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World's largest-reaching bus company hits the highway in Canada – CBC News

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FlixBus, a German company that says it’s the world’s largest-reaching bus provider, launched its Canadian operation this week in Toronto.   

“It’s a dream bus market for us,” said Pierre Gourdain, managing director of FlixBus North America, about rolling into Toronto with three flashy green coaches to start routes in Ontario.

That may sound like encouraging words for bus passengers and transportation advocates who felt abandoned when Greyhound pulled out of Canada in May 2021. 

The sleek silver dog had been limping along for years, saying many routes it had licences to operate weren’t sustainable before the pandemic stripped to the bone whatever market Greyhound had left.    

Experts say the arrival of FlixBus, which operates in 37 countries serving more than 2,500 destinations, is good news for bus customers, but it’s not clear if it will help underserved communities and whether private bus operators can create a national bus network without government support.       

“Given the catastrophic situation of the industry and the poor level of service we have in the country, that’s a really complex question,” said Jean-Baptiste Litrico, an associate professor of strategy at the Queen’s University Smith School of Business in Kingston, Ont. 

Starting small in big market Ontario

In essence, FlixBus is a tech company that partners with local bus companies who own the coaches and hire the drivers. 

It provides a ticket app and website, a pricing structure, route planning, and marketing, charging a 25 to 30 per cent commission on sales.  

The FlixBus plan is to establish profitable high volume routes between Ottawa and Toronto, Niagara Falls and Toronto and Waterloo and Toronto before developing routes with less demand.  

The company is moving into Canada after the nation’s largest province opened up its intercity bus industry to competition last summer. Deregulation in Ontario offers FlixBus and other carriers access to routes Greyhound couldn’t go after when it was here.   

Pierre Gourdain, managing director of FlixBus North America, says Canada is a ‘dream’ market for the company. Here he stands in front of passengers boarding the company’s first bus in Toronto. (James Dunne/CBC)

 

Flix also does research on customer demand and demographics and according to Gourdain, several key factors make Ontario and Quebec a “dream bus market” for the company. 

Gourdain said the provinces both have a “crazy high student population” and a lot of foreign students, who are frequent bus customers. 

The company also sees potential customers in the roughly 30 per cent of Toronto households that don’t own cars, and Gourdain believes their ticket app will appeal to the high number of Canadians who shop online.   

Where to next? Not small towns

This summer FlixBus plans to start cross-border routes into the U.S. from Ontario and B.C. The next priority will be to get a licence for routes in Quebec, where regulation remains a barrier to accessing the market.

The company isn’t rushing to create a national network or reach underserved communities, though some smaller destinations may come later. 

Gourdain said all bus carriers are struggling to recover from the pandemic, and FlixBus is no different.

“We are still at 50 to 70 per cent, in terms of demand, compared to pre-COVID,” he said.  

According to the American Bus Association, which tracks the industry in both the U.S. and Canada, almost 24 per cent of bus carriers went under in 2020, and in 2021 revenues were still 62 per cent below 2019 levels. 

Gourdain also said the company would likely develop several American markets, like Nashville, Tenn., and  St. Louis, Mo., before looking west to Canada’s Prairie cities. 

“First you start the Tier 1 routes, so be a bit patient with us,” said Gourdain.

Who’s going cross-country? 

Several regional carriers have maintained and even tried to expand service over the past few years in different parts of the country.  

Saskatchewan-based Rider Express is trying to span a big part of the country. 

“We are trying our best to provide national service,” said company owner Firat Uray.  

After starting out with two large vans for a Regina to Saskatoon route in 2017, Rider Express has grown to 20 buses, with plans to add another five as soon as possible.

Saskatchewan-based Rider Express is trying to provide national service, says company owner Firat Uray. Its customers can travel from Vancouver to Toronto. (James Dunne/CBC)

Using Rider Express and its partner Ontario Northland, customers can travel all the way from Vancouver to Toronto. It also has a number of routes in the western provinces.

It’s not an easy business, he said.   

“Some routes we make money, some routes we don’t make money and those two routes cover each other,” said Uray.  

“So that’s how we operate.”

Uray said he doesn’t imagine FlixBus will pursue much Prairie business.

“I don’t think they’re going to run those small cities,” he said.

However they will be rivals on the Toronto-Niagara route, which Rider Express is starting as well.  

German Flix Bus hits the highway in Canada

16 hours ago

Duration 1:55

Can this new player in the Canadian bus business help the sector turn a corner for the better? 1:55

Reaching underserved areas  

FlixBus also does interline with other bus companies, selling their tickets on its platform. But collaboration alone won’t solve the problem of servicing thinly populated areas in such a large country. 

In Canada, said Litrico, “it’s a problem that we see over and over again, in a number of essential public services, not just transportation.”

Jean-Baptiste Litrico, an associate professor of strategy at the Queen’s University Smith School of Business in Kingston, Ont., says Canada needs to figure out how to provide a level of intercity bus travel that’s equitable. (submitted by Jean-Baptiste Litrico)

With FlixBus being valued at more than $3 billion, and having bought Greyhound’s U.S. operations last year, it’s not asking for government support. Gourdain said help should go to small operators, to create more jobs.       

Uray said the government could help with fuel costs for operators in small centres or “by purchasing small vans for the local bus companies” in underserved rural areas. 

No matter what the approach, Litrico said governments have to address “how to protect and maintain the level of service that’s equitable.” 

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As sports betting addiction takes hold in Brazil, the government moves to crack down

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SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.

Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.

“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.

King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.

On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”

King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.

King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.

“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”

Driven by the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.

Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.

Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.

Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.

A host of gambling related problems

Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.

On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.

“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.

Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.

“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.

Pressure to bet

Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.

Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.

The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”

Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”

De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.

“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.

Gamblers Anonymous in high demand

Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.

Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.

“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”

___

Dumphreys reported from Rio de Janeiro.



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Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman improves to 6-0 at mixed curling nationals

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SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.

After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.

Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.

The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.

The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.

The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Oilers fall 4-2 to Golden Knights in McDavid’s return from injury

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EDMONTON – Noah Hanifin had a pair of goals as the Vegas Golden Knights won their first road game of the season, coming from behind to shock the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Wednesday.

Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Mark Stone also scored for the Golden Knights (9-3-1), who have won two in a row and six of their last seven. The Knights entered the game 0-3-1 on the road this year.

Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman replied for the Oilers (6-7-1), who have lost two straight despite getting captain Connor McDavid back from injury earlier than expected for the game.

Adin Hill made 27 saves for Vegas, while Stuart Skinner managed 31 stops for Edmonton.

Takeaways

Golden Knights: With an assist on the Knights’ second goal, William Karlsson has recorded at least a point in all five games he has played this season (two goals, four assists).

Oilers: McDavid was a surprise starter for the Oilers, coming back just nine days after suffering an ankle injury in Columbus and initially being expected to miss two to three weeks. The star forward came into the contest with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) during a six-game point streak versus the Golden Knights, but was held pointless on the night.

Key moment

With just 48.4 seconds left to play, the Golden Knights won a race to the corner and Ivan Barbashev was able to send it out to a hard-charging Hanifin, who sent a shot glove-side that beat Skinner for his second goal of the third period and third of the season.

Key stat

It was Hyman’s third goal in the last four games after the veteran forward went scoreless in his first 10 games this season following a 54-goal campaign last year. Hyman now has five goals in his last six games against Vegas.

Up next

Golden Knights: Head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Friday.

Oilers: Travel to Vancouver on a quick one-game trip to clash with the Canucks on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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