Home Depot bans pets after vicious dog attack
TORONTO — Starting in May, Canadian pet owners will have to leave their four-legged companions at home when they go shopping at Home Depot.
The retailer says it is banning pets at its stores across Canada after a vicious attack by a Shih Tzu sent an Ottawa-area employee to hospital last week. Anne Riel, 39, says she was working near the doors at the Home Depot in Gloucester, east of Ottawa, when a woman came in with a Shih Tzu in her shopping cart.
Riel says she bent down slightly to pet the dog but it leapt out of the cart and bit her in the face, taking a chunk out of her nose.
Doctors had to sew Riel’s skin together and reattach her left nostril. She says she will need multiple plastic surgeries before her nose looks “somewhat normal” again. Home Depot says certified assistance dogs, such as guide dogs for the blind, will still be allowed in stores when the new policy comes into effect on May 16.
Canada post officials advise of layoffs
OTTAWA — Canada Post has told about 200 contract employees they’ll start losing their jobs in July as the Crown corporation turns over most of its call-centre operations to an outside company. The layoffs will begin with workers at its Winnipeg facility, and continue in Ottawa, Antigonish, N.S., and Fredericton until the end of the year. Canada Post informed the affected workers a year ago they would be losing their jobs because a third-party provider, Minacs, is taking over call-centre operations. In a release, Canada Post said its in-house call centre costs significantly more than industry standards.
Spokesman Jon Hamilton said the call-centre number will remain the same and the work will stay in Canada. A spokeswoman for the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the union that represents the workers, said the timing was terrible just before a holiday.
