WINNIPEG — The Canadian Armed Forces have named its first Indigenous Knowledge Keeper.

The military is set to host a ceremony tonight in Winnipeg for Warrant Officer Robert-Falcon Ouellette, who is also to be promoted to captain.

The military says the new position is part of its effort to embrace and welcome Indigenous spirituality with its members.

Ouellette is a former Liberal member of Parliament who also ran for mayor of the province’s capital.

He has served in the military for 29 years, starting with the navy league and sea cadet program.

He is currently an associate professor of education at the University of Ottawa.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 30, 2025.

The Canadian Press

TORONTO — The chief executive of Rogers Communications Inc. says the company plans to “remain disciplined” this year amid a competitive telecom market, but could face challenges from Canada’s reduced immigration targets and the tariff threat from the U.S.

Amid the current political environment, there “seems to be a sea of change here for the country,” Rogers president and CEO Tony Staffieri said Thursday as the company reported its fourth quarter results.

The three-month period ended Dec. 31 saw Rogers earn a fourth-quarter profit of $558 million, up from $328 million a year earlier, as its revenue edged higher.

The company said its wireless service revenue was up two per cent, while wireless equipment revenue rose nine per cent. Cable service revenue was stable.

Staffieri told analysts on a conference call that Rogers’ 2025 outlook includes continued service revenue growth, but its wireless business would likely “continue to be impacted by the number of newcomers to Canada.”

Last fall, the federal government announced it was slashing immigration targets. It now expects to bring in 395,000 permanent residents this year and 380,000 in 2026, both down from a previous forecast of 500,000.

Ottawa also previously capped international student visas for both 2024 and 2025.

Staffieri said Rogers is already feeling the effect of those policy changes, with fewer newcomers to Canada signing up for its services.

Its net increase in postpaid mobile phone subscribers totalled 69,000 for the fourth quarter of 2024, down sharply from 184,000 net additions recorded the same period last year. Combined with net prepaid additions, the company had 95,000 new mobile phone subscribers.

“While this is down year-on-year, this was due to a much smaller market size as a result of government policies to reduce the ‘new-to-Canada’ category,” said Staffieri.

Asked whether Rogers’ subscriber adds could be affected further if the Conservatives win the upcoming federal election and subsequently implement tighter immigration policies, Staffieri said the company is staying “prudent.”

“It’s too difficult and speculative to try to guess if and when there is a new government and what their take and policies might be and how fast they implement,” he said.

“If there is upside, then great. It’s good for the industry and good for Rogers, but we’ve taken a prudent approach based on what we have in front of us now.”

The company said it’s readying for other potential challenges, including U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs on Canadian goods, although Staffieri didn’t elaborate on how detrimental a trade war might be to Rogers or the telecom and media sectors.

“We think about, and have thought about, some of the broader macroeconomic factors that could impact us, including some of the recent discussions around tariffs with our U.S. neighbour,” he said.

Rogers’ fourth quarter profit amounted to $1.02 per diluted share, up from 62 cents per diluted share in the last three months of 2023. Revenue totalled $5.5 billion, up from $5.3 billion a year earlier.

Media revenue rose 10 per cent to $616 million, primarily as a result of higher sports- and entertainment-related revenue. While that was lower than the company expected, Desjardins analyst Jerome Dubreuil said in a note it beat consensus estimates of $577 million.

Rogers said credit for the increase partially belongs to Taylor Swift’s six Eras Tour concerts in Toronto, which she performed in November at Rogers Centre.

“Thanks, Swifties,” Dubreuil wrote.

Shares in the company traded for $41.98 as of midday Thursday, up 52 cents or 1.3 per cent.

On an adjusted basis, Rogers said it earned $1.46 per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of $1.19 per diluted share. Analysts on average had expected a profit of $1.36 per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.

Rogers’ monthly churn for net postpaid mobile subscribers — a measure of those who cancelled their service — was 1.53 per cent, down from 1.67 per cent during its previous fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, Rogers’ mobile phone average monthly revenue per user was $58.04, up from $57.96 in the fourth quarter of the prior year.

Scotiabank analyst Maher Yaghi said effective cost reductions shielded the company’s bottom line despite the slowdown in wireless customer additions.

However, he said investors are keen to find out more about two pending transactions that have yet to close: Rogers’ $4.7-billion deal to acquire rival BCE Inc.’s 37.5 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, along with its own $7 billion sale of a minority stake in a portion of its wireless network infrastructure.

