NDP pushing for ban on AI surveillance pricing as Lewis makes Parliament Hill debut

OTTAWA - The NDP is expected to introduce a motion on Wednesday calling on the government to ban a practice known as surveillance pricing that New Democrats say is unfair to consumers.

The text of the motion describes the practice as companies using a customer's personal data, like search history or how long they stay on a web page, to increase prices both in store and online.

NDP Leader Avi Lewis said Monday examples of this can include a parent with a sick baby being charged a higher price for a thermometer or medicine based on internet search history.

"This means that two different people could pay two different prices for the exact same product in the same store or on the same website on the day. It's unfair, it's a ripoff, and it's downright creepy. And it's time to put a stop to it," Lewis said.

Statistics Canada reports wealth and income gaps grew in 2025

The gap between Canada's richest and poorest grew last year as financial markets gained while interest payouts declined and the job market softened, said Statistics Canada on Monday.

The agency says the income gap, measuring the difference in the share of disposable income between households in the top 40 per cent and those in the bottom 40 per cent, reached 46.7 percentage points in 2025.

The result compared with a gap of 46.4 percentage points a year earlier.

The wider gap came as the lowest-income households saw wages rise slower than the overall average, and saw their investment income fall because of lower interest payments on savings, the agency said.

Carman man tied to swindle says he’s ‘the original’ victim

Roy Scott’s name may be on the cheques that helped leave a Winnipeg woman penniless, but the man says he’s not a scammer — he’s a victim of the same fraud.

Scott, who lives in Carman, said he lost thousands of dollars after fraudsters accessed his TD bank account and credit cards in October.

It didn’t stop there. In the months since, Scott said RCMP told him somebody got hold of a legitimate cheque Scott had deposited into his account. It was then used to open two bank accounts and a credit union account in Ontario — all while leaving his name on it.

Through Scott’s account, the scammers were also able to access money from the account of his daughter, who lives with special needs.

Rent control killing jobs: landlords

Companies are laying off staff and pausing major investments ahead of changes to Manitoba’s rental market.

One Manitoba company that works primarily on apartment buildings has had four projects put on hold and had to lay off roughly a dozen staff.

“That’s been a common theme with my peers… They’re all having to do the same,” said Con-Restor Technologies owner Stephane Phaneuf.

The Manitoba government plans to change how rental property managers can apply for above-guideline increases this spring. If implemented, landlords won’t recoup renovation costs through rent as quickly.

Latest smartphone app launch for young do-it-yourself investors points to industry trending toward no commissions on trades

A battle for young investors is being waged among Canada’s big banks and upstart fintechs, with RBC firing among the more recent salvos.

It recently launched a smartphone app called GoSmart, offering self-directed investors — or do-it-yourselfers (DIY) —access to online trading with the ability to choose from 53 exchanged-traded funds (ETFs) that can be bought and sold without commissions.

As well, GoSmart investors can trade up to 50 times per year commission-free on any U.S. or Canadian stock. This is notable, given users of RBC’s existing discount brokerage platform Direct Investing, who have been able to trade these select ETFs for free since last year, do not receive those additional 50 free trades.

“It’s a pretty substantial change,” says Dimitri Busevs, president and chief executive officer of RBC Direct Investing.

On schedule: provincial minimum wage to rise to $16.40/hr in October

Manitoba’s minimum wage is set to rise 40 cents in October, leaving labour and business advocates split on the benefit of continuing to tie the baseline to the rate of inflation as the cost of living grows.

The minimum wage will rise to $16.40 per hour from $16/hr on Oct. 1. (The provincial government is required to announce the incoming minimum wage by April 1 each year.)

Provincial legislation ties the mark to inflation — the 40-cent increase is in line with Manitoba’s 2.7 per cent inflation rate in 2025 — and in 2022, the former Progressive Conservative government amended the rules to allow minimum wage be boosted beyond inflation, but only if inflation exceeds five per cent.

However, that same legislation prevents the province from closing the gap between the minimum wage and the cost of living, said Manitoba Federation of Labour president Kevin Rebeck.

Apple’s 50-year odyssey has redefined technology, pop culture and comeback stories

CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — A scrawny hippie and a nerdy engineer who became prank-playing friends vowed to change the world when they founded a Silicon Valley startup on April Fools' Day 50 years ago and then — no joke — pulled it off.

