A poll found that eight in 10 British Columbians have cut spending because of rising prices, with young people and low-income families hit hardest and groceries accounting for the largest share of cutbacks. Meanwhile, businesses in the province are rethinking what they expect from employees: AI agents are taking on routine tasks, and companies increasingly value “generalists” who can set goals and make decisions. In another alarming incident, a rabid skunk in downtown Vancouver bit several people. Health officials are urging anyone who came into contact with the animal between September 22 and October 17 to seek medical attention immediately.
British Columbia under pressure from rising prices: eight in 10 residents cut spending
A new poll conducted by Canada Pulse Insights exclusively for Rogers OMNI TV found that the vast majority of British Columbians have had to cut personal spending because of the rising cost of living. The survey covered three major regions of the province—the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the Okanagan Valley—and paints a picture of households balancing necessities against the need to save. The biggest pressure point is groceries: they account for the bulk of cutbacks, and the share of people trimming their budgets approaches 90 percent among younger and lower-income residents.
The figures show the scale of the problem: about eight in 10 respondents said they had cut spending over the past 12 months. That figure was 80 percent in Metro Vancouver and the Okanagan Valley, and 76 percent on Vancouver Island. People most often cut back on entertainment, groceries and meals, travel, and gifts. The differences within Metro Vancouver are especially striking: 83 percent of respondents in Surrey had cut spending, compared with 81 percent in the rest of the region and 76 percent in the City of Vancouver. In other words, the suburbs are feeling the pressure more acutely than the city centre.
Groceries were the most common source of stress in all three regions. They ranked among the top three financial concerns for 69 percent of Metro Vancouver residents, 70 percent of those on Vancouver Island and 76 percent of people in the Okanagan Valley. Utilities came second: 36 percent in Metro Vancouver and 43 percent on both Vancouver Island and in the Okanagan. In Metro Vancouver, half of respondents (50 percent) said they had specifically cut spending on groceries and food—no longer an abstract exercise in saving, but a forced reduction in spending on basic necessities.
Young people and lower-income households were the most vulnerable. Among people aged 18 to 34, between 86 and 92 percent had been forced to cut spending; the figure was 88 to 91 percent for households earning less than $50,000 a year. About a third of all residents rated their financial prospects and chances of getting ahead as “D” or “F”—the equivalent of a poor or failing grade on the school scale. Among young people aged 18 to 34, between 39 and 47 percent gave their financial future similarly low marks. This is an important signal: the issue is not only about current cutbacks, but also about eroding confidence in the future among a group that typically drives consumer demand and makes long-term plans.
The survey methodology lends weight to the findings. The poll was conducted from September 28 to October 14 and included 1,374 Metro Vancouver residents, 511 people on Vancouver Island and 498 in the Okanagan Valley. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for Metro Vancouver, plus or minus 4.3 for Vancouver Island and plus or minus 4.4 for the Okanagan, with a confidence level of 19 times out of 20. As CityNews Vancouver reports, the results show that high prices are no longer an abstract topic of debate but a daily reality in which people are rethinking even what they spend on food.
The key takeaway is that inflationary pressure in British Columbia is hitting hardest those who already have the least financial cushion. When groceries become a major area of cutbacks, rather than entertainment or travel, it points to a shift from “soft” cuts to forced thrift on basic needs. Regional differences are telling, too: in the Okanagan, utilities rank alongside groceries among the top three concerns, while in Metro Vancouver the focus is squarely on food. The “D” and “F” grades given by a significant share of young people suggest that the problem goes beyond current budgets and affects their belief in the possibility of getting ahead financially. For provincial officials and businesses, this means support measures need to be targeted—focused on young and low-income households and on food affordability, rather than broad-based incentives that may not reach the most vulnerable.
