DEAD CAPITAL

Posthaste: Canada Inc. sitting atop $140B cash mountain — but here's why it's reluctant to unleash the funds to power the economy

 


Canadian companies are sitting atop a $140-billion cash mountain, but they may be reluctant to unleash those funds to power the economy any time soon, according to Bank of Montreal.

BMO chief economist Doug Porter and senior economist Sal Guatieri estimate that Canadian non-financial corporations’ financial assets rose to $206.6 billion in the first three quarters of 2020, compared to an average $131.5 billion in the past decade.

“Much of the increase was in currency and deposits, which rose by $139.6 billion to a record high, versus an average of just $27.5 billion in the past decade,” the analysts wrote in a report on Friday. “So yes, there is plenty of extra cash on hand, but it’s largely for precautionary reasons.”

Savings by Canadian consumers and corporations have been touted as key drivers of a much-anticipated economic rebound, and is also known as a ‘pre-loaded’ fiscal stimulus.

Last November, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce economists estimated Canadian households had a cash hoard of $170-billion. But the cash has only slowly trickled into the economy due to continued lockdowns and lack of opportunities to spend.

BMO analysts believe that the business sector will also remain reluctant to inject funds into the economy too quickly.

Much of the cash buildup is due to a rebound in commodity prices, but also due to companies tapping loans and debt securities that would have inflated many companies’ cash accounts.

“The next question is whether they will be willing to take that step (to spend),” BMO analysts said. “Some sectors face such extreme uncertainty and/or challenging backdrops in the current environment that it is highly unlikely that there will be a significant pickup in capital outlays in highly affected industries, while many are just trying to survive.”

Companies may also be looking to pay off debts accumulated during the crisis before investing in new projects, programs and products. Canadian corporate debt currently stands at 128 per cent of GDP, compared to global average of around 100 per cent.

In addition, business capital spending has been at record lows even before the pandemic, and that’s unlikely to change amid continued economic uncertainty.

AND THE SOLUTION IS; TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS

The economist argue that the government will need to ease taxes to encourage companies to plough funds back into the economy.

EXPROPRIATION NOT TAX BREAKS

“The takeaway question for policymakers looking beyond the pandemic is thus: what are the more fundamental conditions that are acting as a constraint on business investment?,” Porter and Guatieri wrote. “Improve the climate in which businesses operate, say regarding taxes and infrastructure, and the spirit will follow.”

Lowering taxes may be hard for federal and provincial governments that have seen their own fiscal situation deteriorate to support the economy. They can, however, boost infrastructure in targeted areas and devise non-tax incentives to encourage Canada Inc. to unleash its cash hoard.

Amazon reportedly upgrading its truck fleet

with hundreds of vehicles that run on natural gas

© ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images 

Amazon ordered over 700 compressed natural gas trucks, according to Reuters.

The trucks will use engines provided by a joint venture between Cummins Inc and Westport Fuel Systems.

The company previously pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040.

Amazon is upgrading its truck fleet to add hundreds of vehicles that run on natural gas as it explores new ways to reduce carbon emissions, according to Reuters.

The tech company ordered over 700 compressed natural gas trucks that would run from warehouses to distribution centers, the report said. The company is testing new vehicle types including electric, compressed natural gas, among others, Reuters reported.

Amazon did not immediately comment to Insider about the report.

Read More: Amazon unveils its first custom electric delivery vehicle, complete with a driver 'dancefloor,' built-in Alexa, and 360-degree exterior cameras

The trucks will be supplied by a joint venture between Cummins Inc and Westport Fuel Systems Inc, Reuters said.

Amazon has been exploring avenues to become carbon neutral by 2040 in support of the Climate Pledge commitment, according to its statement in October.

Panic buying caused by the pandemic increased trucking volumes by around 30% in 2020 as delivery activity surged, according to a June report by McKinsey & Company.

Read More: Amazon's first electric delivery vans are now making deliveries - see how they were designed

Most of the country's freight is delivered through medium and heavy-duty trucks which make over 20% of the industry's greenhouse gas emissions although they make up only 5% of the road fleet, according to Reuters.

Earlier this month, Amazon said that its electric delivery vehicles began making deliveries in Los Angeles. The company plans to expand the vehicles in 15 more cities in 2021 and have 10,000 on the road by 2022 and 100,000 by 2030.

