Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday that she was cautiously optimistic about settling a dispute with the United States about Ottawa's planned digital services tax (DST) on large technology companies, Reuters reported. The digital services plan aims to address the challenge of taxing digital giants like Alphabet and Amazon.com that can book their profits in low-tax countries. The U.S. government has repeatedly objected to the planned Canadian tax. Washington says it unfairly singles out U.S. firms, and urged Ottawa to scrap the plan.

The Bank of Canada's monetary policy is working to cool the economy and relieve price pressures, but the central bank is prepared to raise interest rates further if inflation persists, Governor Tiff Macklem said on Monday, Reuters reported. "We held our policy rate steady (last week) because monetary policy is working to cool the economy and relieve price pressures, and we want to give it time to do its job," Macklem told the finance committee in the House of Commons.

Canada's central bank on Wednesday highlighted stress building in customers with auto loans, while saying mortgage owners largely coped from a record pace in interest rate increases which has squeezed household budgets, Reuters reported. In its quarterly Monetary Policy Report released on Wednesday, the Bank of Canada said indicators of financial stress point mainly to non-mortgage holders, without giving details.

The Bank of Canada (BoC) may not have to raise its key overnight rate further if inflation cools in line with the central bank's expectations, Governor Tiff Macklem said, Reuters reported. "The economy is not overheated anymore and ... we do think there's more inflation relief in the pipeline, and if that comes through, we won't have to raise rates further," Macklem said. The BoC on Wednesday held its key overnight rate at a 22-year high of 5.0% but left the door open to more hikes, saying price risks were on the rise and inflation could exceed its target for another two years.

The Bank of Canada left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5 per cent on Wednesday amid increasing signs that rate hikes are weighing on the Canadian economy, but it left the door open to further hikes over concerns about stubborn inflation, YahooFinance.com reported. Economists had widely expected the central bank to leave its rate steady as the economy slows and inflation eases.

Canada's main banking regulator has directed lenders to hold more capital against mortgages that have seen their repayment terms extend beyond the original terms due to the record pace of interest rate hikes, to contain risks building in the system, Reuters reported. Canada's nearly C$2 trillion mortgage market has been shaken up by the central bank's interest rate hikes, with many home owners only able to make interest payments, resulting in their mortgage repayment terms getting longer.

Canadian consumers are tightening their purse strings, cementing a case for the Bank of Canada to hold interest rates steady next week, Bloomberg News reported. Receipts for retailers were flat in September, according to an advance estimate from Statistics Canada released Friday. That followed a 0.1% decline a month earlier, which matched the median estimate from economists in a Bloomberg survey. “Flat is soft,” Eric Lascelles, chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada’s asset management unit, said on BNN Bloomberg Television.

Dabur India said on Wednesday its subsidiaries were among companies sued in the U.S. and Canada by customers alleging that the use of hair relaxer products had caused ovarian cancer, uterine cancer and other health issues, Reuters reported. "Currently, the cases are in the pleadings and early discovery phases of litigation," it said in an exchange filing, adding the allegations are based on "unsubstantiated and incomplete" study.

Canada needs to promote greater competition among businesses by modernizing its laws, the country's antitrust regulator said on Thursday, citing a study of data from 2000 to 2020, Reuters reported. The study found that competitive intensity, a measure of how hard businesses feel they need to work to gain advantage over competitors, had fallen.

Canada will take steps in the coming weeks to ease a rental-unit shortage exacerbated by Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Freeland said that the government is examining options to ensure more short-term rentals become available as long-term rentals. Canada, where population growth is exceeding the pace of housing construction, is the latest country to tackle the problem.