Sold a new life in Canada, they lost their life savings in an alleged ‘pyramid scheme'
An unlicensed immigration consultancy that sold Filipinos jobs and promises of a life in Canada is now under investigation after allegations of fraud and 'bogus' contracts. CBC's Lyndsay Duncombe breaks down how dreams became nightmares and why former employees say PLC Global Referral Solutions is a pyramid scheme.
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CBC
31 minutes ago
- CBC
Ottawa turns down St. John's $5M plan to turn commercial space into homes
The federal government has turned down a $5 million plan from the City of St. John's to turn commercial property to residential units, according to a member of city council. While the money would not have been limited to downtown properties, St. John's city councillor Ron Ellsworth said the proposal was part of a push to get more people living in the city's downtown area. "If we want the downtown businesses, if we want the downtown services and programs to continue to serve, we need people living in the downtown and we have a lot of older commercial buildings that are very hard for conversion," he said in an interview with The St. John's Morning Show. The city applied for the money through the housing accelerator fund, a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) initiative paid for by the federal government, intended to speed up housing development. The city of St. John's received $10.4 million from the fund last year, after the rejection of another previous application. CBC News has asked the CMHC to comment on why it turned down the city's proposal. Ellsworth said the city applied for the money in response to former federal housing minister Sean Fraser's challenge for "aggressive" ideas to tackle housing. "This was an opportunity to do something different, something unique. And while it was well received, obviously like all of us, you have a limited amount of funding and the federal government decided other projects ranked higher and we were not successful," he said. Ellsworth said the city wouldn't take on the task of converting commercial properties itself; rather, it would use the money to work with commercial property owners. Downtown business association in favour Scott Cluney, executive director of the Downtown St. John's business association, said he's all for commercial to residential conversions in the downtown area. "One of the things that makes a strong, vibrant downtown is more people living in the downtown," he said. "The more people who live in the downtown supports the business community in the downtown." Cluney said he doesn't necessarily believe converting commercial properties to residential units would drive commercial rent up — especially if buildings remained as mixed-use, with businesses at street level and residential units on upper floors. Though the city wasn't successful with its proposal, Cluney said he's heard from property owners who are considering commercial to residential conversions. "It's something that a lot of property owners have been looking at a fair bit in the past as especially as it relates to some of the older stock buildings," he said. Some projects are already under development. On June 3, St. John's city council advanced a proposal to convert 275 Duckworth St., a commercial property built in 1911, to residential units. Raising the Roof, a non-profit group, is planning to turn the building into 34 affordable micro-units. Ellsworth voted in favour of the proposal. "We're trying to encourage our diversity of housing options and this is the real first option we've had for the downtown core," he said. The city is in Year 2 of a housing master plan, using the $10.4 million to modernize regulations and eliminate certain fees for developers. Ellsworth said the next phase for the city is working with community organizations on further housing initiatives.
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
5 No-Brainer Artificial intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy Right Now
Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly changing the world we live in. With the technology perhaps being a once-in-a-generation opportunity, it's not too late to invest in the stocks leading the AI charge. Let's look at five leading AI stocks to buy right now. 1. Palantir Technologies Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) is quickly emerging as one of the most compelling growth stories in AI by helping organizations actually put AI to work. By gathering data and structuring it into an "ontology," Palantir's AI platform (AIP) maps digital assets to real-world objects and processes to let customers apply AI to solve real-world problems. AIP is being used for a variety of tasks, from optimizing supply chains to automating underwriting to even monitoring for sepsis in hospitals. While the company has long been an important government vendor, Palantir's growth is currently being powered by the U.S. public sector. Given the wide array of applications across industries that AIP can be used for, Palantir has a massive opportunity in front of it. Recently, Palantir has introduced AI agents within AIP that go beyond analysis to take action. Agentic AI is becoming the next big AI push, and could be a big growth driver for the company. That said, the stock isn't cheap, and government budget cuts could potentially impact growth. Still, Palantir's technology looks unmatched, and the company is well-positioned to be a long-term AI leader. 2. Nvidia Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) continues to be one of the top ways to invest in the AI infrastructure boom. