The Quebec-based public pension manager ramped up activity in private markets last year, with “record” deployment across sectors, including data centres, energy, insurance and aircraft leasing, both in the country and abroad. (The Logic)
The privacy commissioners for Ottawa, Alberta, B.C. and Quebec said current laws are not up to the job in the age of AI. Their joint three-year investigation found that OpenAI indiscriminately scraped Canadians’ private information without consent from every corner of the web to train its models in its rush to launch ChatGPT. (The Logic)
Suncor CEO Richard Kruger said in the Calgary company’s annual general meeting that it had been “rebuilt brick by brick” in the last three years, adding that the conversation among policyholders is “moving from whether Canada should more fully develop its resources to how Canada should do this.” Still, its 30 per cent year-over-year uptick in net earnings per share failed to hit analyst estimates compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence in the first quarter. Shares fell more than seven per cent on Wednesday. (The Logic)
The Canadian Telecommunications Workers Alliance (CTWA) said that masking the accents of workers in overseas call centres using AI tools keeps customers from realizing that companies they’re doing business with aren’t hiring Canadians. (The Logic)
The Japanese automaker has reportedly decided to halt its $15-billion project to build an electric vehicle factory and accompanying battery plant in Ontario as Honda shifts its focus to plug-in hybrids amid sluggish U.S. demand for zero-emission vehicles. (Nikkei Asia)
The grocery and pharmacy chain said it was raising its quarterly common share dividend by 10.6 per cent as first-quarter revenue jumped 4.2 per cent and profit rose to $594 million. (The Logic)
The Financial Stability Board found Canada’s reporting on banks’ private credit lending lacks key data, with several figures either incomplete or disclosed only in aggregate—often bundled with private equity lending. That lags the likes of the U.S., U.K., Switzerland, Hong Kong and the Euro zone. (The Logic)
The price of the Toronto-based firm’s shares on the Nasdaq fell 3.5 per cent on Tuesday, after closing Monday down 61 per cent from where it ended the previous trading session. That followed a run-up in the stock from the US$10 at which it listed at the end of March to as much as US$42.44 in mid-April. (The Logic)
The Toronto-based legal and financial tech company saw first-quarter revenues rise 10 per cent year-over-year, with diluted earnings per share up seven per cent. While the stock opened higher, it lost momentum after the firm’s earnings call, when analysts pressed the company on how it would both contain costs and appeal to law firms being courted by legaltech startups. (The Logic)
The company said it plans to use the Series B funding to expand its Texas gigafactory and B.C.-based facilities, which re-use batteries from automakers like Mercedes-Benz to feed power back into the electrical grid. Vancouver-based Evok Innovations led the round, with participation from global investors like Amazon and In-Q-Tel, an investment firm funded by the CIA. (The Logic)