Canada

The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony said Thursday that it had filed for bankruptcy just days after canceling its 2023-24 season, leaving dozens of musicians and staff facing an uncertain future, the Global and Mail reported. The 78-year-old Southern Ontario symphony said earlier this week that it needed to raise $2-million immediately in order to keep operating, acknowledging that insolvency was a possible outcome. The organization confirmed it had filed for bankruptcy in a press release late Thursday afternoon.

Canadian consumers appear to be quickly rolling back their spending as the Bank of Canada’s higher interest rates start to bite into more household budgets, Bloomberg News reported. Receipts for retailers dropped 0.3% in August, the first decline since March, according to an advance estimate from Statistics Canada released Friday. That followed a 0.3% increase a month earlier, which missed the median estimate of 0.4% in a Bloomberg survey. Sales rose in seven of the nine subsectors in July, and were led by increases at food and beverage retailers.

Canadian autoworkers ratified a new labor agreement with Ford Motor Co. on Sunday, averting a threatened strike and potentially setting a precedent that could play out in the United Auto Workers' strike at automaker facilities in the U.S., the Associated Press reported. The new agreement raises base hourly pay for production workers by almost 20% over three years, and by more than 25% for trade workers, the Canadian autoworker union Unifor said. It also gives permanent workers a $10,000 bonus and adds a cost-of-living adjustment, a mechanism that adjusts wages in line with inflation.

The Bank of Canada on Tuesday said recent volatility in headline inflation is not unusual but the underlying trend shown by core measures was inconsistent with bringing inflation down to the 2% target, Reuters reported. Earlier on Tuesday, August inflation figures showed a jump in the headline number to 4.0% from 3.3% in July - higher than most analysts had forecast - on rising gasoline prices. "Ups and downs of the size we've seen in the past couple of months are not that unusual," Deputy Governor Sharon Kozicki said in a speech at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan.

Distressed Chinese developer Country Garden Holdings Co. has passed an initial deadline to pay dollar bond interest with holders yet to receive the money, keeping the threat of a first default looming, Bloomberg News reported. The builder, which has become a symbol of China’s broader property debt crisis, had to pay $15.4 million of interest by Monday on the note. Two holders said they hadn’t gotten payment as of 3 p.m. Hong Kong time Tuesday. Country Garden didn’t comment when reached. There’s a 30-day grace period before a default can be called.

Canada’s rate of inflation accelerated by more than expected for the second straight month, but the gains that are largely driven by higher gasoline prices may allow the Bank of Canada to look past the setback, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 4% in August from a year ago, the quickest pace since April, following a 3.3% increase in July, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. That’s faster than the median estimate of 3.8% in a Bloomberg survey of economists. On a monthly basis, the index rose 0.4%, double the expectations.

Canada's Liberal government, trailing in the polls amid complaints about the high cost of living, on Monday said it would soon introduce wide-ranging draft legislation designed to help curb inflation, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week announced a tax break designed to boost the construction of new rental apartment buildings and relieve pressure on the Canadian housing market. Later on Monday, the heads of major grocery chains will meet government ministers who are demanding to see a plan to counter soaring food prices.

The United Auto Workers union said it would announce on Friday more plants to strike if no serious progress was made in talks with Ford, General Motors and Chrysler-parent Stellantis, adding to pressure on the Detroit Three automakers, Reuters reported. Ford also faces a total strike at its smaller Canadian operations if no agreement is reached on Monday evening with the union representing about 5,600 Canadian auto workers, just days after workers at one of its U.S. plants walked out. The UAW last week launched a targeted strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis, targeting one U.S.

Métro Média will declare bankruptcy this week, permanently ending its coverage of local government in parts of the province's two largest cities, the head of the Quebec newspaper publisher said Sunday, the Canadian Press reported. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, CEO Andrew Mulé said the decision was made after the company abruptly suspended operations at its more than 30 hyper-local publications last month, including the Journal Metro and 16 print weeklies. "The Journal Métro as you knew it no longer exists.

Bank of Montreal (BMO) is winding down its indirect retail auto finance business and shifting focus to other areas in a move that will result in an unspecified number of job losses, Canada's third-largest bank said, Reuters reported. The bank, which announced the move on Saturday, has conducted this business in Canada and the United States. The move comes after BMO's overall bad debt provisions rose to C$492 million, compared with C$136 million a year earlier, for the quarter ended July 31 in a sign of growing stress consumers face from a rapid rise in borrowing costs.