Selon le chef aux opérations du Service des incendies de la Ville de Montréal, Sylvain Legros, une excavatrice a accroché un tuyau de gaz de quatre pouces pendant des travaux effectués pour la Ville de Montréal.

Le quadrilatère est privé d’électricité afin d’endiguer les risques d’explosion qui sont « minimes et contrôlés », a précisé M. Legros. « Le gaz naturel est plus léger que l’air et la fuite se fait à l’air libre. »

L’excavatrice a accroché le tuyau souterrain à 8 h 05 dimanche matin devant le 1006 de la Montagne, près du Centre Bell. À 8 h 15, le Service des incendies déclenchait l’alarme.

La poursuite a débuté vers 0h15 sur l’autoroute 20 est à la hauteur de Saint-Appolinaire au moment où le motocycliste a dépassé une autopatrouille de la Sûreté du Québec. «Les policiers l’ont pris en chasse, mais l’ont perdu de vue», rapporte la sergente Christine Coulombe.

Les agents ont demandé l’aide de leurs confrères autoroutiers de Québec. Il a été repéré sur l’autoroute de la Capitale, mais a pour une seconde fois refusé de s’immobiliser. Le périple du fuyard l’a mené jusque dans un quartier résidentiel de Charlesbourg. Il a finalement perdu la maîtrise de son engin sur la rue Barraute, près du boulevard de l’Atrium.

Il a alors décéléré rapidement, passant de plus de 180 km/h à moto sur l’autoroute à moins de 15 km/h à pied. Les policiers l’ont localisé et arrêté. L’homme de 21 ans de Lac-Beauport ne détient pas de permis de conduire valide et la moto n’est pas immatriculée.

Il doit comparaître lundi au palais de justice de Québec pour répondre à plusieurs accusations, dont conduite dangereuse et fuite des policiers.

Il est notamment conseillé de porter des vêtements de couleurs claires avec des bandes réfléchissantes, de préférer le maquillage au masque pour bien voir et bien entendre, d’utiliser une lampe de poche, d’informer ses parents du trajet et de l’heure de son retour, de sonner aux portes en groupe ou avec un adulte et toujours attendre à l’extérieur des maisons et de vérifier les friandises reçues pour être certain de pouvoir les manger sans danger. 

Les jeunes qui veulent tester leurs connaissances en matière de consignes de sécurité en lien avec l’Halloween peuvent le faire grâce au jeu interactif disponible au saaq.gouv.qc.ca/halloween. 

Les conducteurs sont également invités à faire preuve de prudence, car beaucoup de jeunes piétons déambuleront dans les rues ce soir-là.

Cristina Constandache, VP at Cheetah Mobile, shares her insights into how consumers are changing the way they interact with apps, and what mobile marketers can do to keep up.

Mobile is taking centre stage at a rapid rate. According to Mediapost, 2016 is the first year when worldwide mobile ad spend will surpass desktop ($99 billion and $97 billion respectively), and the UK is the only place in the world besides China where mobile accounts for over half of national ad spend. Great news for marketers, who can rest assured that their mobile ad spend is money well spent, as long as they take into account the changing rules of mobile marketing.

For one, we used to scroll and scroll through the myriad of apps that populated our smartphones until we found the one app we needed. Each app would serve just a single purpose, and branded apps blossomed in their thousands on the iOS App Store and Google Play. But this is no longer the case – in fact, according to ComScore’s 2015 US Mobile App Report, quite the opposite. Consumers are now spending 80 per cent of their smartphone time in just three apps, while those that aren’t favourites are out of the game.

So on the bright side, consumers are engaging for longer with the apps they do use. But to stay among those prized few, marketers must use all the user retention tactics at their disposal. What we’re seeing from the mobile frontline is that developers with a strong focus on delivering valuable content, whether editorial or video, are much more likely to successfully retain and engage users.

The appetite for video
In an undeniably fundamental shift, 53 per cent of all online video viewings in Europe now happen on mobile, according to Ooyala’s Video Index 2016. It’s no longer up for debate whether video should be mobile-optimised – in fact, video must be mobile-first.