A few terms help put the findings in context. Canada Pulse Insights is a polling firm; in this case, it was commissioned by media company Rogers OMNI TV. The “margin of error” indicates how much the sample results may differ from the views of the whole population: the larger it is, the less precise the conclusions for a particular region. That is why the margin of error is higher for Vancouver Island and the Okanagan, where fewer people were surveyed. “19 times out of 20” means a 95 percent confidence level: if the poll were repeated many times, 19 out of 20 results would fall within the stated range. Finally, the Lower Mainland is the region around Vancouver, including cities such as Surrey, Burnaby and Richmond; its residents are among those most likely to report pressure from grocery prices.
AI is changing what businesses expect from employees: the experience of British Columbia companies
Business owners in British Columbia are beginning to rethink not only how they operate, but also whom they need to hire. The reason is AI agents, which are increasingly taking on routine and specialized tasks. As a report by Business in Vancouver shows, these are not far-off experiments but part of everyday life at small companies—from a family-run chili oil producer to food delivery services and online camping platforms. As machines get better at handling calculations, customer service and even initial communication with partners, human value is shifting toward understanding the business, setting tasks and making decisions. This shift is changing both team structures and career requirements.
One example is Holy Duck Chili Oil, a small family business in Vancouver run by Louise Pang and her husband, Christopher Fung. They use AI for budgeting, administrative work and order forecasting. Pang explains that a large corporation can afford entire departments—accounting, auditing and operations teams with established procedures for invoicing, collecting overdue payments and reminding retailers to restock. A microbusiness cannot afford that, and AI goes some way toward making up for the lack of staff. Order forecasting based on past patterns is particularly useful, helping the company plan production and inventory. What’s more, Pang’s partners have their own agents, and the programs can interact with one another, alerting the retailer that it is running low on stock and prompting Holy Duck to send another shipment. In effect, this is a form of automated cooperation between small businesses.
Similar processes are underway at Fantuan Holding Ltd., an Asian food delivery platform based in Burnaby. The company uses AI in customer service: the system first identifies what a customer needs and then brings in a human employee. Algorithms also improve food photos in the app—a process that used to require a lot of manual work but is now automated. The company’s chief technology officer, Glen Zhu, says AI is also used for programming and quality checks: when a courier delivers an order, they take a photo and an agent assesses whether it meets the company’s standards. AI agents also organize information, summarize meetings, translate documents, prepare drafts and analyze data. Zhu adds that large language models are enhancing traditional AI by better understanding users’ intent in search and recommendations, helping make results more relevant and potentially improving conversion rates.
Another example is Campertunity, a North Vancouver platform that connects campers with private landowners. The company developed an AI chatbot that researches the market, sends emails and automatically communicates with prospective hosts. Co-founder Geeta Yazdani says the agent can do the whole job—not only finding and onboarding new partners but also handling customer support inquiries.
Behind this automation lies a deeper shift in what employers expect from people. Zhu says that as AI takes over repetitive and specialized tasks, companies increasingly need employees who understand the business and use agents to achieve specific goals, rather than simply carrying out instructions mechanically. Agents can already handle many basic tasks, such as writing code or designing interfaces. AI can suggest numerous options, but the final decision still rests with a person. Zhu says the trend is toward “generalists”—people who understand business, products, technology and finance, and use AI to bridge gaps between these fields. This is changing how teams are organized, too: instead of a long chain of approvals involving product, design and technical specialists, a small group of broadly skilled people may be able to take a project through to completion. “People who are merely a tool for others will have a harder time in the future,” the publication quotes Zhu as saying. In his view, companies need people who understand the business and its users and know how to get results with AI.
Not everything can be automated, however. Louise Pang believes there are things AI cannot do, including marketing and building a brand identity. She describes once experiencing creative block while scrolling through social media and realizing that much of the content in her feed was AI-generated: it all looked and felt the same, and the language of the captions was especially similar. For a business owner and marketer, it is important that an audience that has trusted a brand for a long time does not lose that trust or feel that a computer is speaking on the brand’s behalf. That is why Pang is deliberately not following the path suggested by AI: it would show her what everyone else is doing, while she is trying to create a distinct voice and identity. Zhu adds that value is increasingly concentrated in people who can “spot” which parts of a business could be handed over to AI and improved with it. Human judgment will remain important for complex decisions, while interpersonal skills and relationship-building will be among the hardest things to automate. “The ability to spot where AI can replace work is important. You need people who can identify a problem and then use an agent to solve it,” he concludes in Business in Vancouver.
