More than five million arrivals into Canada have been allowed to skip the 14-day quarantine requirement put in place when the country closed its borders to non-essential travel in late March, the Canada Border Services Agency estimates.
The data — which was compiled by the CBSA at the request of CBC News — shows that more than 80 per cent of the 6.5 million total arrivals into Canada between March 31 and Nov. 12 were exempt from the quarantine meant to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
The arrival numbers include repeat entries by the same person.
The federal government exempts travellers from quarantine when they’re providing services deemed “essential.” Those exempt include flight crew and emergency response workers, as well as truck drivers who cross the border multiple times.
Truck drivers alone accounted for close to half of the total entries into Canada.
5.3 million exemptions is best guess
The CBSA calculated a total of 5.3 million quarantine-exempt entries, but said the number is only an estimate because the federal government didn’t start to track everyone in that group until July 31.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said that before July 31 the CBSA collected data on quarantine-exempt travellers crossing the border for statistical purposes, but only when it had the “operational capacity” to do so.
Starting on July 31, PHAC changed its policy and mandated that everyone in that group be tracked, so their contact information could be collected for enforcement purposes.
“Individuals with an exemption from federal quarantine must continue to meet the public health measures in place,” spokesperson Tammy Jarbeau said in an email.
Those measures include wearing a mask, social distancing and rules laid out by local health authorities.
Epidemiologist Colin Furness said that, ideally, the government should have tracked all quarantine-exempt travellers since the start of the border closure in late March.
“I don’t think we needed to have COVID on our shores before thinking about how do we manage our borders,” said Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and professor at the University of Toronto. “There’s just a lack of imagination and a lack of preparation.”
Vehicles cross the Peace Bridge into Canada last March in Buffalo, N.Y. The Canada-U.S. border has been closed to non-essential traffic in both directions since then due to the pandemic. (Jeffrey T. Barnes/The Associated Press)
PHAC didn’t explain why it waited four months into the border closure before it started collecting contact information for quarantine-exempt travellers.
The agency has collected contact information for the travellers required to quarantine, for enforcement purposes, since March 31. They include Canadians vacationing abroad and foreigners visiting immediate family in Canada.
Over the past seven months, the percentage of COVID-19 cases linked to international travel has ranged from 0.4 per cent in May to 2.9 per cent in July, according to PHAC.
Over the past two weeks, 47 international flights entering Canada were found to have had at least one confirmed COVID-19 case onboard.
Exemptions ‘critical to our economy’
Jarbeau said the large number of people exempt from quarantine is necessary so that workers “critical to our economy and infrastructure” can do their job after crossing the border.
She said only those essential workers who declare they have no COVID-19 symptoms are allowed to skip quarantine.
Infection control epidemiologist Colin Furness said that, ideally, Canada should have started tracking all quarantine-exempt travellers since the start of the border closure in late March. (Dale Molnar/CBC)
Furness said he understands why essential workers are exempt from quarantine, but takes issue with certain cases, such as business executives who get to bypass the requirement.
The federal government said two of those exemptions were a mistake and vowed to fix the problem. It declined to comment on a third case involving the president of U.S. operations for global shipping giant UPS, citing the federal Privacy Act.
“It’s unacceptable,” said Furness. “I don’t understand why we need business travel at all. We’ve got Zoom. We’ve got the internet.”
Testing pilot project
Epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan said it takes just one infected traveller to spark an outbreak.
“It’s possible that a traveller could show up, attend like a church or something and then be the trigger for a superspreading event,” said Deonandan, a professor at the University of Ottawa.
Both he and Furness suggest that routine COVID-19 testing of essential workers crossing the border would help mitigate potential risks. Testing is not currently a requirement for any traveller entering Canada.
“If we catch some positives that way and prevent somebody from becoming a spreader, that’d be great,” said Deonandan.
PHAC said it’s currently exploring the concept as part of a pilot project offering COVID-19 tests to travellers at two designated border crossings in Alberta.
The agency said that travellers who must quarantine and those who are exempt are both being offered tests. Essential workers who cross the border on a regular basis, such as truck drivers, will be offered a test every three to four weeks.
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.