Amazon first showcased its planned custom electric delivery vehicles in October and it first announced in February 2020 that it ordered the vehicles from electric automaker Rivian.

Read More: Amazon-backed Rivian closes $2.65 billion funding round as it prepares to ship its first electric SUVs and pickups

The online retailer reportedly delivers 2.5 billion packages per year.

Amazon reported its fourth-quarter 2020 results in February with a sales volume increasing to 39%.

Devastation in northern India Sunday. Over 100 feared missing or dead after a Himalayan glacier burst in Uttarakhand, wiping out a hydro dam and nearly everything in its path. Megan Robinson reports.

CIA Officer Will No Longer Provide Biden's Daily Intelligence Briefings After It Emerged He Defended Agency's Alleged 'Torture Program'

TEHRAN (FNA)- Morgan Muir who has been in charge of overseeing President Joe Biden's daily intelligence briefings will no longer do so.

Muir will be moved to a new role within the White House and is now expected to oversee the assembly of the written President's Daily Brief instead, The Daily Mail reported.

The brief is assembled from various reports from across the intelligence community, but he will no longer lead the in-person briefings.

The move comes after it was revealed on Saturday that Muir, who was formerly a senior CIA analyst, was part of a group advocating for the agency with regards to false claims about its torture program to a powerful Senate committee.

Muir essentially put together what would become the report on the agency's torture program in 2013.

An article by BuzzFeedNews quoted Daniel J. Jones, one of the lead committee staff members at the time, who noted how Muir had defended the value of the CIA's torture program in private talks with Senate aides and made false claims.

Jones told the publication that Muir could no longer be trusted to "convey accurate information".

"I would not trust him," Jones said, given Muir's past statements, adding, "There's no room for you in senior positions anymore."

CIA Spokesperson Timothy Barrett has called Jones' characterizations "baseless" and defended Muir calling him "an exemplary career intelligence officer whose strength of character is unquestionable".

A Senate report which was finally issued in 2014, was a sweeping indictment of the CIA and outlined the clear abuses and torture by the agency while interrogating terrorism suspects in the years after the September 11th terror attacks alongside a pattern of misleading Congress and the White House about it.

The article reveals how in 2013, there was a dramatic standoff between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA in which Muir played a pivotal role.

After the senate committee found "enhanced interrogation techniques" against terror suspects were not effective, Muir led a series of tense meetings in which the CIA attacked the findings.

A 6,700-page report was produced, yet Muir continued to defend the value of the torture program and based his assertions on information the CIA later admitted was inaccurate.

The 2013 meetings which were led by Muir continued for a month at the Hart Senate Office Building, where classified information is discussed.

Jones recalled how those on either side of the argument were so far apart that even discussing basic facts was a challenge.

"We would say, 'Here's a piece of paper. It is red. We can all see that it is red," Jones said, adding, "And they would say, 'No, it's blue.'"

Muir continued to defend the CIA's response to the torture report despite being shown a version of the agency's own records that contradicted its claims.

"He continued to double down on the false assertions," Jones said.

After the Senate report into torture was released, the CIA then quietly posted a series of three pages of corrections but it was almost a full year before the Senate Intelligence Committee and public even learned of its existence.

With Muir now working in the Biden White House, former Democratic Senator Mark Udall also expressed reservations over Muir's suitability to be compiling intelligence reports for the president.

"President Biden has assembled a strong national security team, but he should have serious concerns about entrusting his Presidential Daily Briefing to anyone who may have helped cover up this dark chapter in our nation's history," Udall wrote in a statement.

"I can attest that it's critical that intelligence agencies provide the president and other leaders with unbiased, factual and honest information. As we now know, the CIA and its leadership misled the public, senators, and Senate staff for years about the CIA's systematic and brutal torture of detainees," Udall added.

After the publication of the BuzzFeed article, officials insisted Muir's interactions with the Senate committee had nothing to do with the decision to change how and by whom Biden was being briefed.

"Morgan Muir is a widely respected intelligence officer who has demonstrated the highest standards of integrity and professionalism throughout his career," Amanda J. Schoch, the spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said to the New York Times.

"He is not the President's briefer as that term is generally understood, and there are no plans for him to be in the oval," she added

It Looks Like The UAE Is About to Win The 'Race to Mars'


(UAE Space Agency)

SPACE


DANA MOUKHALLATI, AFP
7 FEBRUARY 2021

The first Arab space mission, the UAE's "Hope" probe, is expected to reach Mars' orbit on 9 February, making it the first of three spacecraft to arrive at the Red Planet this month.

