Surging disposable income in Canada outpaced debt growth in the first quarter, bringing the nation’s household debt-to-income ratio down from record highs, Bloomberg News reported. Household credit market debt as a proportion of disposable income dropped to 182.5%, from a record 185% in the final quarter of 2021, Statistics Canada reported Monday. Household debt grew 2%, compared with a 3.3% gain in disposable income in the first three months of the year. Net worth rose 2.6% to C$17.6 trillion ($13.7 trillion).

Prices in Canada are rising at their quickest pace in 31 years, but that is not yet feeding in to a wage spiral, Canada's budgetary watchdog said on Tuesday, with inflation still expected to return to target in coming years, Reuters reported. Canadian consumers and businesses expect inflation to creep up in the short term, but longer-term expectations remain anchored, said Yves Giroux, Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), in a statement. "Financial market participants largely do not see the current high-inflation environment as permanent," he said.

The Bank of Canada indicated that persistent price pressures are making it more likely policymakers will need to raise borrowing costs to contractionary levels in order to keep inflation expectations anchored, Bloomberg News reported. In a speech a day after the central bank raised its benchmark overnight rate by a half percentage point to 1.5%, Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry gave new guidance Thursday on how high borrowing costs could rise. The policy rate may now go to the top, or even above, what the Bank of Canada considers its “neutral range,” estimated at between 2% to 3%.

The Bank of Canada took another aggressive step in its hiking cycle, raising its policy interest rate by 50 basis points for a second straight time and warning that it may act “more forcefully” if needed to tackle inflation, Bloomberg News reported. Wednesday’s decision, which brings the benchmark overnight rate to 1.5%, was delivered in a hawkish statement that aired worries about price pressures intensifying and becoming entrenched at elevated levels.

A judge has again granted permission to extend the stay of proceedings protecting Laurentian University from its creditors, this time until Sept. 30, Sudbury.com reported. Laurentian has been undergoing insolvency restructuring for well over a year now after declaring insolvency and filing for creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (or CCAA) in early 2021.

Canada's economic growth was not as robust as expected in the first quarter, dragged by lower export volumes, official data showed on Tuesday, though activity was bang-on central bank projections and unlikely to sway plans for an oversized rate hike in June, Reuters reported. The Canadian economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.1% in the first quarter, below analyst predictions of 5.4% but in line with the Bank of Canada's forecast of 3.0%, Statistics Canada data showed.

Bankruptcies are on the rise in Canada as government supports end and businesses grapple with a challenging post-pandemic recovery featuring soaring costs, supply chain issues and a labour shortage, YahooFinance.com reported. The number of businesses that filed for insolvency in the first quarter of the year jumped 33.8 per cent compared to 2021, according to statistics released by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada. A total of 807 businesses filed for bankruptcy in the quarter, up 10.1 per cent from the previous three months.

Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday defended the central bank as inflation spikes to a three-decade high and the frontrunner to take over the opposition Conservative Party pledges to fire the Bank of Canada governor if elected, Reuters reported. "It is clear to us all that we are living through a period of global volatility. We have COVID. We have the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We have China's zero-COVID policy," Freeland told reporters by teleconference from Munich, Germany after a G7 meeting.

Business bankruptcies in Canada moved closer to pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2022, jumping almost 34 per cent year-over-year in what some experts warn could be the start of a growing wave of failures, the Niagra Falls Review reported. There were 807 business bankruptcies and proposals in Q1, up from 733 in the previous quarter and 603 in the first quarter of 2021.

Air Canada sees higher-margin business travel coming "quite close" to pre-pandemic levels by as early as September, in the latest encouraging sign for the once hard-hit sector, a top executive told Reuters. Globally, business travel has lagged leisure in bouncing back from a COVID-19-induced slump, but airlines say it is now rebounding in North America as offices reopen and COVID restrictions ease. Corporate travel is important for airlines because of demand from frequent flyers and appetite for higher-margin premium fares.