Smartphones are highly interactive devices compared to TV, for example, and ads must reflect this. That’s why integrating interactive elements such as mini games or micro quizzes are favoured by many mobile marketers. It’s a similar story for the vertical video format: perfectly suited to the mobile screen, vertical video has rapidly overtaken the landscape format of laptops, pioneered by apps like Snapchat, musical.ly, and Periscope.

Cheetah Mobile is partnering with popular social video apps like musical.ly to bring on the vertical video revolution. Video demand will continue to grow exponentially, but it’s not only video consumers are asking for.

No news isn’t good news
Just like video, editorial content from publishers is in high demand. News streams are found everywhere on mobile from the Facebook app to the iOS home screen. Why? Deloitte research shows UK citizens collectively look at their smartphones over a billion times a day – and if we’re constantly on our phones, the last thing we want is nothing new! The demand for news content is increasing dramatically because we interact more regularly with our devices and expect something new every time we pull down to refresh.

This is the logic behind our recent acquisition of News Republic, a leading mobile news app that tops the charts on iOS and Google Play in many markets around the globe. News content adds value to the user experience and generates high levels of engagement – especially when there is a locally-relevant, personalized news experience powered by a combination of machine intelligence and local editors in individual markets.

Easy ways to embrace mobile
The mobile marketing rulebook might have been revised, but marketers just need to keep pace with where consumers are and what they want – which, let’s face it, has always been their remit. Here are three considerations to revise your mobile strategies in line with changes in consumer behaviour:

Invest in editorial and video content. Consumers’ appetites for mobile content are surging, and marketers can use this to their advantage to drive the best ROI and ensure high levels of user retention. To avoid being left without enough mobile-optimised content to fill digital and emerging channels, brands must begin thinking now how they can allocate resources or showcase user-generated, influencer, and other third-party content to maintain supplies and high standards.

Think vertical. Cisco has predicted that by 2019, 75 per cent of all mobile traffic will be video content. This content must be optimised for mobile, which increasingly means vertical. These days we’re not so willing to turn our phones sideways, and brands must take this into account. As for the benefit for them – many app makers are finding that users are much more likely to finish a vertical video ad than a horizontal one.

Make a move into the app ecosystem. Your brand should be able to offer an app that’s more than a one-trick pony. By integrating social functions, e-commerce, and third party services, as well as funnelling in all that great editorial and video content you’re creating, your app will easily be branded a favourite by your customers and stay in their top three, safe from deletion.

While it may seem like the playing field is shrinking as consumers focus their attention on fewer apps, the growing demand for more content – editorial and especially video – should be seen as an opportunity, not a restriction.

Cristina Constandache is VP at Cheetah Mobile

Too many brands are taking a short-term view on effectiveness. That is the conclusion of a new report from the IPA released to coincide with its first Effectiveness Week.

The research, based on analysis of case studies entered into the IPA’s Effectiveness Awards, found that while the optimum campaigns have a 60:40 ratio of long-term brand building versus short-term sales activation, few campaigns are adhering to this.

On average, 47% of a comms budget is now spent on short-term activation strategies, up from 31% in 2014. But share of voice is down by 9 percentage points over a decade.

Les Binet, report author and head of effectiveness at AdamEveDDB, says: “This latest research provides empirical evidence that our industry is focussing too much on the short term. The pendulum has swung too far in favour of brand activation, yet for truly effective advertising we must continue to invest more in long-term brand building.”

Part of the issue is the rise of owned and earned media, which has led many marketers to question the need for paid media. However, the research shows that awareness and penetration are still key in driving growth and profit; they are three times more likely to be the main driver of growth versus loyalty.

Yet it is the combination of paid, owned and earned that creates the biggest benefit. Adding owned media to a paid campaign typically increases the effectiveness of a campaign by 13%, while earned media causes a rise of 26%.

Scale is also important. Adding TV to a campaign increases effectiveness by 40%, making it the most effective medium and the one that is best at generating top-line growth that drives profit.

One reason for TV’s effectiveness is the synergy of live TV working with video-on-demand and online video. Brands will see a 54% in the average number of very large business effects by using them together, versus 32% for TV only and 25% for online video on its own.

Janet Hull, IPA director of marketing strategy explains: “Here lies the proof that the digital transformation has helped make mass media work even harder. It also proves that while it is good to have earned and owned media, for top-line growth brands must invest in paid-for, mass reach.”

