Canada’s top capital markets regulator has filed applications to push David and Natasha Sharpe, the husband-and-wife team who once ran private lender Bridging Finance Inc., into bankruptcy after they failed to pay millions of dollars in sanctions, Bloomberg News reported. The Ontario Securities Commission said on Wednesday that it filed to appoint a trustee over the couple’s assets.

The province’s real estate watchdog is immediately freezing iPro Realty Ltd.’s funding as it probes the Toronto-area brokerage for its multi-million-dollar shortfall, BNNBloomberg reported. The Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) said on Monday that it is doing this to “safeguard funds and secure business operations” as it carries out a comprehensive audit into the real estate brokerage. RECO shuttered iPro earlier this month due to a “significant shortfall” of $10 million in commission and consumer deposit trust accounts. That figure is now believed to be less than $8 million, RECO says.

Canada will remove many retaliatory import tariffs on U.S. goods and intensify talks with the United States on striking a new trade and security relationship, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Friday, Reuters reported. Canadian tariffs on U.S. autos, steel and aluminum will remain for now, he said. Carney noted that the United States had recently made clear that it would not impose tariffs on Canadian goods that were compliant with the three-nation U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, something he called a positive development.

Veterinarians in British Columbia have until the end of the month to vote on increasing fees they pay to work in the province, a move their regulatory body says is needed to prevent it becoming insolvent, The Canadian Press reported. The College of Veterinarians of British Columbia says that it is projected to become insolvent in May 2026 if the fees, including those for private practice registration, don't increase. The new proposed annual private practice registration fee would jump to $1,900, up from the current fee of $1,395, which the college says was set in 2011.

Brazil is engaged in a "constructive dialogue" with Canada to resume negotiations for a free trade agreement between South America's Mercosur bloc and Ottawa, the Brazilian Foreign Trade Secretary said, Reuters reported. Canadian officials are due to visit Brazil in late August, according to Tatiana Prazeres, Brazil's Foreign Trade Secretary, who shared details of the visit in a written response to Reuters this week.

Steve Mallia's Toronto-based telescope accessory business was thriving until March when the Trump administration imposed a 25% tariff on U.S.-bound orders that do not comply with local content rules under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Reuters reported. The tariff, imposed soon after U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, effectively stopped Mallia's StarField Optics from competing in its main market, as many of the components used in its products came from China. "When we started to sell into the U.S., business was very strong. We were making money," Mallia said.

Canada will provide up to C$1.2 billion to help softwood lumber producers deal with U.S. countervailing and anti-dumping duties, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Carney, speaking to reporters in the Pacific province of British Columbia, said Ottawa would make up to C$700 million available in loan guarantees and also provide C$500 million to help speed product development and market diversification. Read more.

New court filings say Hudson's Bay has threatened to end a lease deal it has with a B.C. billionaire who wrote directly to a judge twice — against the retailer's advice — to try to persuade him to view her favourably, CBC.ca reported. In a 50-page package of materials Ruby Liu sent to Ontario Superior Court judge Peter Osborne, she positions her multimillion-dollar agreement to buy 25 leases held by the defunct retailer and its Saks Canada banners as being in jeopardy.