This past Wednesday, President Biden issued an Executive Order to ensure the responsible development of digital assets in the U.S. The Order provides a foundation for numerous studies to help guide and understand technology that is still new, but growing fast.
The digital asset industry has seen a growth spurt from November of 2016 – where the market cap was $14 billion – to $3 trillion in market cap as of November of 2021. With new social dilemmas that face the U.S. between the potential for ransomware and sanctions evasion, the crypto industry has been very receptive to what initially appears to be a very analytical approach calling for studies by various U.S. agencies.
Brett Harrison, President of FTX.US signaled in an interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox that institutional money may start pouring into the crypto economy with this approach. “Some amount of regulation is important to allow institutions to come in and feel confident in being able to put their money into this emerging space like cryptocurrency,” said Harrison. With respect to the Order, Harrison saw it as, “…a call for people to do research and come back with reports to understand what areas need regulation and what areas don’t.”
Ari Redford, Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM Labs, described the crux of the Order as a way to coordinate the activities of the U.S. Government around crypto. “The executive order is really a call for coordination – playing quarterback to ensure that regulators are working together to feed into a clear and consistent framework for crypto regulation rather than engage in disparate work streams. The real work begins now,” says Redford.
Perianne Boring, Founder and CEO of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, testifying at a Senate … [+] Agricultural Hearing on Examining Digital Assets: Risks, Regulation, and Innovation. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, also testified at this hearing in February of 2022.
C-Span
Teana Baker-Taylor, Chief Policy Officer at the Chamber of Digital Commerce, saw the Order as a reinforcement of the crypto economy that is already rapidly developing. “The EO reinforces that the Administration acknowledges that crypto is here to stay, and that the U.S. government is taking digital assets seriously,” said Taylor. She also focused on the benefits of a regulatory regime for crypto that would benefit the development of the crypto economy. “We expect the next several years will be focused on developing a regulatory regime, which we agree is critical to supporting sustainable industry growth while ensuring consumer protections and maintaining US competitiveness,” said Taylor.
Redford noted his biggest takeaway from the Order is the “embrace of cryptocurrency”. “The Order talks about the need for American leadership in the digital space race, the power and promise of financial inclusion, and the growing crypto economy. Of course there is a focus on the risks and challenges – as there should be – but it is framed by the need for thoughtful regulation and leadership,” says Redford.
Critical in the Executive Order, which for the DavisPolk law firm seems to have created a great deal of excitement regarding the diagramming of when the reports in the Order are due, is a ‘whole-of-government approach’ that the Order takes. Additionally, the Order takes a look at numerous aspects of the potential impacts of digital currency and specifically seeks to ensure readiness for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) if needed. “I believe that a ‘whole of government’ approach has the potential to actually move the needle on regulatory clarity, encourage adoption, hopefully, just maybe, diffuse some of the contrarian narratives the industry has be the subject of by its skeptics,” says Taylor.
Image of the number of reports that require action or are recommended from Biden’s Executive Order … [+] on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets, published by the DavisPolk law firm.
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Crypto as an industry is used to being contrarian, but to warm up not only to the interest of the Administration, but to how institutional investors may see the opportunities of the crypto economy, embracing itself as the leader of a new economy might take some time for those in the industry to get used to.
Overall, the development of this Order is beneficial for the industry and at a minimum, shows an attempt by the U.S. Government to take an organized and fair approach to crypto across the Administration. Taylor commented on how the Digital Chamber had been advocating for this type of approach by the U.S. Government at the highest levels of the Administration. “We are encouraged to see that many of the tenets outlined in our 2019 ‘National Action Plan for Blockchain’ were represented in the announcement, which calls for a holistic, coordinated approach to the development of policies and frameworks,” said Taylor.
OTTAWA – The federal government is expected to boost the minimum hourly wage that must be paid to temporary foreign workers in the high-wage stream as a way to encourage employers to hire more Canadian staff.
Under the current program’s high-wage labour market impact assessment (LMIA) stream, an employer must pay at least the median income in their province to qualify for a permit. A government official, who The Canadian Press is not naming because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the change, said Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault will announce Tuesday that the threshold will increase to 20 per cent above the provincial median hourly wage.
The change is scheduled to come into force on Nov. 8.
As with previous changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program, the government’s goal is to encourage employers to hire more Canadian workers. The Liberal government has faced criticism for increasing the number of temporary residents allowed into Canada, which many have linked to housing shortages and a higher cost of living.
The program has also come under fire for allegations of mistreatment of workers.
A LMIA is required for an employer to hire a temporary foreign worker, and is used to demonstrate there aren’t enough Canadian workers to fill the positions they are filling.
In Ontario, the median hourly wage is $28.39 for the high-wage bracket, so once the change takes effect an employer will need to pay at least $34.07 per hour.
The government official estimates this change will affect up to 34,000 workers under the LMIA high-wage stream. Existing work permits will not be affected, but the official said the planned change will affect their renewals.
According to public data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 183,820 temporary foreign worker permits became effective in 2023. That was up from 98,025 in 2019 — an 88 per cent increase.
The upcoming change is the latest in a series of moves to tighten eligibility rules in order to limit temporary residents, including international students and foreign workers. Those changes include imposing caps on the percentage of low-wage foreign workers in some sectors and ending permits in metropolitan areas with high unemployment rates.
Temporary foreign workers in the agriculture sector are not affected by past rule changes.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