Bottom-Line: Gaia has a $6 stock; The company has net cash of $4 per share, owns an unencumbered office building with a market value of $1.35-$1.65 per share and a video-streaming business growing subscribers at 50%-80% per annum. CEO Jirka Rysavy, a serial entrepreneur and the largest GAIA stock holder, has a proven track record of growing small businesses into multi-billion dollar companies.  His latest plan is to grow Gaia with cash-on-hand into a business that will generate $2.50 in EPS by 2021  – – and in my opinion, that could translate to at least 100% annualized return for shareholders for the next several years.

My interest in Gaia dates back a few years ago when the company announced the spin off of its video subscription business. Back then, Gaia had an apparel business and a “Netflix-like” video subscription service.  The thesis, as I recall it, was that the apparel segment was worth more than the total enterprise value and one was getting the video business for free.

Another thing that had caught my eye was the stockholders list.  For a micro-cap company, the top holders included some very prominent and well-respected value funds.  So, I did some digging.

During my research, I came across an old Fortune Magazine article about Rysavy.  The article described how he started a small office products recycling business, grew it into Corporate Express, a Fortune 500 company, and sold it to a Dutch conglomerate for $2.3 billion.  Rysavy also founded Crystal Market which became Wild Oats and was later acquired by Whole Foods.  To me, these two data points validated the notion that Rysavy is the real deal.

Fast Forward to the Present:

Earlier this year, Gaia sold its apparel segment to Sequential Brands Group (SQBG) for $167 million and so naturally the spin-off of its video-subscription segment was cancelled.  The company used a big chunk of the proceeds from the sale to buyback about 10 million or 40% of its outstanding shares via a tender at $7.75 per share.  Rysavy did not sell any of his shares in the tender and is now a 38% shareholder.  Since the tender closed, the stock has trailed down to ~$6 on absolutely no new news, thus providing a compelling opportunity IMO to buy an early-stage business with tremendous growth and earnings potential.

Consider this:

Presently, the company has approximately $60 million ($4 per share) in cash, no debt, ownership of an unencumbered office building in Colorado worth $20-$25 million ($1.35-$1.65 per share) and a video streaming business growing subscribers 50%-80% per year.  And Rysavy plans to grow subs 80% per annum in 2017 and 2018 and get to one million subscribers by 2019.  Now compare that to GAIA’s market cap of $100 million and a stock price of $6 – – it is easy to see why GAIA is ridiculously cheap (easy for me, anyway).

And why is GAIA so cheap?  It could be that the funds that owned GAIA can’t be bothered with an even smaller and illiquid micro cap than it had been before the stock buy-back.  Or maybe a lot of investors were in it for the spin-off “event” and now see GAIA as a straight forward growth story lacking an “event”.

Another reason for the stock to have traded down over the past couple of months could be a shelf filing dated September 30, 2016, for 5 million shares.  This may have spooked ill-informed investors.  Upon inquiry, I was told that this filing was done simply to renew an old one that was on file with the SEC.  Plus, management had made it clear during the last earnings call that it had sufficient funds on-hand to pay for its growth plan.

On the other hand, it may be simply that the company, due to its size, has little-to-no sell-side following and therefore remains under the radar.

Here’s an excerpt from Q2-2016 conf call:

Jirka Rysavy

Well, today the global OTT market of 218 million video subscribers is large and they have quite significant and growing tailwinds, which is according to the study from Parks Associates which has released this year. Also according to 2015 study completed by Bespoke, streaming is far in a way to prefer method of watching movies. 48% of the survey responded and prefers streaming more than double of those who prefer cable satellite or DVDs.

90% of Gaia content is the available worldwide, which allows us to have subscribers now in 120 countries with the international portion representing 33% of our added some subscribers, which is up from 26% a year ago.

After completion of the tender, Gaia has approximately 15 million shares outstanding. And after the deal, proceeds are kind of finalized is expected to have about $110 million in equity, including over – with over $60 million in cash, plus the ownership of the campus. We expect the subscriber grows will remain about same during the third quarter, and then increased to 50% for full year, and then to accelerate to 80% for next two years.

What is Gaia?

Gaia owns and operates a video subscription service (like Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Video) with 7,000 programs and videos focused on Yoga, Transformation and Seeking Truth.  An annual subscription plan costs around $100 per year.