The United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States all launched projects to Mars last July, taking advantage of a period when the Earth and Mars are nearest.

If successful, the wealthy Gulf state will become the fifth nation to ever reach Mars – a venture timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of the UAE – with the China mission due to become the sixth the following day.

Landmarks across the UAE have been lit up in red at night, government accounts emblazoned with the #ArabstoMars hashtag, and on the big day Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, will be at the centre of a celebratory show.

Hope, known as "Al-Amal" in Arabic, will orbit the planet for at least one Martian year, or 687 days, while the Tianwen-1 from China and the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover from the US will both land on Mars' surface.

Only the US, India, the former Soviet Union, and the European Space Agency have successfully reached the Red Planet in the past.
Risky manoeuvre

After blasting off from Japan last July, the Hope mission now faces its "most critical and complex" manoeuvre, according to Emirati officials, with a 50-50 chance of successfully entering a Mars orbit.

The spacecraft must slow significantly to be captured by Martian gravity, rotating and firing all six of its Delta-V thrusters for 27 minutes to reduce its cruising speed of 121,000 kilometres (about 75,000 miles) per hour to about 18,000 km/h (11,200 mph).

The process, which will consume half of its fuel, will begin on Tuesday, Feb. 9, at 15:30 GMT (15:30 UTC) and it will take 11 minutes for a signal on its progress to reach ground control.

Omran Sharaf, the UAE mission's project manager, said it was a "huge honour" to be the first of this year's missions to reach Mars.

"It is humbling to be in such auspicious and skilled company as we all embark on our missions," he said. "It was never a race for us. We approach space as a collaborative and inclusive effort."

While the Hope probe is designed to provide a comprehensive image of the planet's weather dynamics, it is also a step toward a much more ambitious goal – building a human settlement on Mars within 100 years.

While cementing its status as a key regional player, the UAE also wants the project to serve as a source of inspiration for Arab youth, in a region too often wracked by sectarian conflicts and economic crises.

Hope will use three scientific instruments to monitor the Martian atmosphere, and is expected to begin transmitting information back to Earth in September 2021, with the data available for scientists around the world to study.

Close behind

China's Tianwen-1, or "Questions to Heaven", has already sent back its first image of Mars – a black-and-white photo that showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

The five-tonne Tianwen-1 includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a solar-powered rover that will for three months study the planet's soil and atmosphere, take photos, chart maps and look for signs of past life.

China hopes to land the 240-kilogramme (529-pound) rover in May in Utopia, a massive impact basin on Mars. Its orbiter will last for a Martian year.

Tianwen-1 is not China's first attempt to reach Mars. A previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended prematurely when the launch failed.

  

Tianwen-1's first photo of Mars. (China National Space Administration/AFP)

NASA's Perseverance, which is set to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18, will become the fifth rover to complete the voyage since 1997 – and all so far have been American.

It is on an astrobiology mission to look for signs of ancient microbial life and will attempt to fly a 1.8 kilogram helicopter-drone on another world for the first time.

Perseverance, capable of autonomously navigating 200 meters (650 feet) per day, will collect rock samples that could provide invaluable clues about whether there was ever past life on Mars.

About the size of a small SUV, it weighs a metric tonne, has 19 cameras and two microphones – which scientists hope will be the first to record sound on Mars.

The mission is set to last at least two years.

© Agence France-Presse

Rolls-Royce hoping to prevent further rounds of job losses by shutting its factories for first time ever this summer

The aerospace giant will close plants in its jet engine division for two weeks to save cash on salaries, energy and other costs 

Dates for the two-week shutdown have not been decided yet by chief executive Warren East

It will affect all 19,000 staff in its civil aerospace arm worldwide – though the bulk of these operations are concentrated around its Derby HQ

By FRANCESCA WASHTELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 7 February 2021

Rolls-Royce is hoping to prevent further rounds of job losses by shutting its factories for the first time ever this summer.

The aerospace giant will close plants in its jet engine division for two weeks to save cash on salaries, energy and other costs.

Rolls has already announced plans to axe 9,000 staff from its 52,000 pre-pandemic workforce. Around 7,000 of employees have been let go.




