Amazon gouging?

Is broadband essential, like water or electricity? New net neutrality effort makes the case

Is broadband essential?

Photo: The Canadian Press

FILE - The seal of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seen before an FCC meeting to vote on net neutrality, Dec. 14, 2017, in Washington. Landmark net neutrality rules rescinded under former President Donald Trump could return under a new push by FCC Chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel. The rules would reclassify broadband access as an essential service on par with other utilities like water or power. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Landmark net neutrality rules rescinded under former President Donald Trump could return under a new push by U.S. Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel. The rules would reclassify broadband access as an essential service on par with other utilities like water or power.

“For everyone, everywhere, to enjoy the full benefits of the internet age, internet access should be more than just accessible and affordable,” Rosenworcel said at an event at the National Press Club. “The internet needs to be open.”

The proposed rules would return fixed and mobile broadband service to its status as an essential telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act. It would also prohibit internet service providers from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic and from selling “fast lanes” that prioritize some traffic over others in exchange for payment.

The move comes after Democrats took majority control of the five-member FCC on Monday for the first time since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 when new FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez was sworn in.

Rosenworcel said the FCC will vote in October to take public comment on the proposed rules.

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle that internet providers treat all web traffic equally, and it’s pretty much how the internet has worked since its creation. But regulators, consumer advocates and internet companies were concerned about what broadband companies could do with their power as the pathway to the internet — blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services, for example. Big telecom companies have fought regulations fiercely in court. They say the rules can undermine investment in broadband and introduced uncertainty about what were acceptable business practices.

What is the history behind net neutrality?

Law professor Tim Wu, now at Columbia University, coined the term “net neutrality” in 2003 to argue for government rules that would prevent big internet providers from discriminating against technology and services that clashed with other aspects of their business. Allowing such discrimination, he reasoned, would choke off innovation. But big telecommunications companies argue that they should be able to control the pipes they built and own.

The FCC in 2015 approved rules, on a party-line vote, that made sure cable and phone companies don’t manipulate traffic. With them in place, a provider such as Comcast can’t charge Netflix for a faster path to its customers, or block it or slow it down.

The net neutrality rules gave the FCC power to go after companies for business practices that weren’t explicitly banned as well. For example, the Obama FCC said that “zero rating” practices by AT&T violated net neutrality. The telecom giant exempted its own video app from cellphone data caps, which would save some consumers money, and said video rivals could pay for the same treatment. Under current chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC spiked the effort to go after AT&T, even before it began rolling out a plan to undo the net neutrality rules entirely.

A federal appeals court upheld the rules in 2016 after broadband providers sued.

However, the FCC junked the Obama-era principle in 2017. The move represented a radical departure from more than a decade of federal oversight.

Amazon's checkout-free stores are coming to Toronto and Calgary sports arenas

Amazon stores coming

Photo: The Canadian Press

In this Jan. 22, 2018, file photo, workers as seen from a sidewalk window as they assemble sandwiches in an Amazon Go store in Seattle. Toronto and Calgary sports fans will soon be able to skip the lineup when purchasing snacks before or during games. The Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary are rolling out Amazon technology allowing some of the venue’s stores to offer fans checkout-free shopping. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Elaine Thompson

Toronto and Calgary sports fans will soon be able to skip the lineup when purchasing snacks before or during games.

Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary are spending the fall rolling out Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology allowing some of the venues' stores to offer fans checkout-free shopping — and the Seattle-based e-commerce giant says this is just the beginning.

"You will be seeing more of this in Canada, not only in stadiums, but in all sorts of other environments as well," said Jon Jenkins, vice-president of Just Walk Out at AWS.

"We never release timelines...but it'll be coming very soon."

The Just Walk Out technology requires fans to scan a credit or debit card to gain entry to a store kitted out with overhead cameras and sensors that will use computer vision, machine learning and generative artificial intelligence to track what they pick up and return to shelves, building a virtual tab for each customer.

When fans are done shopping, they simply leave with their purchases and the technology automatically charges the card they used for entry and sends them a receipt.

Though the stores have a myriad of tech to keep the system running, Jenkins said the system really only collects information on what people purchase and the card they put it on. The system does not use facial recognition nor any other kind of biometric identifiers, he stressed.

Greeters are on hand to help people who are not accustomed to the technology, have questions about products and to help enforce age limits at stores that sell alcohol.

