Latest news with #Montreal-based
Hamilton Spectator
3 days ago
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
Laurentian Bank reports $32 million second quarter profit
MONTREAL - Laurentian Bank of Canada says it had a net income of $32.3 million in the second quarter compared with a net loss of $117.5 million in the same quarter last year. The Montreal-based bank says earnings worked out to 69 cents per share for the quarter ending April 30, compared with a lost of $2.71 a share last year. Laurentian says total revenue for the quarter was $242.5 million, down from $252.6 million last year. Chief executive Éric Provost says the bank is satisfied with progress so far as it marks a year into its strategic plan, but that there's still more work to do. The bank says its adjusted net income came to $34 million, or 73 cents per share, down from $40.5 million, or 90 cents per share in the same quarter last year. The bank's provisions for credit loss totalled $16.7 million in the quarter, down from $17.9 million in the same quarter last year. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2025. Companies in this story: (TSX:LB)
Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Laurentian Bank reports $32 million second quarter profit
MONTREAL – Laurentian Bank of Canada says it had a net income of $32.3 million in the second quarter compared with a net loss of $117.5 million in the same quarter last year. The Montreal-based bank says earnings worked out to 69 cents per share for the quarter ending April 30, compared with a lost of $2.71 a share last year. Laurentian says total revenue for the quarter was $242.5 million, down from $252.6 million last year. Chief executive Éric Provost says the bank is satisfied with progress so far as it marks a year into its strategic plan, but that there's still more work to do. The bank says its adjusted net income came to $34 million, or 73 cents per share, down from $40.5 million, or 90 cents per share in the same quarter last year. The bank's provisions for credit loss totalled $16.7 million in the quarter, down from $17.9 million in the same quarter last year. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2025. Companies in this story: (TSX:LB)
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Laurentian Bank reports $32 million second quarter profit
MONTREAL — Laurentian Bank of Canada says it had a net income of $32.3 million in the second quarter compared with a net loss of $117.5 million in the same quarter last year. The Montreal-based bank says earnings worked out to 69 cents per share for the quarter ending April 30, compared with a lost of $2.71 a share last year. Laurentian says total revenue for the quarter was $242.5 million, down from $252.6 million last year. Chief executive Éric Provost says the bank is satisfied with progress so far as it marks a year into its strategic plan, but that there's still more work to do. The bank says its adjusted net income came to $34 million, or 73 cents per share, down from $40.5 million, or 90 cents per share in the same quarter last year. The bank's provisions for credit loss totalled $16.7 million in the quarter, down from $17.9 million in the same quarter last year. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2025. Companies in this story: (TSX:LB) The Canadian Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Time Magazine
3 days ago
- Climate
- Time Magazine
Why ‘Hundred-Year' Weather Events Are Happening More Than Once Every 100 Years
Climate change is leading not only to droughts, wildfires, and extreme weather. It's also leading to oxymorons—at least when it comes to what are known as hundred-year storms, floods, and other events. Long-term weather forecasting—the kind that predicts conditions months or even years or decades in advance—is all about probabilities, factoring together not only current conditions and trends, but the historical record. An area that has seen floods in the past when the spring was unusually rainy or tropical storms were unusually fierce, is likely to see them again if the same conditions recur. Ditto the likelihood of severe storms when the atmosphere is holding a lot of moisture and the oceans are atypically warm. Environmental scientists have gotten so good at reading weather history that they can characterize some severe storms or floods as likely to occur in a given area only once in 100 years—or even 500 years or a thousand years. That's where the oxymoron comes in. As climate change leads to greater meteorological volatility, the one in 100—or 500 or 1,000—year events are occurring twice or three times or more in those windows. Since 1999, there have been nine storms along the North Carolina coast that qualify as hundred or thousand year events. From 2015 to 2019, one suburb of St. Louis experienced three major floods, two of which met the criteria for hundred-year events. One study by the Montreal-based carbon removal project Deep Sky calculates that the frequency of deadly hurricanes has jumped 300%, with 100-year storms now forecast to occur once every 25 years. Climate change is also redefining what qualifies as one of these rare and intense events. 'In April, an extreme rainfall event hit the Mississippi Valley, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee,' says climate scientist Andrew Pershing, chief program officer at Climate Central, an advocacy and communications group. 'Some of our colleagues at the World Weather Attribution group did a study and calculated that it was a 100-year event based on today's climate, but without climate change it would have been more like a 500-year event.' Making those kinds of calculations can take some doing—and a fair bit of data modeling—because climate unfolds over the course of millennia and modern weather and climate records barely go back a century. 'Scientists first look at 30 years of data, 50 years of data and figure out how frequently these events occur,' says Pershing. 'The challenge is that when you do that you're using data from the past when it was around two degrees cooler than it is now. When you start to do the calculations for today's climate, you find that events that you might expect to happen once every hundred years might happen once every 20 years.' The math here gets a little simpler. By definition, a hundred-year storm has a 1% likelihood of occurring in any one year; for a 500-year storm it's 0.2%; for a thousand years it's 0.1%. But every year the probability clock starts anew; if the 1% longshot comes in and a hundred-year storm occurs on the Carolina coast in 2025, that same area would typically have the same 1% chance in 2026—but climate change is making the likelihood even higher. 'It's not like you can calendar one of these events and say you're cool for another 100 years,' says Pershing. Driving the more frequent events is what Pershing describes as a 'thirstier' atmosphere, one that is hotter and thus capable of holding more moisture. 