Canada

Canada plans to give itself the power to seize the assets of sanctioned Russian individuals and companies and use them to compensate victims of the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. The new measures will be included in the government’s budget legislation, meaning they are almost certain to pass in parliament by summer. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said the law will be the first of its kind in the Group of Seven. Canada has now sanctioned more than 1,100 Russian individuals and companies since President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The Canadian dollar will remain at the center of the country's financial system, the central bank chief said on Monday, responding to questions about a Conservative leadership candidate's pledge to make the country the blockchain capital of the world, Reuters reported. "There are promising benefits from innovation in the financial sector. Having said that, we certainly expect the Canadian dollar will remain at the center of the Canadian financial system," Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said in testimony before a committee of the House of Commons.

Canada's annual inflation rate accelerated faster than expected in March, hitting a 31-year high amid broad price pressures, official data showed on Wednesday, pointing toward another oversized rate hike from the Bank of Canada in June, Reuters reported. The headline rate hit 6.7% in March, well above analyst expectations of 6.1% and a full percentage point higher than in February. It was the 12th consecutive month above the central bank's 1-3% control range and just short of the 6.9% hit in January 1991.

Canadian home price and sales growth will moderate in the coming years from recent pandemic-era highs but stay elevated in 2022 as higher employment and immigration drive demand, the national housing agency said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Sales and price growth will continue to moderate more in line with historical averages by late 2023 or early 2024 amid higher mortgage rates but elevated price levels will persist, putting greater pressure on affordability for new homebuyers, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said in its 2022-2024 market outlook.

Laurentian University president Robert Haché is sticking to his guns, saying that the university did what it could to advocate to government for financial support, and only turned to filing for creditor protection as a last resort, Sudbury.com reported. This in the wake of the release of a scathing preliminary report examining Laurentian’s financial crisis, which was released by Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk on April 13. Lysyk said she believes the data shows Laurentian University did not have to file for creditor protection under the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act (CCAA).

In a scathing report, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said she believes the data shows Laurentian University did not have to file for creditor protection under the Companies Creditors’ Arrangement Act (CCAA), Sudbury.com reported.

Canada's biggest banks said on Wednesday they will raise their prime lending rate by 50 basis points to 3.2%, a two-year high, following the Bank of Canada's benchmark rate hike, moves that could rein in the country's red-hot housing markets, Reuters reported. The country's four biggest banks - Royal Bank of Canada , Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal - said the higher prime rate, which variable-rate mortgages are tied to, will come into effect on Thursday.

During a hearing Friday, lawyers for the University of Sudbury supported efforts to have a historic sexual assault claim removed from Laurentian University's insolvency process, CTVNews.ca reported. Under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), all claims against LU are to be dealt with as a whole. But Aron Zaltz, lawyer with Preszler Injury Lawyers, argued Friday that a complex claim like this should not be dealt with as part of insolvency. The $5 million claim dates to 1979 and involves a late professor who worked at the University of Sudbury.

Canada has an ambitious plan to double the pace of homebuilding within a decade but the first big challenge is finding enough skilled workers, as the country grapples with the tightest labor market on record and with construction already at a multi-year high, Reuters reported. Building more homes is a key peg of the C$9.5 billion ($7.5 billion) in housing spending outlined by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government in their budget on Thursday.

Canada's dollar will strengthen over the coming year as the Bank of Canada potentially hikes interest rates aggressively but gains could be capped by the economy's dependence on the housing market, a Reuters poll showed. The median forecast in the poll was for the Canadian dollar to edge 0.4% higher to 1.25 per U.S. dollar, or 80 U.S. cents, in three months' time, matching last month's forecast. It was then expected to climb to 1.23 in a year's time.