But it is hoping the drastic action later this year means it will avoid needing to cut any further roles.

Aerospace analyst Howard Wheeldon said the move 'should secure skilled jobs' at the company and that it was 'perfectly logical' to stall production for a short time.

Wheeldon said: 'They have to put every measure possible through to maintain the people they need. No one can be quite sure when the recovery in aerospace will come and anybody who thinks they know the answer to that is in cloud cuckoo land.'

Rolls gets paid for the hours its engines are used on planes such as Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s. The collapse in air travel since early 2020 means that it has lost one of its key revenue streams. In August it swung to a dizzying £5.4billion first-half loss. Annual figures are released next month.

Although Rolls works in other areas such as nuclear energy and defence, it usually makes around half of its turnover from the civil aerospace division.

Dates for the two-week shutdown have not been decided yet by chief executive Warren East. It will affect all 19,000 staff in its civil aerospace arm worldwide – though the bulk of these operations are concentrated around its Derby HQ.

Rolls has about 12,500 UK employees. The company, which said it is in 'complex and constructive discussions' with unions, will spread the two weeks' pay employees will lose during the shutdown across the year.

Rolls was forced to halt manufacturing for a week at the start of the pandemic last year. It previously promised not to announce any new job losses until 2022. But it warned last month that its finances had been set back further by the second wave hitting travel again.

The travel industry believes short-haul flying should be back at 2019 levels by 2023. But this is not expected for long-distance routes, which use the large aircraft Rolls supplies, until 2025.

Many manufacturing companies, for example car makers, shut down their factories during quiet periods.

As well as cutting jobs in its restructuring, the company raised £5billion last year, partly by selling new shares. It aims to sell off businesses and divisions worth another £2billion.

Police seize $80m of bitcoin! Now, where's the password?

FEBRUARY 07, 2021

REUTERS

A representation of virtual currency Bitcoin and small toy figures are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken January 7, 2021. Reuters

FRANKFURT - German prosecutors have confiscated more than 50 million euros (S$80 million) worth of bitcoin from a fraudster. There’s only one problem: they can’t unlock the money because he won’t give them the password.

The man was sentenced to jail and has since served his term, maintaining his silence throughout while police made repeated failed efforts to crack the code to access more than 1,700 bitcoin, said a prosecutor in the Bavarian town of Kempten.

“We asked him but he didn’t say,” prosecutor Sebastian Murer told Reuters on Friday (Feb 5). “Perhaps he doesn’t know.”

Bitcoin is stored on software known as a digital wallet that is secured through encryption. A password is used as a decryption key to open the wallet and access the bitcoin. When a password is lost the user cannot open the wallet.

The fraudster had been sentenced to more than two years in jail for covertly installing software on other computers to harness their power to “mine” or produce bitcoin.

When he went behind bars, his bitcoin stash would have been worth a fraction of the current value. The price of bitcoin has surged over the past year, hitting a record high of $42,000 in January. It was trading at $37,577 on Friday, according to cryptocurrency and blockchain website Coindesk.

Prosecutors have ensured the man cannot access the largesse, h

Played by Jet Li and Jackie Chan, who was Wong Fei-hung for real? Tracing the life of the martial arts legend

FEBRUARY 06, 2021

PUBLISHED By RICHARD JAMES HAVISSOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Jet Li as Wong Fei-hung in Once Upon a Time in China 2 (1992), directed by Tsui Hark.

Wong Fei-hung is the most famous of all the exponents of southern-style Chinese martial arts, and his exploits have passed into legend. There have been around 100 films about him, 77 of which feature actor Kwan Tak-hing, who became synonymous with Wong during the 1950s and 1960s .

Radio plays, pulp novels, newspaper story serialisations, and television series have been devoted to his life. At one point, no less than seven newspapers were running serialised novels about Wong at the same time.More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.

The martial arts master became known to international audiences in the 1990s when he was played by Jet Li Lianjie in Tsui Hark’s supremely successful Once Upon a Time in China film series .

In spite of his status as a folk hero, very little is known about Wong and his life. Indeed, much of Wong’s history has been coloured by the fictional exploits attributed to him. As a line in American director John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance goes, “When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend,” and this has certainly occurred in Wong’s case.

“Wong Fei-hung was much revered in his lifetime, but little is actually known about him,” said Woshi Shanren, who wrote novels about the martial artist in the 1940s and 1950s. Even the sole photograph purported to be of him turned out to be a picture of one of his sons.

