The Hudson’s Bay Company is apologizing after using a photo of a Black anti-racism advocate as one of the faces of a fundraising campaign for Indigenous, Black and people of colour without asking for her permission or that of the original photographer — also a person of colour.
Hadiya Roderique, who works as an advocate on equity, diversity and inclusion, spoke out on Twitter after a friend visited one of The Bay’s department stores over the weekend and noted her face on countertop sign seeking donations for the company’s “Charter for Change” initiative.
“She said, ‘I didn’t know you were doing work for The Bay,'” said Roderique, a lawyer, who is not practising.
Roderique replied that she wasn’t.
The photo was originally taken by Luis Mora for a piece authored by Roderique for the Globe and Mail, called “Black on Bay Street,” in which Roderique spoke out about working in law as a Black woman, fitting in and the roadblocks she encountered.
“For that photo to have been the one that was co-opted without my consent, without my permission, and as I understand it, without the consent or the permission of the photographer either, seemed particularly problematic,” she said.
<a href=”https://twitter.com/hadiyaroderique?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@hadiyaroderique</a> This image was used by mistake – we deeply regret the error and are reaching out directly to explain and correct.
Launched in May of this year, the Charter for Change campaign was billed as a “social impact platform,” meant to update the company’s Royal Charter, first granted by the British in 1670, which gave it an exclusive trading monopoly over the Hudson Bay drainage basin.
The company said earlier this year it would give $30 million over 10 years to organizations “working to advance racial equity and inclusion, through … education, employment and empowerment.”
“The goals of the campaign seem great,” Roderique told CBC News. “But I’m an educator that certainly wasn’t empowered or employed.”
The company says the image was used “by mistake” and the photo has since been removed.
It came “from a photographer’s website used as inspiration when developing the campaign,” spokesperson Tiffany Bourre said in a statement.
“However it did not get updated, as was intended, to reflect one of the participating Canadians in the Hudson’s Bay Charter for Change campaign. We deeply regret the error.”
Roderique says she’s been assured the company is working to pull her photo from its stores and that remains her main concern.
In a statement to CBC News, the photography agency representing Luis Mora, KZM Agency, said it did not sell the photo to The Bay or give it permission to use it, and was unaware it had been used by the company until being contacted by CBC News.
Part of its mission is to empower marginalized artists and “protect them from abuses in the world of photography and imaging,” said the agency’s founder, Kathi Ziolkowski.
“Before we would consider something like that, we would need to get permission from the person in the image — and make sure that they approved and were getting paid for it,” she said.
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, says he’s worked with public and private organizations and has seen “a lot of learning” when it comes to connecting with diverse communities. But at the same time “a lot of mistakes are being made.”
Representation, inclusion and empowerment “needs to be done with those parties — and with the permission of, and hopefully compensation of, as well.”
“In this case, there’s been an acknowledgement that a mistake was made. I think importantly The Bay needs to demonstrate how they’re going to rectify the mistake.”
For her part, Roderique says she might like to see The Bay make a financial contribution to a Black or Indigenous organization, but is still considering her next steps.
“When I spoke to The Bay, they didn’t mince words and said this was completely their error. Good first step,” she said.
Still, she says, it’s a mistake that never should have happened.
“That happens so often when you have Black creation, Indigenous creation, creation from other people of colour — their words, their ideas, their thoughts, their images being used by others … and not really giving attribution to the original creator,” she said.
“Especially when you’re doing things of this nature; when you’re using the images of people of colour to signal and try to solicit funds for anti-racism and other projects related to people of colour, you need to make sure, extra sure, that you are crediting them and crediting their work and make sure that people are being compensated.”
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.
