It’s going to be a logistically complicated week for many parents, as teachers hit the picket lines for a series of rotating one-day strikes. But the disruptions are unlikely to have any measurable impact on Ontario’s economy, experts say.
For one, the number of teachers walking off the job on any given day is extremely small compared to the size of the province’s labour market, said Beata Caranci, chief economist at TD Bank Group.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), for example, represents some 83,000 teachers and educational workers. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to Ontario’s 7.5 million jobs — and ETFO teachers aren’t even going on strike all the same time. Instead, the rotating strikes will be spread out from Monday, Jan. 20 to Thursday, Jan. 23 this week.
Strikes in the public service sector often have less of an impact on economic activity because they tend to simply result in backlogs and delays, said Ian Lee, a professor of management at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business. A shutdown of a manufacturing plant, by contrast, may cause a company to miss production targets, he added.
In general, it takes a strike that lasts a month or more and involves a sizable chunk of the workforce to have an economic impact large enough to show up in the data, Caranci said.
Still, even last year’s 40-day strike at General Motors produced nary a blip in Canada’s economic data, Caranci noted. That’s even though the walkout paralyzed GM’s U.S. production, with ripple effects spreading across the border to Canadian parts manufacturers and suppliers.
Often, the strikes that do have a palpable economic impact involve the transportation sector, both Caranci and Lee said.
Something like the November CN Rail strike, for example, can have widespread repercussions because virtually anyone trying to move goods across the country would be affected, Caranci said.
The CN strike, for example, threatened crops in both the Prairies, where farmers needed to ship grain, and Quebec, where growers depend on rail service to deliver the propane they need to dry their harvest.
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1:48 CN Rail strike comes at critical time for farm, oil exports
CN Rail strike comes at critical time for farm, oil exports
That’s why governments are more likely to resort to back-to-work legislation in these scenarios, according to Lee. For example, 33 of the 35 times in which Ottawa legislated workers back to work between 1950 and 2011 involved strikes in the transportation and communications sector, Lee’s research shows.
Teachers strikes, by contrast, have a much more muted impact on working parents, who can find alternate childcare arrangements, work from home or take the day off, both Lee and Caranci said.
It helps that teachers’ unions have been been giving families time to plan ahead, Caranci said.
“They’re telegraphing it for people as well. So that’s important.”
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Overall, Lee said, the impact of the strikes is “much more political and psychological than economic.”
0:56 All parties involved have an ‘obligation’ to end teachers’ strike: Stephen Lecce
The ETFO held strikes on Monday in the York Region, Toronto and Ottawa-Carleton school boards. The strikes will hit different boards each day this week as tensions escalate between the union and the province.
The unions say that class sizes and cuts to services are the roadblocks in bargaining, while Education Minister Stephen Lecce insists they’re stuck on wages.
The province released an ad over the weekend suggesting teacher strikes have been a regular issue under every regime since the 1990s. “This needs to stop. #strikeshurtkids” said the ad, which Lecce shared on Twitter.
Only the union representing teachers in Ontario’s French school system has contract talks scheduled with the government, even as they began a work-to-rule campaign last week.
The government announced last week that it would compensate parents affected by the elementary teacher strikes.
1:17 Lecce explains rationale behind province’s child care funding
Lecce explains rationale behind province’s child care funding
Under the plan, parents whose kids aren’t yet enrolled in school but attend school-based child-care centres affected by the strikes will get the most money – $60 per day – while those with children in grades 1 through 7 will get the least – $25.
While parents of secondary school students won’t get any funding, those with children with special needs up to age 21 will get $40 per day – the same amount as parents whose kids are in kindergarten.
The Ministry of Education has said more than 100,000 parents have signed up for that program, which could cost the government $48 million per day if teachers from all school boards were to strike. Still, that’s less than the $60 million per day the government spends in teacher compensation.
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.