Sunday, November 8, 2026
The Niagara Independent
Sunday, November 8, 2026

Business

Page 35

Breaching Employees’ Privacy Expectations

Are you breaching your employees’ privacy expectations when you use their personal contact, health information or emergency contact information when you conduct employee wellness checks at home? We have been taught under PIPEDA (recall the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) that you must generally obtain an individual's consent when you collect, use or disclose an employee’s personal information – and such personal information must only be used by an employer regulated by PIPEDA or who adopted a policy that follows PIPEDA’s principles for the purposes for which it was collected. If you are going to use it for another purpose, you must obtain consent again.

Sheryl Johnson

Celebrate Bombardier’s evolution

It has been a good couple of weeks for Bombardier. That might sound strange, given that last week the company announced it was selling off its commercial aircraft business and this week it did the same with its troubled train division, both with a view to focusing its efforts on its private jet unit. But it’s also a clear sign the company is finally behaving like — gasp! — a normal business and doing a normal business thing: realizing parts of its operation are not very profitable and selling them off to focus on what is.

Aaron Wudrick

Canadian Banks Going Green Still Boost Loans to the Oil Industry

Canada’s big banks may be embracing green, but that hasn’t stopped them from lending more and more money to fossil-fuel companies. The six largest lenders had C$58.8 billion ($44.2 billion) in energy loans on their books at the end of the fiscal year, a 59% jump from five years ago, even after touting billions of dollars in climate-friendly commitments. There’s little sign of that trend abating even as oil and gas companies face increasing scrutiny over the the roles they play in climate change.

Doug Alexander and Kevin Orland

Niagara’s Angel network helping entrepreneurs spread their wings

A little over a decade ago 14 local business leaders came together all with the same mission – to establish a private sector investment group that would help local entrepreneurs launch their businesses. The Niagara Angel Network soon took flight and its current executive director Terry Kadwell has been there since the beginning; although that wasn’t necessarily his intention. “I got involved 11 years ago to help get it off the ground and seven years ago I became full time,” explained Kadwell. While not much is known about the group and who is involved, Kadwell said that’s starting to change. “Originally we protected the anonymity of the angels but we realized lately that we are getting more traction by letting people know who’s in the group.”

Kevin Vallier

What’s Really “Crazy”?

When I was at a hearing the other day an organizational people leader present loudly declared: “Everyone can go get their own lunches today, I am not dealing with feeding you crazy people”. She was referring to me. I have Celiac Disease and was cross-contaminated the day prior. "Crazy" means not "normal," in a "bad" way. In this one thoughtless statement this “leader” both stigmatized my disease and mental illness. Insulting someone by using the word “crazy" should not being occurring in an awakened society.

Sheryl Johnson

What every employer needs to know about the Novel Coronavirus

The Novel Coronavirus virus involves a respiratory infection closely related to SARS and MERS and has been declared a global health emergency by WHO. Researchers are trying to work out the ways that it is transmitted and employers are wondering how the virus may affect their workplaces. This article provides some general information and reminds employers to educate their employees and keep up to date on the latest developments surrounding this virus.

Sheryl Johnson

Municipal investment tools – opening Ontario for Business

Very early in my journalistic career I learned the mantra “if it bleeds it leads” and the various machinations of the term. It didn’t always refer to the more macabre stories in nature. The phrase also refers to the stories that get people’s dander up the most – i.e. the latest in the endless teacher or school disputes or who is marching in what parade.

Kelly Harris

Carbon Tax – Who pays what and how

As of Jan. 1, every Canadian and all Canadian businesses are paying a price on carbon. The federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act means provinces that do not have their own price on pollution that meets a federal standard get the federal carbon tax applied to them. That includes Manitoba, whose premier talked Monday about the prospect of replacing the federal charge with a home-grown version. The federal tax is currently $20 a tonne and will rise $10 a year, on April 1 of each year until it hits $50 a tonne in 2022. For individuals and businesses with relatively small emissions, that carbon levy is applied to liquid and gaseous fuels at the point of purchase. Households receive rebates on their income taxes to offset the cost of the carbon tax. The amount varies by province to account for different uses of fossil fuels.

Canadian Press

Can a Tax Cut Be a Bad Thing?

During last year’s federal election, the Liberals promised a tax cut for the middle class in the form of an increase in the Basic Personal Amount (BPA) – the amount of income that is exempt from personal income taxes. They committed to raising the BPA to $15,000 gradually over the next four years from $12,069 in the 2019 tax year. In dollar terms, this much-vaunted tax cut is pretty miniscule – less than $50 monthly once fully implemented in 2023 - and won’t make a real difference for most Canadians. Those who earn income in the $150,000 range will not be eligible for this bonanza. The impact of this change will mean more Canadians not paying any income tax. There are many other taxes as well – payroll taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, carbon taxes, health taxes etc – but they are often offset by government rebates, tax credits and other measures. Although estimates vary somewhat, it seems that about 40 per cent of Canadians don’t pay any taxes at all, which is not out of whack with comparable data in the US and other developed countries.

Catherine Swift

Brock expands business program to U.K.

Brock University Business students now have the opportunity to study and work in the United Kingdom thanks to a new partnership with Lancaster University. The agreement allows students from the Goodman School of Business to study at the Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) as part of Goodman’s Bachelor of Business Administration Co-op International Double Degree program.

The Niagara Independent