Nearly 23% of the Canadian population reported food insecurity in 2022

Nearly nine million Canadians lived in food insecure households in 2022, with 22.9 per cent of the population reporting some form of food insecurity, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday. The data agency wrote in its annual Canadian Income Survey that 8.7 million people lived in households that reported some kind of food insecurity. … Read more

Liberals pledge $9B in new money for Indigenous communities in 2024 budget

The Trudeau government is promising $9 billion in new cash for Indigenous communities over the next five years, a smaller spend than some past budgets but one the government says builds on past investments and maintains an upward trend. The plan sparked mixed reviews from Indigenous leaders, with some immediately panning it as a failure and others … Read more

CRA pausing new ‘bare trust’ reporting requirement just days before filing deadline

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is hitting pause on a new “bare trust” reporting requirement with just a few days remaining before the deadline. New reporting requirements for such trust arrangements were introduced for the 2024 tax season. Anyone with a bare trust was required to file a T3 tax return form naming the trustees, … Read more

Hidden cameras capture bank employees misleading customers, pushing products that help sales targets

Michelle Jeraline says she’s so stressed out by the pressure to sell customers products at TD Bank, it’s affected her health.  The TD employee says she’s usually not acting in the best interest of her clients — she’s trying to sell them products that will help her meet sales targets and keep her from being … Read more

First-time homebuyer incentive is discontinued, says federal housing agency

The first-time homebuyer incentive has been discontinued by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the federal agency announced on Thursday. The deadline for new or resubmitted applications to the program is midnight ET on March 21, 2024, according to the CMHC’s website. Launched in 2019, the plan was meant to help reduce monthly mortgage payments … Read more

$350B in pandemic savings was supposed to give the economy a huge boost. It still hasn’t happened

After the pandemic hit in 2020, some business owners and households were hard hit financially as a result of lockdown measures. But at the same time, many Canadians saw their bank accounts grow because of their reduced spending. Those savings ballooned to over $300 billion and became so large that economists expected there would be … Read more

After a tough year, Aritzia banks on U.S. expansion to keep growth humming

Improved financial performance at Vancouver-based retailer Aritzia sent the company’s stock soaring on Thursday morning by more than 20 per cent, though some experts warn the company isn’t out of the woods after a challenging year saw the company’s red-hot hype start to simmer down.  The clothing chain announced its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday after … Read more

Canadian debt-to-income ratio narrowed slightly in third quarter, says StatsCan

A report from Statistics Canada says that the ratio of Canadian household debt to income narrowed in the third quarter. The agency says household credit market debt as a proportion of household disposable income in the third quarter fell to 181.6 per cent, on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from 181.9 per cent in the … Read more

Time’s up for some short-term rentals in B.C. as new housing rules look set to transform scene

Nancy Paine’s short-term rental business is dead in the water. As co-founder and CEO of Victoria-based Superhost, Paine said she had been at the forefront of the Airbnb revolution for seven years, acting as a “liaison” for homeowners needing help with the logistics of running a listing on the accommodation site. At the peak of … Read more