Veren’s share price plunges as oil producer lowers output forecast

MONTREAL – Dockworkers at the Port of Montreal started a new strike Thursday morning, forcing the indefinite shutdown of two container terminals at the country’s second biggest port.

The Port of Montreal says the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals are closed until further notice, paralyzing 40 per cent of the port’s total container-handling capacity. The union representing nearly 1,200 longshore workers began its latest strike at 11 a.m., affecting the two terminals operated by the company Termont. The latest strike involves up to 320 workers.

Thursday’s walkout is in addition to an ongoing strike on overtime shifts affecting the entire port, and comes after a three-day strike at the same two container terminals earlier this month. The union also held a 24-hour work stoppage on Sunday.

Officials with the union, which is connected to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, have said they are willing to call off the strike if a deal is reached on a portion of the dispute centred around scheduling.

Union representatives said earlier in the week that Termont is being targeted because it has made widespread use of the scheduling practices the union opposes, on the grounds they impact work-life balance.

The Maritime Employers Association denounced the strike and said it can’t grant the demand to change work schedules without formal negotiations taking place.

“The schedules used on the different docks … called into question by the union in recent days are enshrined in the collective agreement in force and cannot be used as a bargaining chip for a strike targeting a single operator, as is the case today,” the group wrote Thursday in a news release.

Workers have been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2023. Besides issues around scheduling and work-life balance, the union is also asking for a pay raise. It says it will accept the same increases that were granted to the counterparts in Halifax or Vancouver — 20 per cent over four years.

In a statement, Port of Montreal CEO Julie Gascon warned that a prolonged stoppage could have wide-ranging impacts on the economy, and urged the parties to reach a deal. She said ships were already being forced to reroute to other ports.

“This new work stoppage at the Viau and Maisonneuve terminals, at the very hub of our supply chain, can only have a deeply negative impact on thousands of local businesses, as well as on the economy of Quebec and Canada as a whole,” she wrote. “This shutdown affects half of our international container terminals and heightens a climate of uncertainty that undermines the reliability and image of our logistics sector, key elements in the confidence that businesses place in the greater Montreal ecosystem.”

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce published a letter on its website urging the government of Canada to use “every tool at its disposal” to facilitate a return to the negotiating table, warning an indefinite strike risks accelerating inflation, increasing costs for businesses and consumers, and damaging Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.

“Canadians expect swift, decisive action from our elected officials to facilitate the resolution of this labour dispute and secure our economic future,” read the letter, which was signed by dozens of business groups and boards of trade.

The Maritime Employers Association repeated its call for the federal labour minister to intervene to bring the parties back to the negotiating table. It said it had already made some cuts in response to the labour conflict, and warned that “difficult but necessary decisions may have to be made to cope with the many impacts of this new strike.”

Earlier this month federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon proposed a special mediator so the parties can resume negotiations without a lockout or strike for 90 days, but that offer was rejected.

In a statement Thursday, MacKinnon’s office said the parties “must find a process leading to a negotiated agreement as quickly as possible.”

“Federal mediators and Minister MacKinnon remain available to assist them, and we continue to monitor the situation closely.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple snapped out of a recent iPhone sales slump during its summer quarter, an early sign that its recent efforts to revive demand for its marquee product with an infusion of artificial intelligence are paying off.

Sales of the iPhone totaled $46.22 billion for the July-September period, a 6% increase from the same time last year, according to Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter report released Thursday. That improvement reversed two consecutive year-over-year declines in the iPhone’s quarterly sales.

The iPhone boost helped Apple deliver total quarterly revenue and profit that exceeded the analyst projections that sway investors, excluding a one-time charge of $10.2 billion to account for a recent European Union court decision that lumped the Cupertino, California, company with a huge bill for back taxes.

Apple earned $14.74 billion, or 97 cents per share, a 36% decrease from the same time last year. If not for the one-time tax hit, Apple said it would have earned $1.64 per share — topping the $1.60 per share predicted by analysts, according to FactSet Research. Revenue rose 6% from last year to $94.93 billion, about $400 million more than analysts forecast.