"There's really no substitute for having a human there because not only do you have to ensure that they're of age, but you have to verify sobriety and things like that as well," Jenkins said.

Amazon has been dabbling with the system since 2018. It is already used by 70 Amazon-owned stores and more than 85 third-party retailers across the U.S., U.K. and Australia, including LaGuardia, LAX and O’Hare airports, some Six Flags theme parks and stadiums TD Garden in Boston, Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and the United Centre in Chicago.

The technology will make its Canadian debut on Sept. 29 at the Saddledome, where it will be available to Market 213 shoppers.

It will then launch at the Scotiabank Arena’s 100-level Grains and Greens and the Molson Market on the 300 level on Oct. 10.

Amazon positioned the model as a win-win because it helps fans avoid long checkout lines that keep them from the game and it could boost sales because fewer shoppers abandon purchases when they don’t have to wait.

In some places where the technology has already launched, Jenkins said users have posted videos showing they have got in and out of stores within 10 seconds.

When Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks football team and Seattle Sounders soccer team, unleashed the technology last September at its District Market, Amazon said it experienced a 60 per cent increase in customer throughput — a measure of how many customers can be helped by sales staff — over the season.

By the end of the season in early 2023, the team saw transactions per game at the market increase 85 per cent and total sales per game more than double.

When the Saddledome debuts the technology, it will be looking closely at transaction times and basket sizes for results similar to Lumen Field, said Ziad Mehio, vice-president of technology and food service with the Calgary Flames.

But even more important will be reducing hassle for guests, a long-standing gripe at most stadiums.

"We always hear chatter about lineups," Mehio said.

"I really wanted to look at ways how we help (fans) get what they need and get back to the seat to watch the game and not be stuck."

Amazon sued by FTC and 17 states over allegations it inflates online prices and overcharges sellers

Amazon sued by FTC

Photo: The Canadian Press

The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorney generals filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon on Tuesday, alleging the e-commerce behemoth uses its position in the marketplace to inflate prices on other platforms, overcharge sellers and stifle competition.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, is the result of a years-long investigation into Amazon’s businesses and one of the most significant legal challenges brought against the company in its nearly 30-year history.

According to a news release sent by the agency, the FTC and states that joined the lawsuit are asking the court to issue a permanent injunction court that they say would prohibit Amazon from engaging in its unlawful conduct and loosen its “monopolistic control to restore competition.”

“The complaint sets forth detailed allegations noting how Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them," FTC chairman Lina Khan said in a statement.

Many had wondered whether the agency would seek to a forced break-up of the retail giant, which is also dominant in cloud computing and has a growing presence in other sectors like groceries and health care. In a briefing with reporters, Khan dodged questions of whether that will happen.

“At this stage, the focus is more on liability," she said.

JPMorgan settles claim that it enabled Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking for $75M

Chase settles Epstein claim

Photo: The Canadian Press

JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay $75 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle claims that the bank enabled the sex trafficking acts of financier Jeffrey Epstein.

JPMorgan said Tuesday that $55 million of the settlement will go toward local charities and assistance for victims. Another $20 million will go toward legal fees.

The Virgin Islands, where Epstein had an estate, sued JPMorgan last year, saying its investigation has revealed that the financial services giant enabled Epstein’s recruiters to pay victims and was “indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise.”

Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.

Musk's X the biggest purveyor of disinformation, says EU vice president

X marks spot for fake news

Photo: The Canadian Press

A top European Union official said Tuesday that the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, is the biggest source of fake news and urged owner Elon Musk to comply with the bloc's laws aimed at combating disinformation.

Ahead of upcoming elections, Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Meta also have more to do to tackle disinformation, much of it coming from Russia, which is using social media to wage a “war of ideas" against democracy, European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova said.

Moscow's disinformation operation “is a multimillion-euro weapon of mass manipulation aimed both internally at the Russians as well as at Europeans and the rest of the world,” she said at a press briefing in Brussels.

With elections scheduled in Slovakia and Poland in the coming weeks and a bloc-wide vote next year, big online platforms must address the risk of online meddling, she said.

The Kremlin and other malicious actors “will try to use the design features of the platforms to manipulate,” Jourova said.

She was providing an update on the 27-nation EU's 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation. Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Facebook and Instagram parent Meta signed up to the voluntary code last year, but Twitter dropped out after Musk bought the platform.

X is “the platform with the largest ratio of mis- or disinformation posts,” Jourova said.

