had ‘a stressful experience’
Barratou Barry, centre, stands with family and members of the anti-racism group Red Coalition outside the branch Sunday. She says she was discriminated against because she is Black. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)
A typically breezy, routine trip to an Ottawa bank last month devolved into a drawn-out and dehumanizing incident of racial discrimination, one of the bank’s longtime Black customers says.
On Aug. 18, Barratou Barry went to the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) branch on Bank Street south of the Greenboro park-and-ride to deposit some money and pick up a new credit card.
It was something she’d done there many times before, she said.
With her family at her side, Barry recounted what happened next at a press conference held Sunday morning in the branch’s parking lot.
When asked for identification, Barry, a 15-year RBC customer, explained she didn’t yet have her driver’s licence and instead provided her health card and new passport.
The bank clerk left the desk to do some verifications, Barry said, and told her 15 minutes later “the system [was] not working” and that a manager would need to step in.
Another 40 minutes passed, and then a shocked and disbelieving Barry saw bank staff speaking to police officers outside.
“I just knew those police officers were there for me, you know? And then I started filming,” she said.
It started as a routine bank visit, but she says she was discriminated against
Barratou Barry says a bank clerk at her Royal Bank of Canada branch called the police on her. At issue were her documents, which had her name spelled two different ways. She filmed her interaction with police and bank staff.
‘Not going to let this pass’
One of the videos she shot, which she shared with CBC News, captured her reacting in the moment to the sight of officers.
“I’ve been dealing with this company for 15 years,” an audibly upset Barry says later in the video, as some officers speak to bank staff while others take her aside. “I have a business account with them. And then they call the police on me.”
“I’m not going to let this pass,” she later adds in French.
Barry said police told her they’d been called because the bank suspected the passport was forged and were concerned over the fact her documents spelled her name two different ways.
She said she ended up getting her credit card from the bank.
Barry filmed the Aug. 18 incident, capturing her shock at seeing police called to the bank. (Barratou Barry)
Awaiting an apology
Barry said Sunday she wanted to prevent other people from having the same experience of feeling unfairly “detained.”
“Everyone was passing by, looking at me, giving me that guilty look,” she said. “The dehumanization … that I have been through, me and my family — no one should be put into that position.”
Calling the police over doubts about a Black customer “shouldn’t be [the bank’s] first response,” Barry added.
“Ask me simple questions to clarify. Why call the police? The only reason I see is because I was Black.”
Barry said she remains a customer of the bank — in part because it takes time to transfer accounts, but also because she wants to see what RBC does next.
She said Sunday that RBC had yet to apologize for how she was treated and that she wants “them to have more policies and more rules” to prevent discrimination.
‘You never think it’s gonna happen to you. Never in my life. Nobody called the police on me before,’ Barry says. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)
Regret for her ‘stressful experience’
In a statement, RBC didn’t speak to the specifics of the situation for privacy reasons but said they “regret that our client had a stressful experience.”
The incident is still being reviewed, the company said, adding they would “continue to reach out directly to our client.”
Barry said the bank did attempt to speak to her both right after the incident and later on the phone, but she was too rattled to talk.
RBC also said it gives employees training to deepen their awareness of “diversity, bias and anti-racism.”
“Diversity and inclusion guide our actions and behaviours to ensure we develop a relationship with clients based on trust and, most importantly, mutual respect,” the statement said.
The company carries out “thorough due diligence” when verifying identification, it added.
Not the first such incident
What happened to Barry is “not a unique incident,” said Alain Babineau, a spokesperson with Montreal-based anti-racism group Red Coalition, which joined Barry at Sunday’s news conference.
The coalition said they plan to file a complaint against RBC on Barry’s behalf with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
They’d previously done so for Babineau, a retired RCMP officer who claimed discrimination at the hands of CIBC when he was refused a debit card in 2019.
Police acted sensitively toward Barry, coalition members added.
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.
.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:*510w)
