Anyone worried about interest rates, economic growth and jobs numbers is bracing for a busy and consequential week. Canadians will be hit by a tsunami of economic data over the next 10 days.
The latest inflation numbers, data on how much stuff Canada’s economy is cranking out and a key reading on the mood of consumers won’t just tell us how the economy has performed through the first half of the year, they’ll set policy decisions that will dictate how the rest of the year will unfold.
“I would say it’s very important,” said RBC economist Carrie Freestone.
Freestone said she believes the Bank of Canada will probably raise rates when it meets on July 12, but that this week’s data should tell us all we need to know about the bank’s decision.
“We think they’re gonna go 25 (basis points). They could have to hike higher if we’re in a situation where expectations are not tamed,” she told CBC News.
The Bank of Canada has been aggressively raising interest rates in an attempt to rein in inflation. The theory is that as rates rise, consumers are squeezed by higher debt payments.
With more money going toward servicing their debt, Canadians have less of it to spend anywhere else. That tends to slow down the economy and bring down prices — which is exactly what the Bank of Canada is trying to accomplish with rate hikes in the first place: bring down inflation.
The problem is through most of this year, economic data have come in hotter than expected.
Gross domestic product, the total value of all goods and services produced by the country’s economy, grew at an annualized rate of 3.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2023. Canadian employers have added more than 230,000 jobs so far this year.
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Retail sales numbers from Statistics Canada show increases in all sectors but furniture, appliances and electronics. Analysts say it is due to higher prices rather than people making more purchases, which has them forecasting another interest rate hike in July.
And just last week, retail sales figures showed Canadian consumers were still spending at rates that just don’t show an economy that is slowing.
“In some ways it feels like in the Road Runner when Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff and he just hasn’t looked down yet,” said Randall Bartlett, the senior director of Canadian economics at Desjardins Group.
“Households are getting more and more squeezed, but they’re continuing to behave in a way that doesn’t necessarily reflect that reality of higher borrowing costs and higher inflation,” said Bartlett.
And that’s why this week’s data are so important.
Prices continue to rise, but slower
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg say year over year inflation numbers will show a sharp deceleration in price growth. Inflation peaked last summer at 8.1 per cent. Prices continue to rise, but at a steadily slower pace.
This week, economists expect some solid progress in the fight to rein in inflation. RBC’s forecast shows headline inflation likely fell to 3.6 per cent.
“It’s a huge drop,” said RBC’s Claire Fan. “But a lot of that decline can be explained away by lower energy prices.”
Last May, gas prices were climbing inexorably toward a peak above $2 per litre. Compare that to gasoline prices in May of this year, where they hovered between $1.50 and $1.60.
Gas prices are down 36 per cent from this time last year. (Robert Short/CBC)
Fan says that drop will help consumers weather higher prices. But she says the Bank of Canada is looking for a sustained drop in a measure of inflation that economists call the core rate because it strips out volatile things like gasoline and food, which tend to move up and down a lot.
She says the central bank will be watching GDP numbers closely as well.
Her forecast shows economic growth in April will come in flat. But Fan says that month saw a strike by the Public Service Alliance of Canada. If you strip out the economic impact of that, she says the economy expanded once again in April.
Most economists assume a rate hike is coming
Data on GDP and inflation give folks like Fan and others some hard numbers to gauge how the economy is doing, but two releases from the central bank also set to come out this week should paint a picture of how Canadian businesses and consumers are feeling.
The Business Outlook Survey tells us how businesses feel about the state of the economy today and how they expect to adjust hiring and investments over the course of the rest of the year. Similarly, the Survey of Consumer Expectations provides a glimpse into how households are managing inflation, higher borrowing costs and whether they intend to slow down consumer spending.
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Right now, most economists assume the Bank of Canada has another interest rate increase up its sleeve. The bank has repeatedly said the perils of high inflation are a threat to everyone and risk upending financial stability. Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem has said he needs to see economic growth slow further as evidence of the kind of progress the bank is looking for.
Fan, for one, said she thinks it will take considerable changes to the forecast for the bank to back away from another increase in interest rates.
“It would likely take substantial downside surprises in data releases (i.e., lower inflation and / or GDP data) to prevent another hike at the next meeting in July,” she wrote in a note to clients.
But if there’s been one constant in these three and a half years or so, it’s that every time economists say they have a handle on what’s going to happen next, the data come in as a surprise.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