An email to the company's press team seeking comment resulted in an automatically generated reply that said, “Busy now, please check back later.”

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, released a study of six online platforms in Poland, Slovakia and Spain that found Twitter had the highest prevalence of disinformation and biggest ratio of disinformation actors.

“Twitter has the highest discoverability” of disinformation, the report said.

Jourova warned Musk that "he is not off the hook" just because his company dropped out of the code. The code has been incorporated into a strict new set of mandatory European regulations known as the Digital Services Act, which subjects the biggest online platforms, including X, to the highest level of scrutiny.

Now, “there are obligations given by the hard law, so my message for Twitter is: ‘You have to comply with the hard law, and we will be watching what you are doing,’” she said.

Under the code, online platforms agree to commit to measures aimed at reducing disinformation and have to file reports on a regular basis.

After submitting “ baseline” reports, their first six-month reports outlining how they’re living up to those promises were released Tuesday.

US aims to create nuclear fusion facility within 10 years

US aims for nuclear fusion

Photo: The Canadian Press

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

The Biden administration hopes to create a commercial nuclear fusion facility within 10 years as part of the nation's transition to clean energy, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Monday.

Calling nuclear fusion a pioneering technology, Granholm said President Joe Biden wants to harness fusion as a carbon-free energy source that can power homes and businesses.

"It’s not out of the realm of possibility” that the U.S. could achieve Biden’s “decadal vision of commercial fusion,” Granholm said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press in Vienna.

Fusion works by pressing hydrogen atoms into each other with such force that they combine into helium, releasing enormous amounts of energy and heat. Unlike other nuclear reactions, it doesn’t create radioactive waste. Proponents of nuclear fusion hope it could one day displace fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources. But producing carbon-free energy that powers homes and businesses from fusion is still decades away.

A successful nuclear fusion was first achieved by researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California last December in a major breakthrough after decades of work.

Granholm also praised the role of the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog in verifying that states live up to their international commitments and do not use their nuclear programs for illicit purposes, including to build nuclear weapons.

“The IAEA is instrumental in making sure that nuclear is harnessed for good and that it does not fall into the hands of bad actors,” she said.

The watchdog organization has agreements with more than 170 states to inspect their nuclear programs. The aim is to verify their nuclear activities and nuclear material and to confirm that it is used for peaceful purposes, including to generate energy.

Nuclear energy is an essential component of the Biden administration’s goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by 2050.

Asked about the difficulty of finding storage sites for radioactive waste, Granholm said that the U.S. has initiated a process to identify communities across the country who may be willing to host an interim storage location. Currently, most of the spent fuel is stored at nuclear reactors across the country.

“We have identified 12 organizations that are going to be in discussion with communities across the country about whether they are interested (in hosting an interim site),” she said.

The U.S. currently does not recycle spent nuclear fuel but other countries, including France, already have experience with it.

Spent nuclear fuel can be recycled in such a way that new fuel is created. But critics of the process say it is not cost-effective and could lead to the proliferation of atomic weapons.

There are two proliferation concerns associated with recycling, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association: The recycling process increases the risk that plutonium could be stolen by terrorists, and second, those countries with separated plutonium could produce nuclear weapons themselves.

“It has to be done very carefully with all these non-proliferation safeguards in place,” Granholm said.

Professor Dennis Whyte, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the U.S. has taken a smart approach on fusion by advancing research and designs by a range of companies working toward a pilot-scale demonstration within a decade.

“It doesn't guarantee a particular company will get there, but we have multiple shots on goal,” he said, referring to the Energy Department's milestone-based fusion development program. “It's the right way to do it, to support what we all want to see: commercial fusion to power our society” without greenhouse gas emissions.

On other topics, Granholm said that depending on whether the U.S. government shuts down or not, the Biden administration could announce in October details on an $8 billion hydrogen hub program that will be funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law.

A hub is meant to be a network of companies that produce clean hydrogen and of the industries that use it — heavy transportation, for example — and infrastructure such as pipelines and refueling stations. States and companies have teamed up to create hub proposals.

Environmental groups say hydrogen presents its own pollution and climate risks. When released into the atmosphere, it boosts volumes of methane and other greenhouse gases.

“Our goal is to get the cost of clean hydrogen down to 1 dollar per kilogram within one decade,” Granholm insisted.

As fossil fuel emissions continue warming Earth’s atmosphere and extreme weather phenomena occur globally, Granholm was asked her opinion on the announcement by U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that the U.K. will delay crucial climate targets.

