Canada

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/204076

On Monday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he will appoint new members to the scientific group that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccination.

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According to a release, the federal Competition Bureau says its investigation found that consumers ended up paying more than was advertised on the DoorDash website and mobile applications due to additional “mandatory fees at checkout.”

The bureau says this practice is commonly known as “drip pricing,” and calls it “deceptive” because the process lacks transparency.

In some cases, the bureau says the additional “fees” may be misclassified to customers as “taxes.”

“Parliament has made it clear that businesses must not engage in drip pricing by advertising unattainable prices and then adding mandatory fees,” commissioner of competition Matthew Boswell said in a statement.

Ontario's Ministry of Labour published a news release in late May alerting the public that a Toronto businessman and his private school were fined $410,000 for failing to comply with orders to pay wages.

At the time, those fines were already two weeks past due with the courts.

Anchuan Jiang and his company Ontario International College were convicted under the Employment Standards Act (ESA) in March for not paying nearly $185,000 in wages owed to 14 employees as ordered. On top of the fines, there was also a 25 per cent victim surcharge. Both were supposed to be paid in Toronto's provincial offences court by May 12.

But they weren't.

As of last week, Jiang hadn't paid a cent of the $580,730 in fines and surcharges, according to Toronto's court services division.

The Competition Bureau said on Monday that it is suing the online food delivery company DoorDash and its Canadian subsidiary for allegedly misleading consumers by advertising its services at a lower price than what customers actually end up paying.

"A Bureau investigation found that consumers were unable to purchase food and other items at the advertised price on DoorDash's websites and mobile applications due to the addition of mandatory fees at checkout," said the readout from the agency.

"This practice is commonly known as drip pricing and is deceptive because consumers are not presented with an attainable price upfront."

The bureau filed an application with the Competition Tribunal, which handles cases related to Canada's competition laws.

Pembina Institute finds that while the technology to electrify GTHA trucks is ready, what's missing is strong policy

The decarbonized doublespeak may not be new but it was jarring coming from the mouth of our new PM, who has an undeniable grasp of the impacts of hydrocarbons but nevertheless talked about “decarbonized barrels” at the press conference following the first ministers’ meeting. And it was particularly painful considering the venue — a province under a state of emergency where more than 15,000 people have fled wildfires.