ODTN News broadcaster Roshan Khan

CALGARY, AB — 

August 7, 2025 — Shoppers at Prairie Fresh Market, a locally owned grocery store in Calgary’s Beltline district, were caught off guard this morning when every checkout lane abruptly stopped processing card payments.

Shortly after 9 a.m., debit and credit terminals across the store froze mid-transaction. No error codes appeared, no connection warnings flashed — the payment screens simply went silent.

“One minute we were ringing people through, the next minute… nothing,” said store manager Alex Moreno. “It wasn’t the network, it wasn’t the power — it was like someone just pulled the plug on every register at once.”

Officials Call It a Glitch, Experts See a Pattern

City officials were quick to call the outage an isolated technical disruption, adding that the systems were fully restored by early afternoon. But some cybersecurity experts are not convinced.

Dr. Karen Liu, a retail infrastructure specialist at the Western Cyber Institute, says the nature of the outage is “unusual” and mirrors tactics seen in probing attacks — small-scale disruptions designed to map vulnerabilities without triggering alarms.

“This wasn’t just a terminal freezing. The absence of error messages or connectivity alerts suggests something deliberately masking its footprint,” Liu explained.

Possible Connection to Larger Threats

Sources connected to ODTN News warn that incidents like this could be part of a broader pattern involving critical infrastructure and payment network stability. While there is no confirmed link between Prairie Fresh Market’s outage and larger cyber operations, the incident’s timing has raised eyebrows in the security community.

“A grocery store is a perfect test case — high transaction volume, constant connectivity, and a mix of cloud-based and local systems,” said one industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “If you can silently knock that offline, you can escalate to much bigger targets.”

Business Resumes — But Concerns Remain

By 1:45 p.m., card transactions were back online, and the store resumed normal operations. Still, Moreno says the incident has left staff uneasy.

“We rely on these systems for everything. To have them just… stop, without explanation, is unnerving,” he said.

For Prairie Fresh Market’s customers, the outage was little more than an inconvenience — but for cybersecurity watchers, it may be another data point in a growing list of unexplained disruptions.

ODTN News will continue to monitor developments as investigators work to determine whether Calgary’s grocery store blackout was a one-off glitch — or part of something much bigger.

On the ground, where infrastructure meets everyday life. — Marcus Tran

ODTN News’ Ayaan Chowdhury contributed to this report.

ODTN News broadcaster Roshan Khan

Toronto, ON — As Canada’s major retailers race toward full digital transformation, a new concern is surfacing from inside their own walls: burnout among IT professionals. And it’s growing faster than the infrastructure they’re being asked to maintain.

According to internal briefings and confidential interviews conducted by ODTN News, retail IT teams across the country are reporting unsustainable workloads, unrealistic upgrade timelines, and chronic understaffing — all while expected to fend off increasingly complex cyber threats.

“We’re getting new systems every quarter, but no new staff to support them,” said one infrastructure engineer at a national pharmacy chain, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We’re supposed to be innovating, defending, and scaling — but most days we’re just surviving.”

Burnout Becoming a Security Risk

While burnout is not new to the tech sector, experts warn the current combination of accelerated digital rollout and cybersecurity pressure is creating a dangerous inflection point.

“You can’t expect resilience from teams running on fumes,” said a senior systems architect from LogiSync Canada, a major retail logistics platform. “When we’re too tired to properly audit new code or track access logs, that’s when threat actors slip through.”

Multiple insiders confirmed that some scheduled patch cycles are being postponed or skipped due to personnel shortages — a short-term decision with potentially long-term consequences.

A Disconnect at the Top

Sources suggest that executive-level enthusiasm for emerging technologies — including AI-driven forecasting, smart shelves, and omnichannel integration — has outpaced the operational capacity of the teams tasked with implementation.

“Leadership wants retail to move at the speed of Silicon Valley,” said a backend specialist working on point-of-sale upgrades in British Columbia. “But they forget we’re doing this while keeping decades-old systems running in the background.”

What It Means for Customers

The effects of burnout don’t just stay behind the firewall. Delayed maintenance, rushed deployments, and gaps in monitoring can all increase the risk of outages, checkout disruptions, and data breaches.

“If defenders are stretched thin, customer data becomes the collateral damage,” said an analyst from the Canadian Consumer Cyber Alliance (CCCA).

No National Strategy… Yet

Despite growing industry concern, Canada currently lacks a federal strategy to support digital infrastructure workers in high-demand civilian sectors like retail and healthcare. Labor advocates say this omission must be addressed before cracks in the system become visible to the public.

As part of ODTN News’ continuing coverage of Canada’s digital transformation, our Retail Watch desk will monitor how retailers — and policymakers — respond to what many are calling a silent crisis at the heart of the modern economy.

On the ground, where infrastructure meets everyday life. — Marcus Tran

ODTN News’ Mira Evans contributed to this report.

Toronto, ON —

A sweeping telecommunications outage left tens of thousands across Eastern Canada offline on May 21, crippling retail businesses and halting digital payments as NovaTel’s network collapsed.

More than 130,000 users across Ontario, Quebec, and parts of Atlantic Canada lost connectivity after a major failure in NovaTel’s internet and landline infrastructure. The blackout disrupted daily life and commerce across the region.

Retailers were hit especially hard. With payment systems down, many stores resorted to cash-only transactions or shut their doors entirely. “We lost nearly a full day of sales,” said Maria Elston, who owns a boutique in Ottawa.

Point-of-sale terminals, mobile payment apps, and online checkout systems failed in masses, affecting both physical and e-commerce retailers. NovaTel attempted to provide relief via mobile hotspot data boosts, but they had limited effect.

The disruption extended beyond retail. Remote workers were disconnected from critical cloud services, and supply chain coordination suffered delays across key industries reliant on real-time digital infrastructure.

Experts say the outage likely stemmed from a misconfigured software update that triggered a cascading failure. NovaTel’s network, which mixes legacy fiber and DSL infrastructure, reportedly lacked sufficient redundancy.

“You can’t run an economy this connected on a single thread of fiber,” said Dr. Neha Mistry, a telecommunications analyst.

Regulators from the Canadian Communications Review Board (CCRB) have launched an inquiry. NovaTel is issuing service credits between $10 and $35 and has promised infrastructure improvements.

Consumer groups are calling for stricter regulations requiring backup systems and minimum service reliability standards. Many argue that a handful of telecom giants control too much of Canada’s digital backbone.

The incident underscores the fragility of Canada’s retail and communications systems, particularly in an era of growing digital dependence.

The May 21 NovaTel outage wasn’t just a technical failure — it was a preview of how fragile modern life becomes when digital infrastructure goes dark. Policymakers and businesses alike are being urged to treat resiliency as a top priority.

On the ground, where infrastructure meets everyday life. — Marcus Tran

ODTN News’ Mira Evans contributed to this report.