Approximately 90% of the content is exclusive to Gaia with world-wide rights.  So unlike Netflix and Amazon, it doesn’t have to acquire rights for a majority of its content and has full in-house production capabilities.  In short, this is a content company.

Subscriber count at the end of Q2-2016 was 170,000, up 45% from Q2-2015.  About 33% of subscribers are international.  Since the company was planning on spinning off this segment, a lot of information was disclosed on Form 10 (linked here).

But the simplest thing to do would be to download GAIA app on your tablet or smart-phone and check out the content. Or if you have Comcast or Verizon FIOS cable service, search “yoga” and just about every thing that comes up requires a Gaiam TV subscription.

Business Model:  In the past, the company has experienced year-over-year subscriber growth of 40% to 100%.  However, this was the case when (1) the video segment was part of a larger company with limited resources available to acquire new subs and (2) the company had slowed down marketing expenditure to get this business to profitability ahead of its planned spinoff.

Now with Gaia’s sole focus on growing this business and $60 million of cash on hand, it is quite plausible that the company will be able to accelerate growth.

On September 12, 2016, Gaia filed an 8-K with the SEC.  In it, the company attached a  short slide presentation, detailing the business economics and its plan for growth for the next five years.  Here is a link: http://tinyurl.com/jyby5xm

Using the information contained in this presentation, I have  modeled out an income statement for the next five years.  One thing that I am confident of is that I will be proven wrong on just about each and every line item of this model.  My intent here is not to forecast

Une enquête a été ouverte en lien avec la conduite de deux agents de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada (GRC) à la suite de la publication d’une vidéo d’une intervention musclée dans un hôtel, à Coquitlam, en Colombie-Britannique.

L’enquête indépendante a été confiée à la police de New Westminster.

Tout a commencé par la publication d’une vidéo dans laquelle on voit un couple de personnes âgées être escorté par des policiers. L’homme est notamment traîné au sol dans les escaliers.

De plus, tout au long de l’intervention, une fillette apeurée crie à pleins poumons.

Dans une déclaration, le surintendant Sean Maloney, officier responsable de la GRC de Coquitlam, dit avoir été mis au courant de la vidéo. «Je peux confirmer que le 27 octobre 2016 à 22 h 32, des policiers ont été appelés à se rendre à l’hôtel Best Western situé sur la route North, à Coquitlam», dit-il.

«Les membres donnaient suite à un rapport indiquant qu’une assemblée générale annuelle avait pris des proportions démesurées et que des participants en étaient possiblement venus aux poings, a-t-il ajouté. À l’arrivée des policiers, une décision aurait été prise, soit qu’il valait mieux pour de tous mettre fin à la rencontre.»

Si «aucune plainte du public» n’a pour l’instant été reçue, le surintendant Maloney a toutefois «demandé à ce que l’on procède à l’examen des mesures prises par les policiers qui sont intervenus lors de l’incident».

«L’examen comprendra également les raisons qui ont nécessité l’intervention policière», précise-t-il.

BRUXELLES — Après 7 années de négociations, le Canada et l’Union européenne ont officiellement signé dimanche une entente de libre-échange, l’Accord économique et commercial global (CETA).

A l’issue d’un court sommet, à Bruxelles, le premier ministre Justin Trudeau et les autorités européennes, dont le président du Conseil européen Donald Tusk et le président de la Commission européenne Jean-Claude Juncker, ont paraphé ce pacte commercial.

L’accord concerne plus de 500 millions d’Européens et 35 millions de Canadiens.

Les 28 États membres devront l’entériner.

Une délégation accompagnait M. Trudeau pour cet événement historique, dont le premier ministre du Québec, Philippe Couillard, de même que les négociateurs et anciens premiers ministres québécois Jean Charest et Pierre-Marc Johnson.

M. Couillard a rappelé que le Québec avait été l’initiateur de cet accord. Le gouvernement québécois estime que cette entente de libre-échange se traduira par la création de 16 000 emplois et l’injection de 2,3 milliards $ dans l’économie québécoise.

Mais la ministre québécoise des Relations internationales, Christine St-Pierre, s’empresse d’ajouter que toutes les parties impliquées en bénéficieront, notamment la région belge de Wallonie qui refusait d’appuyer l’accord jusqu’à vendredi.