The 2022 Canada’s Food Price Report says food prices will see the highest increase in twelve years. In dollars, next year’s price increase is also the highest predicted increase by Canada’s Food Price Report since its inception.
Economy
International Finance Leaders Hold ‘War Game’ Exercise Simulating Global Financial Collapse. Should We Be Worried?
High-level international banking officials and organizations gathered last month for a global “war game” exercise simulating the collapse of the global financial system. The tabletop exercise was reminiscent of “Event 201,” the pandemic simulation exercise that took place just before COVID-19 entered the global scene.
Canada Resists Pressure To Drop Vaccine Mandate For Cross-Border Truckers
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pushing ahead with a vaccine mandate for international truckers despite increasing pressure from critics who say it will exacerbate driver shortages and drive up the price of goods imported from the United States.
Canadian wage growth lagging U.S. due to immigration levels: CIBC
One of the biggest factors when comparing Canada’s lagging wage growth to the United States is a difference in immigration levels between the two countries, according to Bay Street economist Benjamin Tal.
“To put things in perspective, [Canada] got 410,000 new immigrants in 2021. In the U.S., altogether, they got 500,000,” said Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets, in an interview Friday.
“The last time I checked, the U.S. is ten times larger than we are. But the [level of immigration] is basically the same.”
Critics, industry call on Ottawa to reconsider trucker vaccine mandate to protect supply chains
The federal government risks hitting Canada’s fragile supply chains with another shockwave if it proceeds with a planned vaccination mandate for truckers, say the Conservatives and industry groups.
Barbra Streisand: ‘Joe Biden’s Economic Record in His First Year Is the Best in 40 years’
To cap off another year of pushing falsehoods and half-truths, left-wing Hollywood actress-singer Barbra Streisand insisted that Joe Biden’s economic record is the “best in 40 years.”
Canada’s WestJet Cancelling 15% Of January Flights Due To COVID-19 Surge
Canada’s WestJet Airlines will cancel 15% of scheduled flights in January because the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of COVID-19 has left the airline unable to fully staff its operations, the company said on Thursday.
The announcement from privately owned WestJet, headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, comes after a slew of North American flight cancellations due to surging coronavirus cases and brutally cold winter weather.
Only 1/4 of Canadians think their financial situation will improve next year: Survey
With the rising costs of everyday items top-of-mind for many, among Canadians who say they took on more debt in 2021. A recent Maru financial priorities poll suggests 37 per cent of Canadians said it was because expenses exceeded their monthly income. In the face of these concerns, only a quarter of respondents (27 per cent) expect their financial situation will improve in 2022.
These 27% are undoubtedly government employees.
Thousands of truckers prepared to walk due to vaccine mandates, warn Canadian trucking groups
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) says it estimates that up to 22 thousand Canadian drivers will decide to leave the Canada-U.S. market when the Canadian government’s planned cross-border vaccination mandate takes effect on January 15, 2022. (The U.S. government is also planning to implement a vaccination requirement for Canadian truckers on January 22.)
Can protectionism bring back my father’s world?
… And make no mistake, we need to be ready for that war. Xi Jinping, unlike Boris Yeltsin, isn’t going to go gaga over the hyperabundance of the American grocery store. We hollowed out our domestic manufacturing sector in the hope that China would liberalize. Instead, they’ve perfected authoritarianism, and now they’re coming for us.
“The era in which the US acted arbitrarily in the world under the pretext of so-called ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ is over. The day will come eventually when the US military, who killed innocent civilians in other countries, will be brought to justice,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said in response to Biden’s recent Democracy Summit.
Nova Scotia restaurants brace for ‘massive’ losses with return of COVID-19 restrictions
A return to COVID-19 restrictions will cost Nova Scotia restaurants millions of dollars and likely will force some to temporarily close, the province’s restaurant association said Monday.
As a result of the physical distancing rules, thousands of bookings will be cancelled and the losses will be “massive,” said Gordon Stewart, president of the Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia, in an interview Monday afternoon.
Supply Chain and Wholesale Inflation Hits 26.5%, Hottest Since 1974
Things are even worse once you get beyond the headlines. Further out on the supply chains, prices are rising even more rapidly, suggesting that product shortages and even more inflation are yet to come.
Liberals open to providing more pandemic support if COVID worsens, says Trudeau in CityNews year-end interview
The federal government is open to providing additional economic support for Canadians that may need it if the country faces another COVID-19 surge this winter.
CityNews, along with our colleagues from Breakfast Television and OMNI News, got the chance to sit down with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to look back at some of the biggest stories from 2021, including the government’s overall pandemic response and the vaccine rollout in Canada.
There’s a Massive Natural Gas Tax in Biden’s Spending Bill
President Joe Biden is desperately trying to get his multi-trillion dollar spending package passed on Capitol Hill before Christmas, but according to the Wall Street Journal, Build Back Better includes a significant tax on natural gas.
America’s Seventies Show—the Sequel The stage is set for an economic replay.
“It’s tough to make predictions,” Yogi Berra famously observed, “especially about the future.” Perhaps, then, we should forgive the Biden administration’s Team Transitory for its months of erroneous forecasts about inflation—now running at a 31-year high. What we should not ignore or forgive, however, is dissembling about inflation’s true causes. Many on the left blame corporate greed and unfettered monopoly power. Progressives are eager to deploy the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department in pursuit of more control over the private sector. But greed and market power were presumably just as prevalent over the many years when inflation ran between 1 percent and 2 percent as they are now. Talk of “profiteering” is at best a distraction and at worst a misguided rationale for regulatory actions likely to have bad effects.