Today’s release of September housing data by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) shows national home sales rose 0.9% on a month-over-month (m-o-m) (see chart below). This continues the rebound in housing that began five months ago amid record-tight market conditions. “Along with historic supply shortages in a number of regions, fierce competition among buyers […]

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said in a video conference last week that further rate cuts remain an option in providing economic stimulus. At present, the central bank’s policy rate is at a historic low of 0.25%. “We are not actively discussing negative interest rates at this point but it’s in our toolkit, and […]

The September Labour Force Survey, released this morning by Statistics Canada, reflects labour market conditions during the week of September 13 to 19, six months after the onset of the COVID-19 economic shutdown. As Canadian families adapted to new back-to-school routines at the beginning of September, public health restrictions had been substantially eased across the […]

Prorogation on August 18, following the resignation of Finance Minister Morneau, a new session of Parliament, and a new speech from the throne was meant to allow the government to hit the reset button. And for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to try and move past the summer of controversy involving WE Charity and the Canada […]

Today’s release of August housing data by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) showed a blockbuster August with both sales and new listings hitting their highest levels in 40 years of data–exceeding the record July activity levels. This continues the rebound in housing that began four months ago. National home sales rose a further 6.2% […]

As promised, the Bank held its target overnight rate at the effective lower bound of 25 basis points with the clear notion that negative policy rates are not in the cards. Instead, the central bank will rely on large-scale asset purchases–quantitative easing (QE–of at least $5 billion per week of Government of Canada bonds. QE […]

There were no surprises this morning from Governor Macklem’s virtual presentation to the Canadian Clubs of Canada. His opening written statement was quite brief and it was followed up with a Q and A. Here are the key points that he emphasized. Negative interest rates are off the table as they “lead to distortions in […]

None of us has any experience in dealing with a medical emergency that has become an economic crisis, and none of us knows how long this will last or how the end game will play out. I think we all can agree that this is a dilemma like no other, freighted with profound uncertainty. Economic […]

Canadians of all stripes were blindsided on June 4, when the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation suddenly revised certain key underwriting guidelines. The story got a little more interesting on Monday, when CMHC’s competitors in the mortgage insurance space, Genworth Canada and Canada Guaranty, both announced they would not be following suit. “Genworth Canada believes […]

The doomsayers have been proven wrong by this employment report and by the high-frequency data that have been pointing to the start of a rebound in Canada’s economic activity. We have been signalling green shoots in the economy for several weeks, and while these are early days, those green shoots are surely growing. We are […]