Ben Buss has been town crier in Duncan, B.C., since 2011.
A Vancouver Island city is putting out a call for a new kind of ambassador after deciding it will no longer send a town crier to greet visitors or represent the community at events.
Duncan’s town crier position has been retired as the city re-evaluates practices and symbolism of the past, said Mayor Michelle Staples, adding the community is on a journey to find a new voice.
Duncan has had a town crier since 1995, but the tradition of an official community messenger dates back to biblical times.
In centuries past in England, an elaborately dressed crier often carried a hand bell, shouting “hear ye, hear ye” to attract attention before calling out a proclamation. The crier also became a symbol of the arrival of European settlers in North America.
“Is a town crier reflective of our community in 2021?” asked Staples. “Council decided it isn’t reflective of who we are at this time. Our community has changed a lot over the last 100 years.”
Staples said Duncan does not have a timeline to find a new ambassador, but the process will undergo widespread community consultation starting this fall.
She said the city will invite the Cowichan Tribes, which has about 5,000 members in the Duncan area, to participate.
Duncan, known as the City of Totems, has 40 totem poles located within city limits. No one from the Cowichan Tribes was available for comment.
“We have to walk on this path together,” Staples said. “We’re going to reach out and ask them. We really want to open up the conversation. We want to hear back from people.”
Duncan’s newly unemployed town crier said his proposal to keep the position as a joint crier-ambassador role was rejected by council.
Ben Buss said his retirement came as a surprise.
“I didn’t want to be made redundant,” he said. “It’s rather sad we have to throw it out completely.”
Buss, 78, said he considers town criers part of a honourable tradition that gives communities a sense of place and history.
“They are bringers of goodwill,” he said. “They will facilitate the openings of fairs. They will head up a parade. It’s colourful. It has historical implications. It’s a very broad-ranging, wide, very difficult to pin down sort of job.”
Buss recently stood in his vegetable garden and rang his brass bell loudly while entertaining neighbours with a booming, mock endorsement of a local grocery market.
He dressed for the occasion, wearing his immaculately tailored town crier’s uniform — a bright red coat festooned with medals, white pants, a frilly-collared shirt and custom-made, square-toed black boots.
“Ho ye, ho ye!” Buss yelled. “Welcome to Burkey’s Corner. Burkey’s Corner in the sunny Cowichan Valley. Come, come to Burkey’s Corner and enjoy life.”
Buss said he has represented Duncan at international town crier competitions in New Zealand, the United States and in Kingston, Ont., and has performed ceremonies at gravesites of Canadian soldiers buried in Hong Kong.
While Buss said he understands the community’s need to explore its past and consider the future, especially with regards to Indigenous people, he doesn’t see the need to drop the town crier.
Since his retirement, other town criers from Canada and overseas have sent him messages of support and concern for their own futures, he said.
“I’ve yet to find the injustices of town criers,” said Buss. “Why do we need to change? You don’t have to change for the sake of change.”
Staples said the town crier represents an old tradition and Duncan has moved beyond its past.
“It’s not out of disrespect for what that tradition meant,” she said. “We’re in Duncan, Cowichan territory, in 2021. How do we want to represent ourselves now? It’s not about snubbing anyone at all.”
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.