'We have a supercharged water cycle and that means that when you get a rain event it has a better chance of being a bigger event than it used to be,' says Pershing. Some of those bigger events could be coming soon—in the form of hurricanes. On May 22, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its projections for storm severity in the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. NOAA did not attempt to predict 100- or 500- or thousand-year events, but it does see trouble looming. The agency projects a 60% chance of an above-average hurricane season, a 30% chance of an average season, and just a 10% chance of below average. Across the six hurricane months, NOAA predicts 13 to 19 named storms—with winds of 39 mph or higher—up to 10 of which will likely develop into hurricanes with winds of 74 mph or more. Up to five of those could be major hurricanes—category 3, 4, or 5, with winds of 111 mph or more. And the impact could extend far beyond the coastal regions that are usually hardest hit. 'As we witnessed last year with significant inland flooding from hurricanes Helene [in September] and Debby [in August], the impacts of hurricanes can reach far beyond coastal communities,' said acting NOAA administrator Laura Grimm in a statement. Things could get dicey not only in the Atlantic, but in the Pacific as well. Already, tropical storm Alvin is forming off the southwest coast of Mexico, two weeks ahead of the start of the eastern Pacific hurricane season. In addition to hurricanes, floods, and storms, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires can be projected out over centuries. 'A hotter atmosphere can hold more water, but if you squeeze that moisture out over a mountain range like what happens in the west, then you end up with a much drier air mass,' says Pershing. 'The atmosphere then wants to suck the moisture out of the ground and so droughts get more severe.' There's no easy fix for a feverish atmosphere. In the short run, adaptation—dikes and levees to protect flood-prone cities, relocating residences away from eroding coasts—can help. In the longer run, shutting off the greenhouse emissions that created the problem in the first place is the best and most sustainable bet for limiting hundred-year storms to their hundred-year timelines. 'We have to quit fossil fuels as fast as we can,' says Pershing. 'This will give the climate a chance to stabilize and us a chance to adjust.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
More people are getting divorced in their 50s and 60s. 'Grey divorce' is 'scary, but also a relief,' says one Canadian woman
Christine Dafoe never thought she'd leave her marriage of 41 years. She described her divorce as "scary, but also a relief." At 65, it's daunting to start a new chapter but Dafoe was adamant about prioritizing herself and her happiness. "It was getting really toxic and controlling. There was emotional abuse going both ways, but he blamed me for everything," Dafoe said. "And so we separated." This article was originally published in February 2024. Dafoe is one of many Canadians who are choosing to divorce later in life, in what's sometimes referred to as a "grey divorce." Grey divorce has become increasingly prevalent in many countries, including Canada. According to Statistics Canada, the average age of marriage in 2019 was 35 years old, meaning people were choosing to marry at a later age than decades ago. Similarly, more data shows that divorces are occurring at increasingly older ages. In 2020, the average age of divorce was 46 years old. The agency said, the "rise of grey divorce in Canada, which coincided with the arrival of the baby-boom cohort into this age group, was however quite modest compared with the doubling of levels observed in the United States over a similar period." Experts attribute this rise to reasons like decreased stigma on divorce and marrying later in life, adding that there are unique challenges for those who divorce at an older age. For Dafoe, she continued to live with her ex-husband for more than a year, which she noted was difficult. On top of that, there were the financial stressors that came with separation. But having the support of her family, who had "seen the signs" before she did, was reassuring. Yahoo Canada spoke to experts to get insight into the rise of grey divorces and what someone might expect if they are divorcing at an older age. Here's what you need to know. Grey divorce refers to the phenomenon of divorce among couples over the age of 50. These divorces often occur after decades of marriage and can present unique challenges related to financial security, retirement planning and emotional adjustment. Though the rise of grey divorce can be attributed to factors such as longer life expectancies and changing attitudes towards marriage and divorce, Montreal-based divorce coach and researcher Ravit Rose said sometimes it's as simple as not feeling a connection anymore. She added because there is less stigma towards divorce and people feel like it's more of an option now, people might very well want to try to be independent and leave arguments or disagreements behind. "They start to realize that one has evolved much faster than the other one, and because they're not evolving at the same level, that disconnect causes them to want a divorce," Rose said. Of course, she added there are also a myriad of other reasons why people choose to separate. Rose is also the founder of the Irooze Divorce Community, where she and her team study the science of "nasty divorces" compared to "amicable divorces." After clients fill out an assessment, they are offered a consultation and referred to professionals who specialize in divorce. For the women over 50 she has seen in the past six months, she said about half of them have no income and no separate savings account. "When they're talking about getting divorced, their biggest worry is that they're not financially independent," said Rose. "They [say] things like, 'I feel petrified, I'm uncomfortable, I'm sad, I'm angry.'" After decades of marriage, finances are often deeply intertwined. Untangling assets, pensions, retirement accounts and property can be complex and may require the assistance of financial advisors or legal professionals. Splitting assets can also have significant implications for each spouse's financial security in retirement. In 2018, Statistics Canada reported senior women aged 65 and over are more likely to live in low-income households than their male counterparts. Rose said the women who reported in their self-assessment as feeling more optimistic about their divorces were those who may have been the main income earners or felt more financially independent. Other challenges for those going through a grey divorce include rebuilding social networks and support systems, navigating adverse effects on physical and mental health and finding new living arrangements. Dafoe sold her shared property with her ex-husband in November 2023, and had been trying to find a new spot for last April. She found a group called Senior Women Living Together, where participants create a profile and try to find likely roommates. Arrangements like these can relieve financial stress from separation while building new networks and friendships. Dafoe said that although it can be scary, moving in with the ladies she met in the group was something she'd been looking forward to. She added that she feels comfortable enough and hopes everything works out.
