Canada

Canada is concerned about the challenges facing global supply chains and is watching the country's ports very closely, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Freeland, speaking to reporters in Washington after meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, said she was broadly optimistic about the strength of Canada's economic recovery from COVID-19.

Canadian business leaders are calling on the federal government to extend COVID-19 benefits for small business and food service operators, saying moving ahead with plans to end the wage and rent subsidies on Oct. 23 will pull the safety net out from under struggling business owners, the Financial Post reported. In a letter shared with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, the Canada Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) urged the federal government to extend benefits such as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) and Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) to Nov. 20.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said the economic recovery is on track despite disappointing output growth, but warned there’s a risk high inflation could prove more persistent than expected, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product suffered a shock contraction in the second quarter, and data since then suggest economic growth in the next three-month period will fall short of the central bank’s forecast for a 7.3% annualized gain.

Canadian mergers and acquisitions activity for the third quarter hit its highest since 2016 as historically low interest rates and strong equity markets helped companies to revive transactions that were put on hold due to the pandemic, Reuters reported. Dealmaking rose 27.7% to $76.6 billion in the third quarter of the year, but was significantly down from the record $120.3 billion recorded in the first three months of the year, according the Refinitiv data.

Laurentian University president Robert Haché said the university’s insolvency restructuring efforts have already cost the university just over $9.8 million, Sudbury.com reported. He spoke about the costs at the Sept. 28 meeting of the Laurentian University senate. “It is an expensive process,” he said.

Canada's annual inflation rate accelerated to an 18-year-high in August, driven by broad upward price pressures, data showed on Wednesday, just days before a hotly contested federal election that could see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals ousted, Reuters reported. The rate rose to 4.1% in August, its fastest clip since March 2003, Statistics Canada said, beating analyst estimates and prompting Trudeau's main rival to pounce over the rising cost of living.

A day after being spurned by Kansas City Southern, Canadian National Railway is facing additional pressure from a major investor who wants CN to abandon its effort to buy the U.S. railroad, the Associated Press reported. The London-based investment firm TCI Fund — which owns about 5% of CN’s stock and about 8% of rival Canadian Pacific’s shares — said Monday that it is calling for a special CN shareholder meeting where it plans to nominate four new directors. TCI has said it thinks CN should overhaul its board, get a new CEO and refocus its efforts on improving its own operations.

The Canadian economy is moving closer to a point where the Bank of Canada will no longer need to continue adding stimulus through its quantitative easing (QE) program, but it is not there yet, Governor Tiff Macklem said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Macklem, in a speech the day after the central bank held its key rate at 0.25%, said it would eventually move to a reinvestment phase, where it bought only enough bonds to replace those that are maturing. This maintains stimulus but does not add new stimulus.

Just 160 Canadian businesses filed for insolvency in July, marking a 35-year low in new filings, according to new data from the Office for the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, the Financial Post reported.

A founder of Facedrive Inc., a Canadian ride-hailing startup whose shares have plunged 96% since early February, said in a statement that he received notice that the company is considering filing for bankruptcy protection as soon as this month, Bloomberg News reported.