OTTAWA —
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is thanking U.S. President Joe Biden for his “collaboration,” in offering to send Canada 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in a dose-sharing deal that’s still being solidified.
“Vaccines are the path out of this pandemic,” Trudeau said during a press conference of Friday. “We are finalizing an agreement on this with the American administration as we speak.”
As officials on both sides of the border confirmed Thursday, if the deal is inked, it’ll see the United States send 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Canada by the end of the month, under a loan agreement.
“We are working closely and very well with the Biden administration on many fronts, including vaccines. I want to thank president Biden for his collaboration,” he said, adding that working to send Canada more vaccine doses is something he and Procurement Minister Anita Anand have raised with their Washington, D.C. counterparts “a number of times.”
“Canada and the U.S. are each other’s closest friends and most important allies. I know we’ll continue working to keep Canadians and Americans safe,” the prime minister said.
In an interview on CTV News Channel’s Power Play on Thursday, Anand said she is anticipating the doses will be arriving this month, meaning that by the end of March, Canada should have a total of 9.5 million doses, up from the previous projection of 8 million doses total.
The expectation is that as part of the agreement, Canada and Mexico would pay the U.S. back with doses in return, in the months ahead.
Joining Trudeau for his press conference, Anand said Friday the doses are expected to have a minimum shelf life of 60 days.
Once they arrive, it’s likely they’d be sent across the country and provided to existing locations where the AstraZeneca vaccine is being administered, such as pharmacies.
“We are finalizing those details and I will share them with Canadians as soon as we have them,” said the procurement minister.
In total, the U.S. is looking to send 4 million of what White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called “releasable” doses to Mexico and Canada, from a stockpile of 7 million doses.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the regulatory agencies in Canada and Mexico have given it the green light, and Biden’s two North American neighbours have been pushing for more supply to immunize their populations quicker.
Speaking at a White House press briefing on Thursday, Psaki said the Biden administration’s priority remains ensuring the supply is there to vaccinate all American adults by the end of May, though that’s a target that country is set to be able to hit without doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
To date, the federal government has delivered more than 4.7 million vaccine doses to the provinces and territories, nearly 77 per cent of which have been administered, as the provinces continue to ramp up their rollout efforts.
In the months ahead, Canada will continue to receive larger shipments of vaccines in the push to immunize everyone who wants to be, by the end of September at the latest.
“Looking ahead, Canada is on track to receive a total of 36.5 million vaccines by the end of June, and 118 million doses by the end of September,” Anand said.
This plan has received several shots in the arms over the last few weeks after a sluggish start, with the latest update coming from Pfizer. That company is committed to sending more than a million doses every seven days through to the end of May.
Speaking to concerns raised by some provinces that certain coming shipments of the Moderna vaccine are being reduced, Anand said that because the coming deliveries include larger numbers of doses they are being divided into multiple deliveries but the total amount of doses going to each region will add up to the agreed-upon allocations in the end.
“Next week’s shipment of Moderna is a prime example. Rather than waiting until the end of the week to ship the entire order of 846,000 doses at once, it was decided to expedite the portion of the order that is ready, so that it arrives in Canada earlier,” she said.
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.