In-depth research by Yu Mo-wan, published in a 1981 essay, The Prodigious Cinema of Wong Fei Hung , did establish some basic facts about his life. Since then, other facts have come to light.

Wong was born around 1847 in or near Foshan in China’s Guangdong province. His father, Wong Kei-ying, was one of the famed Ten Tigers of Canton, a collective name given to the best martial artists in Guangdong in the mid-19th century.

The Ten Tigers were all said to trace their lineage back to the Buddhist fighters of the Southern Shaolin monastery. If such a place existed, it was said to have been in Fujian province, southeast China, and was a counterpart to the original Shaolin Monastery in northern Henan province.

Wong Kei-ying is said to have studied under the legendary Luk Ah-choi, a former abbot of the Southern Shaolin monastery and an expert in northern-style “flower” kung fu. and the southern hung ga style. Luk saw Kei-ying performing martial arts and acrobatics on the street as a child and offered to teach him. (Wong Fei-hung himself later became one of the Ten Tigers, possibly when he was in his twenties, but he was not one of the original members, as is sometimes said.)

Wong Kei-ying became known for his prowess in hung ga kung fu, and taught martial arts to the military. Notably, as his wages were low, he also worked as a physician – a herbalist and possibly an expert in bone-setting (dit da ) – and founded the Po Chi Lam apothecary in Guangdong.

Wong Fei-hung inherited his father’s medical skills as well his martial arts prowess, and would run a Po Chi Lam apothecary later in his life.

Wong Fei-hung was taught kung fu – mainly hung ga style – by his father from around the age of five, and would travel to different villages in Guangdong with him to perform kung fu in the streets and sell medicine to make a living. The tale of how Wong initially became famous during one of these sales expeditions with Kei-ying is narrated in an article by hung ga grandmaster Frank Yee.

Jackie Chan as Wong Fei-hung in a still from Drunken Master (1978). 

INSPIRATION MY DRUNKEN MOP TAI CHI

When he was around 13 years old, Wong angered another martial artist, Hung Gwan-dai, who was also giving a demonstration in the street, because his exhibition was drawing a bigger crowd. Hung Gwan-dai challenged Kei-ying to a fight, but Kei-ying instructed his young son to take up the challenge instead.

A pole fight ensued, and the young Wong quickly beat the challenger by using the eight-diagram pole technique, a long-pole system that is a favourite of hung ga exponents. This match made Wong Fei-hung famous all over Guangdong.

Wong also became well-known for his skill at lion dancing, something demonstrated in the films about him. “Wong Fei-hung, who was one of the province’s best lion dancers, was known around Guangzhou as the ‘King of the Lions’,” writes Yu Mo-wan

.

Kwan Tak-hing (front) in the title role in The Story of Wong Fei-hung, Part One: Wong Fei-hung's Whip that Smacks the Candle (1949).

Wong went on to distil and formalise the hung ga system, which had been invented by Hong Xiguan, another Shaolin hero. “He was an expert in the Hung school of Shaolin martial arts, and an expert in the Iron Wire Fist, the Five Forms Fist, the Tiger Vanquishing Fist, and the Shadowless Kick,” writes Yu. The Shadowless Kick is a side kick, popularised but probably not invented by Wong, in which a fighter kicks his opponent three times in succession while in the air.

Wong was married four times, and had four known children, but there is only information about his fourth wife, Mok Kwai-lan. Mok, who married the ageing Wong in 1915 when she was 23, was a renowned martial artist in her own right. She practised mok ga , a Shaolin style that emphasises close fighting techniques, and Wong incorporated some elements of that into hung ga after they met.

Mok outlived Wong by many years, dying at the age of 90 in 1982. She moved to Hong Kong in 1936, where she ran an apothecary and a bone-setting operation, and taught hung ga . She had married Wong so late in his life that she could not provide much information about his personal history, researchers have said. The TVB television series Grace Under Fire was loosely based on her life.

Jet Li and Rosamund Kwan in a still from Once Upon a Time in China (1991).

There is a famous, but possibly apocryphal, story about how the two met. In 1911, Wong was giving a kung fu demonstration when his shoe flew off and hit the watching Mok in the face. A furious Mok picked up the shoe, broke through the crowd, and slapped Wong in the face, saying that he should be more careful, because next time he might make a similar mistake with a weapon and injure a member of the audience.