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) are the backbone of AI data centers thanks to their powerful parallel processing capabilities. And as the engine that helps run AI workloads, demand for GPUs continues to soar as organizations race to build and run AI models and apps. Nvidia's real moat, however, comes from its CUDA software platform, which it created to make it easier for developers to program its chips. Since then, it has built a powerful suite of tools and libraries that further enhance its GPUs' performance for AI workloads. The tight integration between its powerful GPUs and CUDA helped Nvidia attain an over 90% share in the GPU market in Q1. Its new Blackwell chips are ramping up faster than any product in its history, and demand for its full-stack AI "factories" continues to surge. Beyond the data center, Nvidia is also gaining traction in the automotive space, with revenue expected to hit $5 billion this year. A slowdown in AI spending is a risk, but Nvidia remains one of the best-positioned companies to benefit from the AI infrastructure build-out. 3. Advanced Micro Devices While it may trail Nvidia by a wide margin in the GPU space, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) is nonetheless still carving out a niche in AI infrastructure, especially in inference. While Nvidia's GPUs dominate AI training thanks to its powerful CUDA software platform, inference is a bit of a different story. Inference is less technically demanding, with more emphasis on latency, power, and cost. In fact, AMD recently said that one of the largest AI model companies is using its chips for a significant portion of its daily inference traffic. That's important because the AI inference market is expected to become much larger than training over time. Even if AMD is only able to take some moderate market share away from Nvidia, given the size and growth of this market, it would still be meaningful. At the same time, AMD has become a leader in data center central processing units (CPUs), where it's steadily gaining share. While not as large of a market as GPUs, this is still a strong and growing part of the AI infrastructure build-out. The biggest risk for AMD is that it will always play second fiddle to Nvidia, or that AI infrastructure spending slows. But if inference spending takes off and AMD can grab some share, its stock should have a lot of upsides from here. 4. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Another beneficiary of the AI infrastructure boom is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM), or TSMC. As the world's leading semiconductor contract manufacturer, TSMC is the company that actually makes advanced chips, such as GPUs. Profitably producing advanced chips at scale isn't easy. It requires cutting-edge technology, high utilization, and precision manufacturing. For its part, TSMC has become the leader in advanced nodes and packaging, which is the manufacturing process that allows more transistors to fit on a chip, making them both more powerful and energy efficient. With rivals Intel and Samsung struggling, TSMC has become the go-to partner for top chip designers. This has given the company strong pricing power and made it an integral part of the semiconductor supply chain. TSMC is currently working closely with its largest customers to expand capacity to keep up with the high demand for AI chips. The biggest risk is a slowdown in AI infrastructure spending, which could hit both revenue and fab utilization. But given how tight advanced-node capacity is today, that risk seems manageable. For long-term investors, TSMC looks like a great way to play the continued growth of AI and advanced semiconductors. 5. Alphabet While Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL)(NASDAQ: GOOG) continues to face questions about whether AI will disrupt its dominant search business, the reality is far more nuanced. Yes, Apple recently claimed Google searches through its Safari browser fell for the first time, but that came during an antitrust trial, where Apple had every incentive to downplay Google's strength. Meanwhile, Alphabet said its search queries continue to grow, with Q1 search revenue climbing 10%. More importantly, Alphabet is adapting, which is what all great technology companies eventually have to do. Its new AI-powered search tools are focused on monetizing commercial queries, which has always been its bread and butter. Features like Shop by AI and virtual try-ons aren't gimmicks; they're smart moves to capture purchase intent in an AI world. Meanwhile, with decades of adtech experience and a massive distribution advantage through Android and Chrome, Alphabet is still in the driver's seat. Beyond search, Alphabet is seeing strong growth in its cloud computing business, Google Cloud, as customers build AI models and apps through its Vertex AI platform and run them on its data center infrastructure. In addition, the company has also taken the lead in autonomous driving through its Waymo robotaxi business, which is expanding quickly throughout the U.S. This is a compelling long-term opportunity not priced into the stock. Risks remain around government regulation and AI competition, but with a forward P/E of less than 19 times, the stock is dirt cheap for a company with so many growth levers. Should you invest $1,000 in Palantir Technologies right now? Before you buy stock in Palantir Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Palantir Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $657,871!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $875,479!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is998% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to174%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
The black market for getting hacked Meta accounts back
Having social media accounts hacked is stressful. Usually, companies have formal channels for users to regain access. But for Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram, some users say the social media giant isn't responding. Now, a new kind of broker has sprung up, helping people locked out of their accounts connect with a Meta employee or contractor who can expedite their request … for the right price. In 2022, Meta fired or disciplined employees or contractors who had allegedly abused the internal account recovery system for bribes. Kathryn Blaze Baum, an investigative reporter at The Globe and Mail, and Alexandra Posadzki, The Globe's cybercrimes reporter, found that three years later, this is still happening. Today, Kathryn is on the show to talk about how this back-door process works, how Meta is cracking down on it, and where this leaves users who have had their accounts compromised. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@