But investors evidently were hoping for an even better quarter. Apple’s stock price slipped slightly in extended trading after the numbers came out.

The results captured the first few days that consumers were able to buy a new iPhone 16 line-up that included four different models designed to handle a variety of AI wizardry that the company is marketing as “Apple Intelligence.” The branding is part of Apple’s effort to distinguish its approach to AI from rivals such as Samsung and Google that got a head start on bringing the technology to smartphones.

Even though the iPhone 16 was specifically built with AI in mind, the technology didn’t become available until Apple released a free software update earlier this week that activated its first batch of technological tricks, including a feature designed to make its virtual assistant Siri smarter, more versatile and more colorful. And those improvements are only available in the U.S. for now.

“This is just the beginning of what we believe generative AI can do,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts during a Thursday conference call.

Cook said plans to expand the AI iPhone features into other countries in December, as well as roll out other software updates that will inject even more of the technology in the iPhone 16 and two high-end iPhone 15 models that are also equipped with the special computer chips needed for the slick new features. The December expansion will include an option to connect with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to take advantage of technology that Apple isn’t making on its own.

Investors are betting that as Apple’s AI becomes more broadly available, it will prompt the hundreds of millions of consumers who are using older iPhones to upgrade to newer models in order to get their hands on the latest technology.

Although the iPhone sales bounced back, another key part of Apple’s operations — its services division — didn’t fare quite as well as analysts anticipated amid regulatory efforts in Europe and U.S. to force the company to allow more payment options within its app store. That crackdown threatens to undercut a lucrative fee system that enables Apple to exclusively collect a 15% to 30% commission on many of the digital commerce transactions completed within iPhone apps.

The revenue in Apple’s service division climbed 12% from a year ago to nearly $25 billion, but that figure was about $200 million below analyst projections.

Apple’s revenue also dipped slightly from a year ago in China, where the company has been facing stiffer competition in the smartphone market.

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Mounties have dismantled what they say is the largest, most sophisticated illicit drug “superlab” in Canada that had been acting as a “supermarket” for organized crime.

Police say the lab mass produced and distributed the powerful opioid fentanyl and methamphetamine across Canada and internationally.

David Teboul, assistant commissioner with the RCMP’s Pacific region, told a news conference Thursday that dismantling the lab “undoubtedly saved thousands of lives in Canada and abroad.”

“I cannot understate the sophistication … that our investigators have noted in this particular lab,” he said.

Its size, the type of equipment used and the nature of the drug recipes, including a recipe used by a Mexican cartel, indicate how advanced this lab was, Teboul said.

“This brought the level of sophistication of this operation to an unprecedented level, certainly in Western Canada, if not the entire country.”

Officers served search warrants last week on the drug lab in Falkland, B.C., in the southern Interior, and associated locations in Surrey, in Metro Vancouver.

Police say they seized 54 kilograms of fentanyl, “massive” amounts of precursor chemicals, 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, and smaller amounts of cocaine, MDMA, and cannabis.

At the Surrey locations they found a total of 89 firearms, including handguns, AR-15-style rifles and submachine-guns as well as small explosive devices, ammunition, silencers, high-capacity magazines, body armour, and $500,000 in cash.

Teboul said the lab was set up to continue to produce drugs without having to refuel on chemicals for weeks, if not months.

“This place that our investigators took down was a supermarket for organized criminality enterprises,” he said.

Teboul said the drugs in this case were not destined for the U.S. market, but were being sent internationally. He would not say where while the case is still being investigated.

He said criminals in situations such as this are highly sophisticated and have changing allegiances.

“This is all about making money. These are individuals who operate by way of convenience and opportunities, and they’re not necessarily associated to one particular group that wears funny patches on their backs or these kinds of things,” he said.

Investigators say a suspect, Gaganpreet Randhawa, was arrested and is in custody facing six drug and firearms-related offences. Teboul said more arrests are possible.

He said environmental mitigation and cleanup of the lab will cost at least $500,000 and could be “significantly higher.”

Fentanyl is a main ingredient in much of the toxic illicit drugs that have killed nearly 48,000 people across the country between January 2016 and March 2024, according to the federal government.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

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