Hydro-Québec says crews are still working on restoring power to more than 80,000 customers in the province and that it could take until this weekend to get everyone back on the grid.
Thousands of residents have been left in the dark since Saturday following a fierce spring storm that swept across large swaths of the province, downing trees and power lines.
The most affected region remains the Laurentians, where roughly 50,000 customers are still without electricity. As of Wednesday afternoon, some 18,000 customers in the Lanaudière were without power and more than 15,000 in the Outaouais.
At a news conference Wednesday in Morin-Heights, a small, hard-hit town in the Laurentians, Hydro-Québec president and CEO Sophie Brochu said crews are working “as quickly as possible” to restore power to all households.
“We will not leave until everyone has been reconnected,” she told reporters.
Crews are working ‘as fast as we can,’ says Hydro-Québec president
Sophie Brochu says more crews are expected to be deployed to remote regions to help restore power to affected households, with the goal of being “really far” into the process as of Saturday.
Brochu said the public utility has about 700 crews — or 1,400 people — working around the clock, including crews from private contractors, regions that haven’t been affected by the outages and even some from New Brunswick.
Régis Tellier, vice-president of operations and maintenance at Hydro-Québec, said he hopes to have 50,000 customers reconnected by the end of the day, “but we cannot hope to reconnect all customers before Friday, perhaps even beyond.”
Residents kept in the dark, says mayor
Morin-Heights was battered by Saturday’s storm. Trees were seen toppled over cars and on roofs, and power lines littered the streets.
Mayor Tim Watchorn said as of Wednesday, 75 per cent of residents are still without power. And while the public utility is urging patience, he said people in the community are starting to feel frustrated.
“[Hydro-Québec] can’t give us a timeline as of now,” he said. “People find it difficult not knowing.”
Mayor Tim Watchorn says 75 per cent of Morin-Heights residents are still without power. (Marika Wheeler/CBC)
Because many residents rely on wells, even showering and using the washroom is impossible for some. With no internet, phones or stoves, many are left feeling cut off from the world.
“It’s hard to not know what’s happening and when you’re going to get your power back,” Watchorn said.
Chalet Bellevue, the local community centre, has been transformed into an emergency shelter since the weekend storm. A generator has been hooked up allowing people to charge their phones, cook, get water and take showers.
On Wednesday, Patricia Clark was at the community centre trying to download books to read on her iPad. She was grateful to finally plug back in since she hasn’t had power in her home since Saturday afternoon.
“It was very painful throwing out everything in the fridge and the freezer … but Morin-Heights has been excellent though, they give you, you know, everything.”
Downed trees, terrain causing delays
Hydro-Québec says the size of the affected area is a key reason for the delays in getting the light backs on.
The violent storm hit a portion of territory 300 kilometres long by 100 kilometres wide, according to Brochu, ranging from the Outaouais to Quebec City.
She said half a million customers lost power within three to four hours and more than 554,000 customers were without electricity at the height of the event.
“It was crazy,” she said. “Since the ice storm, that’s pretty much the biggest event we’ve seen.”
Brochu said the complex nature of the work to be done in some regions could also pose risks and create complications, causing further delays.
Some 700 Hydro-Québec crews, or 1,400 people, are working to restore power across the province.
Crews must remove power lines that have fallen to the ground under the weight of uprooted trees, replace hundreds of poles and navigate difficult terrain that sometimes prevents work trucks from getting to the affected areas, she said.
Brochu said repairs in remote areas only restore service to a small number of customers at a time, hence the plateau in the number of customers regaining power.
“We know you’re there, we’re going to work as hard and as fast as we can,” she assured residents.
As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 470,000 customers had had their power restored. The power is back on for all households in the Mauricie, Quebec City and Montreal regions.
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.