The improbable odyssey began April 1, 1976, when a then-shaggy Steve Jobs and his gadget-tinkering friend Steve Wozniak signed a two-page partnership document that created Apple Computer Co.

Jobs, a 21-year-old college dropout, and Wozniak, a 25-year-old Hewlett-Packard employee, each received a 45% stake in Apple, with the remaining 10% going to their 41-year-old adviser, Ron Wayne.

The company got off to such a shaky start while trying to build a personal computer in the Los Altos, California, home of Jobs' parents that Wayne relinquished his stake for $2,300. It proved to be a $370 billion mistake, based on how much his holdings would have grown now that Apple boasts a $3.7 trillion market value.

PWHLPA president Stacey says salary leak ‘a shock’ but may help players push for more

MONTREAL - Laura Stacey was caught off guard when PWHL player salaries leaked last week.

Now she hopes the added transparency helps players seek better contracts moving forward.

Stacey, the president of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association, addressed the situation Tuesday after The Hockey News published salaries from the 2024-25 season, despite the union voting last summer to make that information available only to players and agents.

“It is amazing for the players that our salaries are public so that one another can help each other, especially in terms of expansion and signing new contracts and free agency,” the Montreal Victoire forward said after practice at Verdun Auditorium. “With that being said, we voted on it to be public for our eyes and for our agent's eyes only, so I think that was a bit of a shock for us and not something that we necessarily wanted, or the way we wanted it to come out.

U of M tuition poised to climb four per cent

University of Manitoba students are facing the highest tuition hike in years.

Prabhnoor Singh, president of the University of Manitoba Students’ Union, said the province’s decision to allow post-secondary institutions to increase tuition by as much as four per cent will put a huge burden on students who already struggle to make ends meet.

“Why is this being allowed?” Singh said on Friday.

“It’s crazy for an NDP government to do something like this. Students are already having to make sacrifices. They are deciding between putting food on their table or buying textbooks, paying for tuition.”

Provincial budget includes free transit passes for youths in Winnipeg, three other cities

Manitoba’s NDP government will make it more affordable for youths as young as 12 to get to school, jobs and activities with free transit passes.

Canadians increasingly choosing to stream with ads as prices rise: report

Canadians subscribed to streaming platforms again faced rising costs last year, as a new report estimates the 10 leading providers hiked prices by an average of seven per cent.

The annual Couch Potato Report, released Monday by Convergence Research, said consumers are continuing to pivot from traditional cable and satellite television packages toward alternatives like Netflix, Crave and Disney Plus, despite those streaming giants having upped their prices in recent years.

In 2024, the top streaming providers had raised their prices by an average of eight per cent for Canadian customers, according to new data from the firm.

The trend comes as streamers continue to push viewers toward plans that include advertisements. Those packages cost less for subscribers but drive additional revenue for the companies because they are able to sell commercial spots.

Fraud Awareness Month resonates more than ever as AI further blurs what’s real

Trust no one. It’s not just a motto of conspiracy theorists.

Rather, the statement is arguably the broad take away of the messaging in March for Fraud Awareness Month in Canada.

Scams — in their many forms — have become so commonplace we almost take their prevalence for granted. Recent surveys point to Canadians’ acceptance of fraud’s ubiquity, amid growing unease and understanding of its sizable financial impact.

A recent TD survey found 46 per cent of Manitoba and Saskatchewan residents cite experiencing fraud attempts weekly or even daily.

Gas pains: soaring prices due to Mideast conflict could lead to energy turning point in Canada

Veteran actor Billy Bob Thornton may seem like an unlikely source of wisdom about the world’s relentless dependence on oil. Then again, it would be hard to find a better, more poignant description of the global addiction than a diatribe he delivered in a recent episode of Landman, a melodrama set in the Texas oil industry.

Thornton’s character, Tommy Norris, a crisis manager for a large oil company, is walking through a wind turbine farm that generates electricity to power remote oil rigs. Norris notes that over a wind turbine’s 20-year lifespan, the “clean” energy it produces won’t offset the carbon emitted in the manufacturing of its components or its installation. The same economics, Norris says, can be applied to solar panels and batteries for electric vehicles.

Then, the punchline.

“Our whole lives depend on (oil). And hell, it’s in everything — that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours. It’s in tennis rackets and lipstick and refrigerators and antihistamines. Pretty much anything plastic: your cellphone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers. Soap, f—king hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats. You name it, every f—king thing. And you know what the kicker is?