Sunak said last week that he will push back the deadline for selling new gasoline and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers as part of one of his biggest policy changes since taking office.

“When you see the heatwaves that the U.K. experienced this summer, I think it becomes obvious that we need to put on the accelerator,” she said, while adding that the U.K. has been a “great partner” in pushing modern technologies.

“We want to see everybody moving forward as quickly as possible (on the clean energy transition), including ourselves,” she said.

Unifor contract talks with General Motors begin after workers ratify Ford deal

Unifor begins GM talks

Photo: The Canadian Press

Unifor national president Lana Payne.

Contract talks between Unifor and General Motors Canada begin today.

The negotiations cover about 4,300 workers at the automaker's St. Catharines Powertrain Plant, the Oshawa Assembly Complex and the Woodstock Parts Distribution Centre.

Unifor announced GM as the next target company in its negotiations with the U.S. automakers on Monday.

The talks come after workers represented by the union at Ford Motor Co. of Canada voted on the weekend to approve a new contract that Unifor plans to use as a pattern agreement in its talks with GM and Stellantis.

The Ford deal included wage hikes, pension and benefit improvements, and special EV transition measures for workers at Ford's assembly plant in Oakville, Ont.

It also added two new paid holidays.

No new oil, coal projects needed as fossil fuel demand to peak this decade: IEA

Fossil fuel demand to peak

Photo: The Canadian Press

Even if no new government climate policies are introduced before 2030, global demand for fossil fuels will still peak before the end of the decade, a new report by the International Energy Agency states.

The report released Tuesday says the worldwide rollout of key technologies such as renewable power, electric vehicles and heat pumps is happening so quickly that demand for coal, oil and natural gas is set to peak within the next 10 years.

The IEA says this means that no new major oil and gas extraction projects are needed anywhere around the globe, nor any new coal mines, mine extensions or unabated coal plants.

"If the world is successful in bringing down fossil demand quickly enough to reach net zero emissions by 2050, new projects would face major commercial risks," the IEA stated.

Still, the report's authors pointed out that while the transition is occurring, more still needs to be done to hold global warming to the 1.5-degree Celsius target the international community agreed to at the 2015 climate summit in Paris.

While 1.5 C is still achievable, the IEA said, the paths available to get there are narrowing. Global carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector reached a record high of 37 billion tonnes in 2022. 

The world is set to invest a record US$1.8 trillion in clean energy in 2023, but the IEA said that needs to climb to US$4.5 trillion by the early 2030s in order to achieve net zero by 2050.

“The energy sector is changing faster than many people think, but more needs to be done and time is short," the report states.

For all countries, measures including ramping up renewables, improving energy efficiency, cutting methane emissions and increasing electrification will be necessary to achieve global climate targets, the IEA said. 

All of these things are possible using existing and cost-effective technologies, it said. For example, reducing methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations by 75 per cent from today's levels would cost US$75 billion in cumulative spending to 2030, the IEA estimates — the equivalent of just two per cent of the net income brought in by the industry in 2022.

While major investment in new oil production is not required, continued investment in existing oil and gas assets and already approved fossil fuel projects will be necessary, the IEA said, in order to avoid damaging price spikes or supply gluts during the energy transition.

In addition, it said rapid progress on carbon capture and storage will be required before 2030 in order to hold temperatures to 1.5 C. While the number of proposed carbon capture projects worldwide nearly tripled in 2021 and has doubled again since then — thanks to strong policy support, particularly in the U.S. — only about five per cent of announced projects have reached the final investment stage. 

"Although the recent surge of announced projects for CCUS and hydrogen is encouraging, the majority have yet to reach final investment decision and need further policy support to boost demand and facilitate new enabling infrastructure," the IEA stated.

The IEA report also urges governments to adopt a "build big" mentality. Electricity transmission and distribution grids need to expand by about two million kilometres each year by 2030 to reach the IEA's net-zero scenario, but the organization pointed out that building grids today can take more than a decade. 

"We need massive growth of battery energy storage and demand response; expanded, modernized grids; more dispatchable low-emission capacity, including fossil fuel capacity with CCUS, hydropower, biomass, nuclear and hydrogen and ammonia-based plants," the report stated.

All in all, to hold global temperatures to 1.5 C and avoid the most catastrophic impacts of warming, by 2035 emissions need to have declined by 80 per cent from 2022 levels in developed countries and by 60 per cent in developing countries, the IEA said.

