Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with a member of the public at an event following the signing of the Nunavut devolution agreement in Iqaluit, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024.
Officials say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be putting a big emphasis on policies that help Canada’s middle class as he prepares to chair a cabinet retreat in Montreal over the next three days.
His governing team kicks off the retreat Sunday night with a working dinner, followed by two full days of meetings preparing for the House of Commons to resume sitting next week.
It is also looking ahead to the next federal budget, expected within the next two months.
With a slowing economy, the government has limited room for major new spending and no shortage of needs, including pressure to increase spending on the military, invest more in Canada’s electricity grid and pay for an influx of asylum seekers.
But also top of mind for Liberals right now are plummeting poll numbers and high anxiety among voters about the inflation, particularly rising grocery bills and housing costs.
Thus the first part of the retreat is set aside for pocketbook policies, with a spate of experts scheduled to speak to the cabinet about affordability, the economy and housing.
Among them will be Frances Donald, the chief economist at Manulife Financial, which warned in its 2024 forecast on Jan. 18 that the economy is starting the year from a position of weakness and uncertainty. Manulife’s expectation is that the worst economic news will be over by mid-year but not without causing at least some short-term pain.
Canadians are slowing their spending and growing nervous about their job security, Manulife warned, and more Canadians will be forced to renew their mortgages this year at rates often two to three times what they were before.
Dominique Lapointe, Manulife’s global macro strategist who penned the forecast, said a lot of economic realities in 2024 will depend on what the Bank of Canada does with interest rates.
The central bank’s aggressive interest rate hikes to counter inflation peaked in July at five per cent, and haven’t been touched since. Economists have predicted the bank will begin to cut that rate down in the spring but sticky inflation numbers — it crept back up to 3.4 per cent in December — have some hedging that bet now.
The first chance to see what the bank will do comes Wednesday, the day after the cabinet retreat ends.
Manulife did predict housing prices will fall, at least in the early part of 2024, as higher mortgage rates slow demand.
But Mike Moffatt, an economics professor and housing expert from Western University, said with Canada’s population still soaring — almost entirely due to immigration — housing supply is falling further behind.
Moffatt said even with the Liberals moving on smart policies like their $4 billion accelerator fund to fund municipal housing developments, and removing the GST from new rental construction, none of the policies fixes anything overnight and the population is still growing faster than housing.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said last year Canada is short about 3.5 million homes, and Moffatt said that number is “probably even larger.”
“They are positive moves, but given the scale of the crisis more needs to be done,” he said.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported on Jan. 16 that actual housing starts in 2023 fell seven per cent in cities with a population of at least 10,000 people. However it said there were bright spots in some of the biggest cities, with housing starts up five per cent compared with 2022 in Toronto and 28 per cent in Vancouver. Both cities recorded significant jumps in multi-unit construction starts.
Immigration and its impact on housing will play an outsized role in discussions in Montreal. The government has already been talking about tying student visa approvals to available housing, and is under pressure to expand that to more immigration approvals as well.
Canada is targeting 485,000 newcomers this year
Also popping back into the conversation is the national child care program, a signature policy of Trudeau’s which the Liberals believe has helped women’s participation in the workforce and economy growth.
But there are some provinces turning back to Ottawa looking for additional funding as inflation has raised costs for daycare operators faster than government funding has kept up.
Canada signed child care agreements with every province and territory in 2021 and 2022, with $30 billion in federal funding budgeted over five years. Ottawa transferred funds to the provinces to help them increase funding to child care centres, which in turn could lower fees for parents.
Initially the goal was to cut fees in half by the end of the first year, and eventually lowering them to no more than $10 a day.
The agreements all include some kind of midterm review of the funding model. Ontario, which signed in March 2022, was to get $10.2 billion over five years but its agreement includes a review in year three that allows Ontario to come back to Ottawa for more cash if it has evidence the original deal wasn’t big enough.
Daycares in multiple provinces have warned they may withdraw from the program because their deficits are too big. Others say they need to raise wages even more in order to recruit and retain staff.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