The latter deal with an undisclosed “leading global financial investor” was announced last October as a way to help Rogers pay down debt.

Although it had initially said it expected the sale to close during the fourth quarter, Staffieri said Rogers continues to “work on definitive agreements” and would provide an update at a later time.

Yaghi said certainty on the deal’s closure will be key “given the funding requirement for MLSE.”

“This uncertainty, while possibly transitory, is weighting on the stock and until this is dealt with it will be difficult for the stock to pick up momentum,” he said.

The deal with Bell, which will give Rogers a 75 per cent interest in the sports ownership giant, is expected to close sometime this year.

Staffieri said Rogers is awaiting approvals from the relevant sports leagues and the CRTC, after receiving its first regulatory green light from the Competition Bureau last month.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 30, 2025.

Companies in this story: (TSX:RCI.B)

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press

FREDERICTON — Jenica Atwin is leaving federal politics for the “time being” in part because of the online hate she receives, saying the level of toxicity she’s had to face has been surprising.

The Fredericton member of Parliament was first elected in 2019 with the Green Party before crossing the aisle to join the Liberals in 2021. It was around the time she joined the party of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that she decided to close her X account “because it was actually harming my mental health.”

“Just the constant barrage, the vitriol, the threats, and I think women, in particular my female colleagues, we’ve got it on a different level than a lot of our male colleagues,” she said in a recent interview.

She knew that going into politics would make her a target of negative online comments, but the amount of vitriol she received took her by surprise. The hate-filled messages on social media and in emails increased in 2022, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when thousands of truckers and other people occupied Parliament Hill during the convoy protests against vaccine mandates and other restrictions imposed by government.

During the protests, Atwin’s office regularly received “hate calls” from people in Canada and the United States. She said that “any time” she would speak in the House of Commons, “it would follow with a flood of these hateful messages and voice mails being left or things my team had to sift through, sometimes, again, actual threats that we had to follow up on with police.”

The hate she received included bomb threats, threats of sexual violence, and other verbal abuse. “It’s very bizarre stuff that people are feeling somehow emboldened enough to type and send.”

Such constant hate and insults “chip away” at people’s resiliency and take a toll on mental health, she said, adding that her parents, siblings and husband would get upset seeing vitriol about her online.

But it isn’t just her and other female colleagues who face such toxicity. She said she also worries about the effect the hate has had on the prime minister and his family. “My goodness, the prime minister — he bore the brunt of it all,” she said.

“I worry for his children. Anyone associated with him. He’s made the comment to us before, those “F— Trudeau” flags — Trudeau, that’s the name of his children, too. His kids have really picked up on that.”

In Quebec, following a wave of resignations of elected officials, the provincial government introduced legislation last year that includes fines up to $1,500 for people who threaten or intimidate politicians.

Chris Tenove, assistant director at University of British Columbia’s centre for the study of democratic institutions, said online hate speech has increased over the past decade, influenced by U.S. politics.

“I think the COVID-19 pandemic and some of the political and cultural clashes over it exacerbated polarization in politics, and that has played out as having more online abuse of politicians,” he said.

While there isn’t rigorous research on whether women face more online hate than men, or whether certain political parties are targeted more than others, there are patterns, Tenove said. People who are in the public eye, politicians, people with large followings on social media are all at risk of getting more hatred than those who are less visible, he said.

Online abuse toward women politicians takes a “gendered form,” he noted. “They’re either being dismissive of women because of their gender, or if they’re being threatening, it’s more likely to be sexually threatening.”

Tenove said some politicians can manage high levels of abuse and hostility, while others are more sensitive.

“They find that over time, the continual hostile and negative messaging that they’re getting undermines their mental, their emotional resilience and their interest in continuing to serve in this public-facing role, it also makes it harder for people to do their jobs, and including to run for office or to engage (with) their constituents.”

For the time being, Atwin said she will spend more time with her family, especially with her two sons, ages seven and 12.

She hopes that online hate begins to fade soon, and people start to understand that disagreements should be aired respectfully.

“It’s not like we can just put an algorithm on these sites and eliminate any of the hate speech or vitriol. That’s not the answer, right? So it’s not really clear-cut. It’s got to be a societal shift,” she said. “There’s no real silver bullet to how to do that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 30, 2025.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press