Failing to make significant progress before 2035 would result in a steeper temperature increase and would force reliance on carbon removal technologies in the latter half of this century, the report warns.

"Removing carbon from the atmosphere is costly and uncertain," the IEA said. "We must do everything possible to stop putting it there in the first place."

Biden will join UAW strike picket line in unprecedented move for president

Biden to join picket line

Photo: The Canadian Press

President Joe Biden’s decision to stand alongside United Auto Workers pickets on Tuesday on the 12th day of their strike against major carmakers underscores an allegiance to labor unions that appears to be unparalleled in presidential history.

Experts in presidential and U.S. labor history say they cannot recall an instance when a sitting president has joined an ongoing strike, even during the tenures of the more ardent pro-union presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Theodore Roosevelt invited labor leaders alongside mine operators to the White House amid a historic coal strike in 1902, a decision that was seen at the time as a rare embrace of unions as Roosevelt tried to resolve the dispute.

Lawmakers often appear at strikes to show solidarity with unions, and during his 2020 Democratic primary campaign, Biden and other presidential hopefuls joined a picket line of hundreds of casino workers in Las Vegas who were pushing for a contract with The Palms Casino Resort.

But sitting presidents, who have to balance the rights of workers with disruptions to the economy, supply chains and other facets of everyday life, have long wanted to stay out of the strike fray — until Biden.

“This is absolutely unprecedented. No president has ever walked a picket line before,” said Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and an expert on U.S. labor history. Presidents historically “avoided direct participation in strikes. They saw themselves more as mediators. They did not see it as their place to directly intervene in a strike or in labor action.”

Biden's trip to join a picket line in the suburbs of Detroit is the most significant demonstration of his pro-union bona fides, a record that includes vocal support for unionization efforts at Amazon.com facilities and executive actions that promoted worker organizing. He also earned a joint endorsement of the major unions earlier this year and has avoided southern California for high-dollar fundraisers amid the writers' and actors' strikes in Hollywood.

During the ongoing UAW strike, Biden has argued that the auto companies have not yet gone far enough to satisfy the union, although White House officials have repeatedly declined to say whether the president endorses specific UAW demands such as a 40% hike in wages and full-time pay for a 32-hour work week.

“I think the UAW gave up an incredible amount back when the automobile industry was going under. They gave everything from their pensions on, and they saved the automobile industry,” Biden said Monday from the White House. He stressed that the workers should benefit from the carmakers' riches “now that the industry is roaring back.”

Biden and other Democrats are more aggressively touting the president's pro-labor credentials at a time when former President Donald Trump is trying to chip away at union support in critical swing states where the constituency remains influential, including Michigan and Pennsylvania. Biden is also leaning in on his union support at a time when labor enjoys broad support from the public, with 67% of Americans approving of labor unions in an August Gallup poll.

Instead of participating in the second Republican primary debate on Wednesday, Trump will head to Michigan to meet with striking autoworkers, seeking to capitalize on discontent over the state of the economy and anger over the Biden administration's push for more electric vehicles — a key component of its clean-energy agenda.

“If it wasn’t for President Trump, Joe Biden would be giving autoworkers the East Palestine treatment and saying that his schedule was too busy," said Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller, referring to the small Ohio town that is still grappling with the aftermath of a February train derailment. Biden said he would visit the community but so far has not.

White House officials dismissed the notion that Trump forced their hand and noted that Biden was headed to Michigan at the request of UAW President Shawn Fain, who last week invited the sitting president to join the strikers.

“He is pro-UAW, he is pro-workers, that is this president,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “He stands by union workers, and he is going to stand with the men and women of the UAW.”

Yet the UAW strike, which expanded into 20 states last week, remains a dilemma for the Biden administration since a part of the workers' grievances include concerns about a broader transition to electric vehicles. The shift away from gas-powered vehicles has worried some autoworkers because electric versions require fewer people to manufacture and there is no guarantee that factories that produce them will be unionized.

Carolyn Nippa, who was walking the picket line Monday at the GM parts warehouse in Van Buren Township, Michigan, was ambivalent about the president’s advocacy for electric vehicles, even as she said Biden was a better president than Trump for workers. She said it was “great that we have a president who wants to support local unions and the working class.”

“I know it’s the future. It’s the future of the car industry,” Nippa said. “I’m hoping it doesn’t affect our jobs.”

