The pace of job creation is slowing in Canada, hammered by the sharp rise in interest rates, but that is yet to hold back companies from hiring as they face a tight labour market that has pushed the unemployment rate to a record low, Reuters reported. Statistics Canada is set to release its latest jobs data on Friday, and a Reuters poll forecast employment in July to rise by a net 20,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate ticking up to 5% from 4.9% after 43,200 jobs were lost in June.
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Canada
Laurentian University's plan of arrangement is missing some key demands from the Sudbury, Ont., school's faculty association, said its vice-president, CBC.ca reported. The university on Thursday filed its plan of arrangement, which is the final step needed to exit insolvency proceedings that started in February 2021. The plan sets out the terms between Laurentian and its creditors, and outlines the steps it will need to take to rebuild. In April 2021, the university ended 69 programs and cut nearly 200 staff and faculty positions.
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Trustees in bankruptcy are granted protection from civil claims for acts and omissions under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA), as the statute requires that a plaintiff obtain leave of the court to pursue some types of claims, Mondaq reported. In Flight (Re), 2022 ONCA 526 (CanLII), the Ontario Court of Appeal determined that a motion judge erred in allowing a civil action for damages to be pursued against an individual representative of a trustee in bankruptcy without first obtaining leave to do so.
The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador has approved the sale of 42 properties belonging to the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John's, including 12 churches, as dozens more church property sales loom across eastern Newfoundland, CBC reported. The move will reshape the landscape for Catholics in the St. John's area and beyond as the church — which has been held liable for sexual and physical abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage — raises money to settle victim claims from the 1940s, '50s and '60s.
The Bank of Canada hiked interest rates by a full percentage point, a surprise move that supercharges efforts to withdraw stimulus amid fears four-decade-high inflation is becoming entrenched, Bloomberg News reported. Governor Tiff Macklem raised the central bank’s policy rate to 2.5% in a decision announced Wednesday in Ottawa that warned of more hikes to come. The 100-basis-point move is the largest increase since 1998. Markets and economists were anticipating 75 basis points.
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Canada’s jobs market showed signs of extreme tightening, with the unemployment rate falling to a record low, wage gains accelerating and large numbers of workers dropping out of the labor force, Bloomberg News reported. The economy shed 43,200 jobs in June, Statistics Canada reported Friday in Ottawa, a surprise negative reading compared to the 22,500 gain anticipated by economists. But the drop appears to reflect the voluntary exit of workers from the labor force, which contracted by nearly 100,000 -- the biggest one-month decline on record outside of the pandemic.
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Consumer inflation expectations surged in Canada, hitting fresh highs in the short-term and up "significantly" over the long-term, a Bank of Canada survey showed Monday, bolstering calls for a very rare 75-basis point rate increase, Reuters reported. "Consumers' expectations for inflation have risen, alongside concerns about prices for food, gas and rent," the central bank said in its second quarter Survey of Consumer Expectations.
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A new federal private member’s bill aims to protect your pension in the bankruptcy process if your employer ends up as the next Nortel or Sears Canada, the Toronto Star reported. It’s the latest in a string of attempts to change Canada’s laws to give underfunded pension plans with insufficient assets to cover their liabilities a “super priority” over large creditors and the payout of executive bonuses in a bankruptcy or insolvency process.
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Canada's British Columbia province said on Wednesday it reached a C$150 million ($116.50 million) settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma Canada over healthcare costs related to the opioid crisis, Reuters reported. Purdue had been named as one of more than 40 defendants - drugmakers and distributors - in a proposed class-action lawsuit brought by British Columbia in 2018 on behalf of all provincial and federal Canadian governments.
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Canada’s banking regulator moved to rein in a number of home-loan products that have exploded in popularity during the country’s pandemic housing boom as the market starts to turn, Bloomberg News reported. Consumers who hold mortgages that are combined with a revolving home-equity line of credit and exceed a 65% loan-to-value ratio must use some of their principal payments to pay down their mortgage balance until it’s below that threshold, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions said in a statement Tuesday.
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