The two met again after Mok’s uncle, who was also her guardian and martial arts instructor, sought out Wong to apologise for her behaviour. Romance bloomed, and Mok and Wong married.

Like his father, Wong also trained the army in martial arts. He worked as the martial arts instructor for the 5th Regiment of the Guangdong army, and later the Guangzhou Civilian Militia. Towards the end of his life, he taught martial arts, and ran a Po Chi Lam apothecary in Guangzhou, and another in Foshan.

According to Yee, Wong became impoverished when his house and apothecary burned down during anti-government riots in Guangzhou in 1924. Wong became ill and died in either 1924 or 1925 or perhaps even 1933. He is reputed not to have lost a single fight in his life.

#WAGETHEFT   #UBERUNIONNOW

I just need to survive,' Canadian Uber Eats drivers say wages being squeezed during pandemic

(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, February 7, 2021 

TORONTO --

 $3.99

It's enough to buy a loaf of bread or two litres of milk, but far from Ontario's $14.25 minimum hourly wage.

And yet Uber Eats couriers working in the province say they're earning as little as $3.99 per trip before tips, months after the food delivery service implemented a new pay policy in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I'm making so little now that I'm thinking what is the point of even getting out there if I'm just going to make this much and it's getting worse?” said Spencer Thompson, a Toronto man who has been dropping off meals for Uber Eats since 2016.

He spent hours tabulating his 2020 pay and discovered what so many of his fellow couriers have long suspected: their wages are shrinking at a time when people are relying on food delivery more than ever before.

Thompson, for example, made about $10 per trip - sometimes involving multiple stops - in January 2020, but by December, that had sank to as low as $3.99 per trip before tips.

The 60 per cent drop came in a year where Thompson worked in Toronto's downtown core nearly every day of the week during the lunch and dinnertime windows, where pay tends to be higher. He averaged two or three trips an hour.

Couriers like Thompson, who are not formally employed by Uber but use its platform to pick up work, worry the situation could worsen and they'll be left with few other job alternatives as COVID-19 continues to spread, unemployment remains high and companies increasingly see the benefits of the gig economy.

“We can't let this go on and we can't let this happen because if we do, then the future will be all work like this,” said Brice Sopher, an Uber Eats courier and organizer with the Gig Workers United union, who recalls making $9 or $10 per trip at the start of 2020, but now averages half that.

While couriers like Sopher and Thompson have long warned of the gig economy's low pay, no job security and lack of coverage for injuries and sicknesses, their concerns became even more alarming after last June.

That was when Uber scrapped its earnings structure offering couriers fixed amounts based on pick ups, drop offs, distance and time and a series of bonuses for using the service during busy periods or in high-demand neighbourhoods. By taking advantages of bonuses and more rewarding orders, Thompson would land as much as $12.15 per trip before tips at the start of 2020.

The new system Uber brought in lowered base fares - totals couriers are offered to deliver an order that fluctuate based on time, distance, pickup and drop-offs - and started including a trip supplement to account for lengthy wait times at restaurants or distances couriers travelled to get there.

At first, the lowered base fares didn't seem so bad because the company would offer high “boosts,” which multiplied courier earnings if they delivered food in areas seeing a surge in demand, said Sopher.

Under the new system, some workers were even making a little more than before, but slowly the boosts decreased, he recalled.

“They did it little by little, so that you wouldn't notice,” he alleged. 'But you would have this sneaking suspicion.“

The changes made tips more important than ever before, but customers are notoriously unreliable when it comes to tipping couriers, said Thompson. Some will be generous, while others avoid the extra handout altogether.

Uber, whose Eats service was first piloted in Toronto in 2015, said in an email to The Canadian Press that it made changes to its wage structure, including reducing base fares, to better reflect each trip's total time, effort and distance and include travel to the restaurant.

The changes also involved upfront pricing, which shows couriers the guaranteed net amount they'll earn for a delivery before they accept the trip, alongside other details like the restaurant name and drop off locations. This allows drivers to decline trips that they feel are priced too low.

A $3.99 trip, the company said, is extremely short in duration and one priced at that amount with two stops is quite rare but can happen.

“Uber Eats is committed to transparency in pricing: before a delivery person accepts a trip, they are able to see the expected earnings for each trip. And, as always, 100% of tips go directly into their accounts,” the company said in an email.

