Sears exec to bid on firm

Sears Canada executive chairman Brandon Stranzl is stepping away from his role to launch a bid for the beleaguered retailer, which is restructuring under court protection from creditors. A memo to staff Wednesday about his departure from the top job said the company’s goal is to create a path to emerge from creditor protection. Interested […]

Big Food Guide overhaul

Health advocates are calling on Health Canada to ensure there are major reforms to the existing Food Guide as the department works on developing highly anticipated guidelines for release next year. This week, consultations on upcoming changes came to an end. Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an Ottawa-based obesity specialist, says he hopes the new version of […]

PC drops banking services

CIBC is launching a new online banking brand that will absorb some two million customer accounts currently with Loblaw-owned President’s Choice Financial. CIBC has provided the back-end banking services for PC Financial for nearly 20 years, but the companies said Wednesday they are going their separate ways. The bank says its new Simplii Financial brand […]

Jobs high-tech, workers not

Herbie Mays is 3M proud, and it shows — in the 3M shirt he wears; in the 3M ring he earned after three decades at the company’s plant in suburban Cincinnati; in the way he shows off a card from a 3M supervisor, praising Mays as “a GREAT employee.” But it’s all nostalgia. Mays’ last day […]

Fund for laid-off Sears staff

Lawyers representing workers at Sears Canada and the company have reached a deal to create a hardship fund for former employees. The $500,000 for the fund will come from money set aside to pay bonuses under a key employee retention plan. Former employees who would have otherwise been eligible for severance payments when they lost […]

Airline files for bankruptcy

Germany’s second largest carrier, Air Berlin, is filing for bankruptcy after its main shareholder, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, said it would make no more financing available. The loss-making airline said Tuesday that after Etihad pulled funding, it “came to the conclusion that there was no further positive way ahead for Air Berlin.” To allay travellers’ fears […]

Is your workplace hostile?

The American workplace is grueling, stressful and surprisingly hostile. So concludes an in-depth study of 3,066 U.S. workers by the Rand Corp., Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Los Angeles. Among the findings: Nearly one in five workers — a share the study calls “disturbingly high” — say they face a hostile or […]

Canada’s NAFTA objectives

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is laying out Canada’s core objectives for the upcoming renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In a speech Monday, Freeland shared a half-dozen NAFTA goals — including opening up access to government procurement rights, more professional movement, defending Canadian rights to supply management and reform of the investor-state […]

Uber in turmiol

Uber Technologies Inc. faced a fresh round of turmoil Thursday, with its global operations chief resigning and a major investor suing the ride-hailing company’s former CEO. Ryan Graves told Uber staff in an email Thursday that he will transition out of his role as senior vice-president of global operations in mid-September. Graves will remain on […]

NAFTA alarm for Mexico

U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement is putting Mexico in a tough spot, threatening the system that has helped turn the country into a top exporter through low wages, lax regulations and proximity to the United States. With talks set to start on Aug. 16, the Trump administration […]