Still, other pickets remained more skeptical about Biden's visit Tuesday.

Dave Ellis, who stocks parts at the distribution center, said he’s happy Biden wants to show people he’s behind the middle class. But he said the visit is just about getting more votes.

“I don’t necessarily believe that it’s really about us," said Ellis, who argued that Trump would be a better president for the middle class than Biden because Trump is a businessman.

The Biden administration has no formal role in the negotiations, and the White House pulled back a decision from the president earlier this month to send two key deputies to Michigan after determining it would be more productive for the advisers, Gene Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, to monitor talks from Washington.

Container shipments drop 14% at Port of Vancouver as consumer demand falls

Port shipments drop 14%

Photo: The Canadian Press

A CN Rail train moves cargo containers at the Centerm Container Terminal at port in Vancouver, on Friday, July 14, 2023.The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority says container shipments are falling fast, as consumer demand weakens amid a sputtering economy. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority says container shipments are falling, as consumer demand weakens amid a sputtering economy.

The authority says container shipment volume at the Port of Vancouver in the first half of the year fell 14 per cent compared with the same six-month period in 2022.

Interim CEO Victor Pang says the figures reflected a softer economy, which contracted slightly in the second quarter.

Movement of construction materials and auto parts also slumped, while shipments of finished vehicles ramped up as supply chain kinks smoothed out.

Grain exports marked the biggest bright spot, ramping up more than 100 per cent, a boost driven in part by record volumes shipped to Africa amid a surge in demand brought on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Nonetheless, Pang says the two-week strike by B.C. port workers in July took a toll on operations, as month-over-month container shipments fell by third and pushed many shippers to other ports.

Weather-related home repairs highest in Atlantic Canada: HomeStars survey

Weather drives repairs

Photo: The Canadian Press

A downed tree is shown in a yard in Fredericton during post-tropical storm Lee.

Homeowners in Atlantic Canada completed the highest number of emergency repairs due to weather-related events in the past year, according to HomeStars' latest renovation report.

One-third of homeowners across Canada who renovated or repaired their properties in the past year made weather-related repairs, while 41 per cent of those in Atlantic Canada specifically said they did emergency repairs, many of them because of catastrophic flooding.

The survey shows 79 per cent of respondents say sustainability was important when choosing building materials for renovations, while 59 per cent who renovated over the last 12 months chose green products.

HomeStars CEO Shir Magen says while inflation and interest rates put a damper on overall spending on repairs and renovations, 73 per cent of Canadians surveyed still plan to do at least one home renovation in the next 12 months.

The report says Canadian homeowners who spent an average of $12,300 on renovations in the past year but spending in the coming 12 months will likely be lower, at an average of $10,264.

The survey, conducted by HomeStars, polled 1,105 homeowners aged 23 and older who had renovated or repaired their homes in the past year between July 20 and 27. The poll cannot be assigned a margin of error because online surveys are not considered truly random samples.

Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week

This week in business

Photo: The Canadian Press

Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week:

Tech conference

The Canadian tech community will gather in Toronto over three days for the annual Elevate conference, which starts on Tuesday. The regulation of artificial intelligence is expected to be one of the top subjects discussed by speakers at the event.

BlackBerry results

BlackBerry Ltd. is expected to report its second-quarter results on Thursday after the close of trading. In its guidance released earlier this month, the company said it expected revenue in its second quarter to total about US$132 million as it said it faced delays in closing certain large deals and lowered its full-year revenue outlook for its internet-of-things (IoT) business. 

Aritzia earnings

Aritzia Inc. is also expected to report its second-quarter results after the close of financial markets Thursday. The results come after the retailer saw its first-quarter profit fall compared with a year earlier as it faced inflationary headwinds and economic pressures on shoppers.

Economic reconciliation

First Nations and business leaders will hold a panel discussion on economic growth and reconciliation. The event, held by the Canadian Club Toronto, the First Nations Major Project Coalition and the Business Council of Canada, will examine economic reconciliation, including opportunities for Indigenous ownership facilitated by access to competitive capital.

GDP

Statistics Canada will release its snapshot of how the economy began the third quarter on Friday when it publishes its figures for gross domestic product by industry for July. The agency's early estimate for July suggested real GDP for the month was essentially unchanged as strength in the public, finance and insurance, and professional, scientific and technical services sectors were offset by weakness in the manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, and construction sectors.