Sopher said he was disappointed with the changes because he and other couriers used to work 20 hours a week last spring and make $500, but now earns $300 over the same time span.

It's not easy work either, he said. Being on a bike for long periods can be exhausting and visiting so many homes and restaurants puts couriers at more risk of picking up COVID-19.

“I feel enraged because it's really profiteering during a pandemic,” he said.

“It's what we've seen with a lot of major companies and with essential workers this pandemic really being told that they're expendable workers. It's pretty demoralizing.”

Sopher wants Uber to revert to pre-pandemic pay policies, while Thompson prefers a guaranteed minimum trip rate.

Thompson recently enrolled in a web development course in hopes of finding a more stable income source that will allow him to pursue his love of acting on the side.

He loves being out on his bike and is determined not to stop fighting for fair pay, but even he has a breaking point.

“I need to have something that can pay me much more per unit time and still give me time to do auditions, and I realized this is not a sustainable paid job,” he said.

“I just need to survive.”

 

Haiti's president alleges coup conspiracy, says 20 arrested

 

Police officers detain demonstrators during a protest to demand the resignation of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021. ( AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery)

Evens Sanon, The Associated Press
Published Sunday, February 7, 2021 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Haitian President Jovenel Moise announced Sunday that police have arrested more than 20 people he accused of trying to kill him and overthrow his government, including a Supreme Court judge who has the support of opposition leaders demanding that Moise step down.

Moise spoke at Haiti's airport in Port-au-Prince, flanked by the country's prime minister and the police chief as he prepared to leave for the southern coastal town of Jacmel for the opening ceremony of its yearly carnival, which is being held amid the pandemic.

“There was an attempt on my life,” he said.

Moise said the alleged plot began Nov. 20 but did not provide further details or any evidence except to say among the people arrested is a judge and an inspector general with the police. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Joseph Joute said authorities found several weapons and a speech that Supreme Court Judge Yvickel Dabrezil had allegedly prepared if he were to become provisional president. Dabrezil is one of three judges that the opposition favours as a potential transitional president.

Justice Minister Rockefeller Vincent accused the inspector general of being in touch with high-ranking security officials at the National Palace over an alleged plot to have the president arrested.

Andre Michel, one of Haiti's top opposition leaders, held a press conference hours after the arrests and called for civil disobedience and demanded that Moise be arrested. Michel, an attorney, said it was illegal to arrest Dabrezil because he has automatic immunity.

Reynold Georges, an attorney who once worked as a consultant for Moise's administration but has since joined the opposition, denounced the arrests in an interview with radio station Zenith FM.

“We ask for his release immediately,” he said of Dabrezil, adding that the court system should shut down until he's free.

Georges also called on people to rise up against Moise.

The arrests come on the day that opposition leaders claim Moise should resign, saying that his term ends on Sunday. Moise has repeatedly stated that his five-year term ends in February 2022. Former President Michel Martelly's term ended in 2016, but a chaotic election forced the appointment of a provisional president for one year until Moise was sworn in in 2017.

The opposition has organized recent protests demanding that Moise step down, and normally congested streets in Haiti's capital and elsewhere remained empty on Sunday except for some 100 protesters who gathered in Port-au-Prince and clashed with police. Historians noted that exactly 35 years ago, former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife fled Haiti with help from the U.S. government amid a popular uprising. Duvalier died in 2014.

Meanwhile, Moise appears to have the support of the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden. Ned Price, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said Friday that the U.S. has urged Haiti to organize free and fair elections so that Parliament can resume operations, adding that a new elected president should succeed Moise when his terms ends in February 2022.

However, a group of seven U.S. legislators sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday saying that Moise has lost credibility and they called for a Haitian-led democratic transition.

Moise is currently ruling by decree after dissolving a majority of Parliament in January 2020 after no legislative elections were held. He is planning an upcoming constitutional referendum in April that critics say could award him more power, while general elections are scheduled for later this year.

After arriving in Jacmel, Moise broadcast an address that lasted more than an hour. He spoke largely about the infrastructure projects that his administration has accomplished, but also called on the opposition to work with him.

“It's not too late,” he said, rejecting accusations that he is on his way to becoming a dictator. “I'm not a dictator. Dictators are people who take power and don't know when they're leaving. I know my mandate ends on Feb. 7, 2022.”

Associated Press writer Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to