Shopping bill is a good pre-emptive strike

On the face of it, it looks like a solution desperately hunting for a problem.

But that’s sometimes the way proactive legislation looks.

As first salvos go, Manitoba’s Bill 49 should probably be viewed not an effort not to deal with an imaginary problem, but one being put in place to ensure that the problem doesn’t arrive.

What the bill does is to add individual pricing to the province’s collection of improper business practices.

Consumers favouring combustion engine cars as interest in EVs wanes: report

TORONTO - A new report shows consumers are increasingly favouring internal combustion engine cars for their next car purchase rather than an electric vehicle.

The latest EY mobility consumer index for 2025 shows only seven per cent of those planning to buy a car in the next 24 months intended to buy an EV, down from 15 per cent in the previous report from 2024.

Meanwhile, 58 per cent said they preferred an internal combustion engine vehicle, up from 44 per cent in 2024.

The report, published on Thursday, found 30 per cent of Canadians hoping to buy a car soon are delaying or reconsidering an EV purchase in light of recent geopolitical issues.

Councillors brace for impact when provincial education property tax hikes crash into Winnipeggers’ mailboxes

The despondency in the voices of Winnipeg city councillors Jeff Browaty and Evan Duncan was palpable.

The two suburban councillors took the opportunity this week to slam the provincial NDP government for increases in the education portion of property taxes that many Winnipeg property owners will see later this spring when they receive their tax bills.

According to Browaty (North Kildonan) and Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood), even though the tax increases are mostly due to provincial policies and school division decisions, the city will end up bearing the brunt of criticism.

“I’d like to see them take accountability and ownership of it,” said Duncan, pointing south from city hall to the Manitoba legislature.

Most Canadians want to ban or regulate algorithmic pricing, poll shows

OTTAWA - Most Canadians want the government to ban or regulate the use of algorithms to set prices, a new poll suggests — with half of respondents saying the practice is unfair because it can result in people paying different prices for the same product.

The Abacus Data poll, which was conducted online and can't be assigned a margin of error, surveyed 1,931 Canadians on algorithmic pricing.

The poll defined algorithmic pricing as the adjustment of prices in real time based on such factors as who is buying, the time of day and browsing behaviour.

Algorithmic pricing is already established in sectors like travel but has been expanding into other markets, such as retail and rental housing. It could, for example, lead to a retailer charging different prices for diapers online, depending on what it can glean about a shopper's habits.

City councillors fear backlash over tax bills thanks to huge increases in education portion

Two councillors say Winnipeggers who experience sticker shock when they open their 2026 municipal tax bills should know who to blame — and it isn’t the city.

Proposed legislation targets predatory grocery pricing

The Manitoba government is taking action to ensure grocery pricing based on customer data doesn’t rear its predatory head in the province.

More Canadians delivering unpaid care potentially able to access multiple tax credits

The federal and provincial governments are recognizing the service of unpaid caregivers. For all the hours, days and nights of assistance (particularly involving aging family members), a host of tax credits potentially await when filing a return this spring.

“The purpose of these is really a realization that people providing this (unpaid work) have costs others don’t,” says Ryan Minor, Sudbury, Ont.-based tax director for CPA (Chartered Professional Accountants) Canada.

Many could use the tax break.

Statistics Canada points to about one in four individuals ages 15 and older providing care for family members or friends with long-term health conditions.

Senior squeeze: Many older Manitobans are in an increasingly precarious financial situation

Terisa Taylor is deemed a low-income senior, based on the federal tax bracket classification, but the numbers don’t take a full measure of the person.

At age 73, the St. Boniface resident relies on the three acronyms synonymous with aging — CPP, GIS and OAS — to make ends meet.

Manitoba Rental Assistance helps cover about half her apartment costs, but she gave up her car when it became clear it was no longer affordable.

Despite that, Taylor considers herself one of Manitoba’s more fortunate seniors since she’s able to continue to pursue a meaningful life.

NDP bill aims to strengthen renters’ protection

The Manitoba government says it will carry out the largest expansion of rent control in decades.

Public Service Delivery Minister Mintu Sandhu called the measure “historical action” that will affect thousands of units in the province.

Under the proposed legislation, which was introduced by the NDP Thursday, suites that rent for at least $2,000 a month won’t be subject to rent control. Currently the threshold is $1,670 a month.

The proposed law leaves intact the exemption for complexes that are less than 20 years old.