A few terms help put this in context. AI agents here means more than chatbots that answer questions: they are programs capable of carrying out sequences of actions on their own—researching, writing emails, interacting with other systems and completing tasks. Large language models (LLMs) are the technologies behind modern generative chat services. They can understand and generate text and, in this case, are used to better identify users’ intent in search and recommendations. “Generalist” refers to a broadly skilled worker, as opposed to a narrow specialist who has spent years performing one function. Conversion is the share of users who take a desired action—for example, placing an order—out of the total number of visitors. Improving it directly affects a platform’s revenue.
The key takeaway is that AI is no longer an experiment in British Columbia businesses; it is becoming an operational norm, particularly for small companies that cannot afford large teams. This frees up resources, but also creates new expectations for employees: what matters increasingly is not the ability to perform a particular operation, but the ability to see the wider business problem, identify where AI can be applied and make decisions based on the options it offers. At the same time, companies still need human judgment, relationship-building and brand authenticity—things automation cannot yet replicate. For the labor market, this means professional boundaries are gradually blurring and broadly skilled “generalists,” who can combine technology with an understanding of customers and business, are becoming more valuable.
Rabid skunk attack in downtown Vancouver raises alarm for residents
An incident in downtown Vancouver prompted local authorities to issue an urgent warning: a skunk that bit several people was infected with rabies. The case, reported by CBC News, stands out not only because it is rare—it is only the third confirmed case of rabies in a skunk in British Columbia since 2011—but also because it happened in a densely populated area that includes Stanley Park and part of downtown. According to Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), a small group of people who were bitten have already received vaccine and immunoglobulin. However, anyone who came into contact with the sick or unusually behaving animal between September 22 and October 17 is strongly urged to seek medical attention immediately.
The story is made all the more dramatic by the fact that an ordinary resident—West End resident Herrick Ashe—caught the skunk. On his way to a farmers’ market at the corner of Comox and Bute streets last Saturday, he noticed a group of people peering into the bushes and saw an animal that looked lethargic and disoriented. “I just talked to the skunk because I’m an animal lover. I like doing that,” he told CBC. “I said, ‘Hey, buddy, how are you doing?’ The skunk looked at me, turned around, came out onto the sidewalk, bit me on the leg, and then bit my boot.” Ashe and his partner managed to catch the animal and call an animal welfare organization. It later emerged that the skunk had to be euthanized because of a broken jaw, and tests confirmed it had rabies. Ashe himself took the incident in stride: “I knew that even if it had the virus, it was very preventable. So I wasn’t afraid.”
The case highlights an important nuance: rabies is extremely rare in Canada, and in British Columbia bats—not skunks—are the only known natural reservoir of the virus. That is why the incident has raised questions among experts about how the virus reached an urban skunk. The rabies virus is found in the saliva of infected animals and is usually transmitted through a bite, less often through a scratch. VCH emphasizes that it is not spread through skunk scent, urine or feces, dispelling a common public fear. The infection attacks the brain and nervous system and is invariably fatal without timely treatment. However, a vaccine and immunoglobulin administered immediately after exposure reliably prevent the disease from developing. Authorities also outlined what to do: wash the wound with warm, soapy water for at least 15 minutes and seek medical attention immediately. Owners of pets that may have come into contact with the skunk during the four-week period are advised to contact a veterinarian urgently.
Significantly, Ashe saw several passersby stop and say they had heard about an aggressive skunk in the area. This underscores the key takeaway: unusual, disoriented or aggressive behavior in a wild animal is a serious reason to notify health authorities, as it may be a sign of illness. Although the case is rare, it reminds residents of even the safest cities to stay alert around wildlife and not to approach animals that appear visibly sick. Ashe’s quick action and willingness to call an animal welfare service helped contain the risk and warn other residents.
