Flanked by local candidates and union members, in Windsor, Ont., Singh said on Wednesday that if elected prime minister he would work with the CRTC to force large telecommunications companies to reduce prices and cap fees below the global average.
Economy
Here’s what the main federal parties are promising seniors
Out of the gate, most of the parties have made promises to help seniors, largely focused on fixing the vulnerabilities exposed in long-term care homes by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bill VanGorder, chief operating officer of the seniors advocacy group CARP, said it’s an important issue, but the top concern he hears from members is financial security.
How Canadian tourism sustains Cuba’s army and one-party state
While foreign arrivals in Cuba have crashed this year, no other nationality has stayed away as much as Canadians, according to Cuban government statistics.
Overall visits are down about 95 per cent compared to 2019, but Canadian visits have plunged by 99.5 per cent. (Russia, by contrast, actually sent more visitors in 2021.)
That is hugely damaging to Cuba’s economy, because (in normal years) far more Canadians enter and leave Cuba than citizens of any other country — including Cuba itself.
Liberals will extend COVID aid programs to October due to uneven rebound
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the government is extending pandemic aid programs by an extra month beyond the previously planned end date.
The decision means that wage and rent subsidies for businesses, and income support for workers out of a job or who need to take time off to care for family or stay home sick, will last until Oct. 23.
Canada is losing its competitive edge for attracting talent
Brendon Bernard, senior economist at Indeed Canada, talks with the Financial Post’s Larysa Harapyn about how Canada is losing its competitive edge for attracting talent for its workforce and what it needs to do to compete.
What about the thousands of Somalian doctors and lawyers who migrated to Canada?
America Has Lost the Trade War with China, and the Real Pain Has Yet to Begin
China is laying siege to the USA by slowing down production and delivery of goods. It doesn’t take much to hang up US production, just one missing item can do it. So much stuff is sourced through China they can affect all supply chains. Semiconductors are just the canary–because the chains are so long and complex, and specialized materials are required, etc. But it is happening everywhere.
The cost of shipping a container from China to the USA has risen from $4,000 to $17,000 and is expected to rise more.
h/t Mauser98
Justin Trudeau’s Post-Pandemic Plans Will Leave Canadian Workers Behind
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are strengthening their commitment to tech entrepreneurialism as they scale back Canada’s COVID-19 benefits. This is not a road map to recovery; it is a path to austerity and precarity in the workplace.
Fact check: COVID-19 deaths didn’t cause U.S. labor shortage
The apparent contradiction between high unemployment and a high number of companies struggling to find unskilled workers has opened a debate about whether a “true” labor shortage exists, and if so, why.
h/t Todd
Posthaste: A wave of Canadians quitting their jobs is about to squeeze the labour market
Combination of job vacancies, people quitting or retiring will make labour shortages worse into the fall, RBC says.
Bitcoin, or Bitter Con?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan and other books on risk and probability is Bitcoin’s nemesis. A one-time supporter of the cryptocurrency he now calls it a “Ponzi scheme.” Taleb recently posted an analytical take-down of Bitcoin using concepts from quantitative finance. He hits hard.
LEVY: It’s already over for small businesses in Ontario
Politicians are well-known for speaking out of both sides of their mouths.
At no time did we see more of that behaviour than during the past 16 months of the COVID-19 pandemic when we expected our politicians to show some modicum of leadership.
Sadly, for the most part, that leadership has been lacking in so many areas.
Critical Signs To Watch for Famine in North Korea
Covid-19 has not been kind to the North Korean people. Like many authoritarian actors around the globe, Kim Jong-un used the pandemic as an excuse to tighten his grip on power. Among the most draconian measures taken was the decision to put an air-tight seal on the country’s already-restricted border with China.
While the decision to close the Sino-North Korean border was intended to ward off a potentially catastrophic outbreak of Covid-19, it also ushered in instability of another kind: economic uncertainty.
Top Ag Traders Forecast “Mini Supercycle”
As we’ve previously noted, parts of South America and the Western half of the US are in a drought, affecting future harvest yields. Especially in the US, a megadrought is crushing farmers as reservoirs dry up, with many unable to water their crops.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration set the 2030 greenhouse gas pollution target aimed at increasing biofuels – this means the agricultural product is being diverted for fuel rather than food, driving up prices.
Central bankers play down soaring cost of living
Even while prices continued to surge, both Powell and Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem, who addressed the Canadian Senate Wednesday evening, continue to insist that the inflation we are seeing now is a flash in the pan.
Biggest shakeup in auto industry’s history chance for Canada to climb on top
When U.S. President Joe Biden hopped behind the wheel of a new Ford Electric F-150 last month, he called it the future of the U.S. economy: “A union-made product, right here in America.”
For some Canadians, his words rang out like a wake-up call because in recent years, engines for the F-150, and other Ford vehicles, have been assembled in Windsor, Ontario.
Of course, electric vehicles like the new F-150 don’t have engines — they have batteries and motors. That’s why Stephen MacKenzie, president of Invest Windsor Essex, the local economic development corporation, is scrambling to attract battery manufacturers to the region.