 Here’s what you need to know to get the day started: | | | Taylor Swift fan had concert tickets and a place to stay. Then Booking.com pulled the rug out from under her | | |  | Sarah Fournier, a Taylor Swift fan from Montreal, thought she'd secured a great deal for accommodations during her stay in Toronto for the pop star's concert in November this year, until Booking.com told her those reservations were cancelled. (Jacques Poitras/CBC) | | | A Taylor Swift fan says she's got "bad blood" with Booking.com after the travel booking giant left her with no accommodations for the upcoming T-Swizzle concert in Toronto.
"I was kind of freaking out," Sarah Fournier told Go Public after the accommodations she'd secured early, and at a good price, for the dates around the concert were cancelled — and then at least one of them was relisted at a higher price.
"I just knew something was not right," she said.
After cancelling her reservations, Booking.com refused to help Fournier find a similar place at a similar price.
A legal expert in technology says her experience shows consumers can't trust that what they book on travel sites is locked in — and that they'll actually get what's being offered.
"Often consumers believe that the platforms, in this case like Booking.com, have their back," said Jonathan Penney, a law professor at York University who researches legal and ethical impacts of technology.
"[Instead] they've wiped their hands of it. Walk away and say 'you're on your own.' That's a real problem," he said, referring to Fournier's situation.
Booking.com was the most visited travel website in the world last month, with 556 million visits, far ahead of Trip Advisor, Airbnb and Expedia, according to Statista.com.
When the mega music star announced she was coming to Toronto last August, Fournier immediately started making plans with her brother and friends to travel from Montreal for the November 2024 show.
The concert was more than a year away at that point, and Fournier had no idea if she'd score hard-to-get concert tickets — but she knew accommodations would be in high demand, too.
"My first thought was to go to Booking.com," the 22-year-old said.
At the beginning of August, she secured the two vacation rentals on Booking.com for her group of four to stay in Toronto from Nov. 21-24. She paid about $1,100 and $1,500 for the three nights.
Soon after, they scored the concert tickets.
Just when Fournier thought everything was set, Booking.com pulled the rug out from under her — emailing her to say her reservations had been cancelled. | | | | | Victory celebration | | |  | (Jussi Nukari/Lehtikuva/The Associated Press) | | | | Members of Team Canada skate toward goaltender Carter George as they celebrate winning the 2024 under-18 men's world hockey championship in Espoo, Finland, on Sunday. Canada came from behind to beat the United States 6-4 in the final. Read the full story here. | | | | | | | | | In brief | | | The federal government has had to cancel at least $246 million in debts for thousands of Canadians it initially claimed had received pandemic benefits for which they weren't eligible. Since 2022, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been collecting money from Canadians the government says received benefits — such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) — in error. The government has been withholding tax refunds and other benefits in an effort to recoup money sent to individuals it says were ineligible for the funds they received. The CRA told CBC News that at the end of last year, it had collected roughly $1.8 billion in erroneous pandemic benefit payments. But many Canadians have disputed the government's assessment of their eligibility for those benefits and hundreds have even taken the government to court. The CRA told CBC News that as of April, it has reversed the debts of roughly 27,000 individuals who originally had been deemed ineligible but later had their eligibility verified. Read the full story here.
WestJet and the union representing its maintenance engineers reached a tentative agreement late Sunday, averting a work stoppage that could have started disrupting flights as early as Tuesday afternoon. The Calgary-based airline and the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), which represents the engineers who maintain WestJet aircraft and other technical operations employees, announced the development shortly after 10:30 p.m. MT on Sunday. AMFA members still need to ratify the tentative agreement, which would establish the first collective agreement between the two parties, according to the joint statement. Read the full story here.
Algonquin leaders are demanding accountability after learning Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) discharged toxic sewage at the Chalk River research hub along the Ottawa River this spring. Chalk River's sanitary sewage plant failed an "acute lethality test" in February, meaning the effluent, or treated wastewater discharge, was found to be toxic to fish. CNL was depositing the toxic effluent into freshwater at the site between February and April, violating regulations and prompting action from enforcement officers, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) confirmed. Kebaowek First Nation Chief Lance Haymond says he trusts neither ECCC nor the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to protect his members from hazards — radioactive or otherwise. The Algonquin leader, whose community is in Quebec — upstream from the facility — is calling for a nation-to-nation initiative to monitor waste dumping in the watershed. CNL said Friday it has a dedicated team, supported by external experts, working to identify the source of any operational discharges that may have disrupted the plant's biological treatment system, known as activated sludge, which will take some time to recover. Read the full story here.
Residents from several Nunavut communities say they're reeling from suddenly losing access to free Amazon shipping after Canada Post put an end to a loophole customers utilized to access the service. For years, the residents shipped their Amazon orders to fake postal codes as a way to save hundreds of dollars a year on food and supplies. While these products are available at local grocery stores, their prices are significantly higher due to the cost of Northern transportation. Iqaluit is the only community in Nunavut which qualifies for free shipping with Amazon Prime. But last month, Canada Post began enforcing its long-held return-to-sender policy for any misaddressed mail. Because those Amazon shipments were addressed to incorrect and fake postal codes, dozens of Amazon orders have been sent back to the company — even after being flown in to local post offices. Canada Post issued notices on April 10 it would begin enforcing its policy. Read the full story here.
It's been a decade in the making, but Boeing's commercial spacecraft is finally launching with its first passengers. The final test of its crewed spacecraft, called Starliner — also referred to as its Crew Space Transportation 100 (CST-100) — is scheduled to lift off on Monday at 10:34 p.m. ET from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on board a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. In the shiny new capsule will be two astronauts: Butch Wilmore, who will be the commander for this mission, and Suni Williams, who will be the pilot. And when they launch, there will be a Canadian voice from mission control who will be communicating with the pair — astronaut Joshua Kutryk. It's an important role for him: he's one of four crew members who are set to take the same spacecraft on its first operational mission about a year from now. Read the full story here.
Now here's some good news to start your Monday: "Hello, I think I'm your little brother." That was the message Fredericton's Jason Flores sent on Facebook to a woman in Montana less than a month ago. And now, he has an older sister he messages every day and video calls at least once a week. DNA helped reunite the New Brunswicker with his sister 50 years after she was placed into adoption. Read the full story here. | | | FIRST PERSON | Organ donors saved my life. Now I'm looking for a special person who can help me become a mom | Shilpa Raju feels lucky to be alive. She’s had double lung and kidney transplants after surviving cancer — and is grateful to the donors whose gifts she now carries within her. She’s hoping to find a surrogate who can help realize her dream of motherhood. Read her column here. | | | | | | | For stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada. | | |  | How Loblaw inspires anger, boycott | | The Loblaw boycott is underway. How did the company become the primary target of grocery anger? Listen to today's episode. | | | Today in history: May 6 | | | 1937: The hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg burns and crashes in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 of the 97 people on board and a Navy crewman on the ground.
1954: British medical student Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, with a time of three minutes, 59.4 seconds.
1999: Quebec becomes the first province to extend wide-ranging benefits to gays and lesbians.
2022: Mattea Roach, a 23-year-old Halifax-born resident of Toronto, has her winning streak on Jeopardy! snapped at 23. She lost the game by only $1. | | | (With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, The Associated Press and Reuters) | | | | |  | CBC NEWS APP | The most convenient way to get your news
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