Category: Personal Finance

The union representing Air Canada flight attendants filed a complaint against the company with the Canadian Human Rights Commission alleging systemic discrimination and harassment of these employees.

He asked the commission “to order a review of all Air Canada policies, procedures and practices related to harassment”.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) states that “Air Canada, through its policies, procedures and practices, promotes harassment and discrimination at work”, in flight and on the ground.

According to the complaint, Air Canada’s uniform and make-up policies “are clearly discriminatory” to flight attendants.

The union is also outraged by the way in which the newly created Chiefs of Service on Board (CSB) is assessing flight attendants who act as flight attendants.

He says the behavior of many CSBs intimidates flight attendants and makes the workplace toxic.

CSBs allegedly made sexist, racist and homophobic remarks to or about cabin crew and flight attendants. They would also be responsible for the demotion of several cabinmasters.

The union points out that it decided to file a complaint “after several complaints of inappropriate behavior [were] inadequately handled by the company”.

Anna Galvez

Sears stores across the country closed permanently on Sunday night.

The saga of the Sears bankruptcy has been making headlines for over a year now.

For many consumers, this includes the store responsible for the maintenance of their appliances. Their home maintenance service was one of the jewels of the company during its glory years. However, the extended warranties purchased from Sears are no longer valid since October 18.

And for many people, especially those who lived in remote areas of major centers, it was “the catalog store.” In the past, thanks to its remote controls, the Christmas catalog made children dream .

It is perhaps also surprising that a store that had its best years thanks to remote controls could not adapt to the expansion of online business, according to Jean-François Ouellet, professor Associate at HEC Montréal.

It’s a little paradoxical because Sears was the historic champion of remote, phone and catalog orders … It would have been natural for Sears to migrate to online commerce, but it’s a change that she did not do it fast enough.

Jean-François Ouellet, Associate Professor at HEC Montréal

Mr. Ouellet is not the only one to believe that Sears was a victim of online commerce. This is also the opinion of Jean-Claude Poitras , a marketing professor at the New Brunswick Community College in Dieppe (NBCC).

It was not until 2012 that Sears announced it had implemented a strategy to improve its online presence.

Less than two years later, Sears Canada’s parent company announced that more than 1,600 positions were abolished .

Then, in June 2017, Sears Canada was sheltered from its creditors .

Sears employees have been the hardest hit by the closure of stores across the country. In July, some employees claimed that Sears had stopped meeting its commitments to them .

The news that the company’s managers had paid generous bonuses despite the layoff of thousands of employees had also outraged part of the population, leading to a boycott campaign of the company.

In October, a former 100-year-old employee of the company lost her benefits because of the bankruptcy of the retail giant. Lisa Okill, a resident of Moncton, New Brunswick, lost her life insurance and sickness benefit program .

And in the end, even the management of liquidation sales had angered consumers. For example, a mother in Ontario had noticed in October that some of the liquidation prices, posted with stickers, were higher than the original prices found under the stickers.

In total, nearly 12,000 people from coast to coast will have lost their jobs.

Sears stores have been present in Canada since 1953.

Anna Galvez

Car transportation is costing Quebeckers more and more: a total of $43 billion was spent in 2015, including government spending on the road network and private household spending on their car. This is the conclusion of a study conducted by Trajectoire Québec and presented jointly with the David Suzuki Foundation.

This amount, which was $33 billion in 1995 (in constant dollars), would have increased by 32.6% in 20 years.

The study aims to denounce this significant increase in road expenditures, which are still geared towards owning private automobiles rather than public transit.

It stresses, however, that motorists pay most of these costs. In fact, spending by households with a car was $36.9 billion in 2015. This expense item comes in second place, after housing and before food.

Quebec households’ expenditures in this area were 28.8 billion in 1995, an increase of 27.7% in 20 years, caused in particular by the rise in the price of fuel.

Trajectoire Québec aims to promote citizens’ rights in public transportation in Quebec. The David Suzuki Foundation advocates for conservation and environmental protection.

Significant increase in government spending

Public spending on transportation at all three levels of government increased from $ 4 billion in 1995 to $ 6.6 billion in 2015, an increase of 68.9%. The province of Quebec alone spent $ 3 billion on road infrastructure in 2015.

The study says that of these billions paid in 2015, one-third was paid by the amounts paid to the state by motorists, whether it is for example through gasoline taxes, or fees for gasoline. registration or driving license. Another third of the $6.6 billion would have been assumed by freight carriers, while the rest would have been from taxes.

The significant increase in government investment in transportation, which has occurred particularly over the last 10 years, is a result of an awareness of the deterioration of public infrastructure, the report also notes .

While they have allowed for the renovation of existing roads, these expenditures have also been used to expand the road network, something the report authors deplore. This expansion of the road network would have generated average expenditures of $1.15 billion from 2007 to 2013, according to the study, compared to an average of 275 million in the six previous years.

Through its interventions and its financial model, the State encourages the growth of the car fleet and the increase in the number of kilometers traveled, which goes against its efforts to combat climate change.

Extract of the report

The “externalities”

In addition to deploring the significant financial costs generated by the use of the automobile, the study also denounces the non-direct costs associated with it.

In particular, it assesses the “social” costs of automobile transportation – such as accidents, congestion, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and noise – at $ 7.6 billion in 2015, or close to $ 1,000. per capita, “largely attributable to accidents and congestion for local transportation”.

“In short, by focusing on the road supply, Quebec is inducing an increased demand which causes the increase in system costs,” concludes the document, which suggests rethinking governance in this area and financing the road network. , which should be subordinated to “various direct pricing measures” of motorists.

Randy Smith