Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the Liberal MP who made a name for himself as a backbencher with his own voice, posted a nine-minute video to YouTube this week about the federal government’s carbon pricing policy. It would be an exaggeration to say the video is setting the internet on fire. As of Friday afternoon, it had a … Read more
The housing market could soon get “interesting,” economists say, as home prices and sales start to edge up, according to a pair of new reports released Friday. In its latest quarterly Home Price Update and Market Forecast, Royal LePage is forecasting that the aggregate price of a home in Canada will increase nine per cent in the fourth … Read more
The federal government must move quickly to regulate artificial intelligence, said a top AI pioneer who warns the technology’s current trajectory poses major societal risks Yoshua Bengio, dubbed a “godfather” of AI, told members of Parliament Monday that Ottawa should put a law in place immediately, even if that legislation is not perfect. The scientific director … Read more
Business insolvencies jumped by more than 41 per cent in 2023, according to data released Friday by Canada’s top financial regulator. The report from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy showed that the total number of insolvencies — meaning those filed by both businesses and consumers — was up by 23.6 per cent last year. The … Read more
Some small business owners in Canada are asking for the federal government to reckon with the challenges they face as they confront a looming deadline to repay a portion of emergency government loans issued during the pandemic. Businesses face a Jan. 18 deadline to pay back up to $60,000 in loans received through the Canada Emergency Business … Read more
Along with the massive recent manufacturing investments in electric vehicle (EV) technology and talks of a greener, decarbonized future, there are some not-so-green problems. In its latest New Energy Finance report, Bloomberg News predicts there will be some 730 million EVs on the road by 2040. The year before, Bloomberg predicted half of all U.S. vehicle sales would be battery electric by 2030. … Read more
Amid high inflation, rising operating costs and shrinking Canadian demand, clothing designers in Nova Scotia say they’re struggling to find a sustainable business model. Designers say they’ve had to adjust to significant changes in consumer behaviour, supply chain disruptions and inflation as they’ve navigated through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. “We’ve made a lot of hard decisions. … Read more
The pace of housing starts in Canada fell by 22 per cent in November, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Friday. The agency says the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in November came in at 212,624 units, down from 272,264 in October. A housing start is defined as the beginning of construction work … Read more
The head of Canada’s biggest grocery chain says the looming implementation of the grocery code of conduct would lead to higher prices for consumers, not lower ones. Speaking at a House of Commons agriculture committee meeting on Thursday morning on stabilizing food prices, Galen Weston, executive chairman of the Loblaws group of companies, said his … Read more
