Securities misconduct in Canada has risen sharply as perpetrators attempted to capitalize on pandemic-driven uncertainties, while social media frenzy surrounding certain stocks and cryptocurrencies also opened the door to more wrongdoing, regulators said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Future cooperation between Canadian miner Centerra Gold Inc. and Kyrgyzstan’s government in operating a gold mine in the Central Asian nation is unlikely, according to the nation’s finance minister, Bloomberg News reported. The government took over Kumtor mine late last month, using environmental concerns and tax issues to justify the move. It is now the subject of international arbitration initiated by Toronto-based Centerra, while the mine’s operating company Kumtor Gold filed for chapter 11 protection in New York on May 31.

The Canadian government will loosen Covid-19 travel restrictions for fully vaccinated people amid warnings that a return to a completely open border will take awhile longer, Bloomberg News reported. Canadian citizens and residents who’ve received two shots will be exempt from a 14-day quarantine on arrival to the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government said in a statement Monday. Travelers will still need to show they’ve tested negative for Covid-19 before they cross into Canada and take a second test at the border.

The number of first-year students attending Laurentian University is expected to drop significantly this fall with many who applied and were accepted now getting cold feet, CTVNews.ca reported. Ken Steele, a Canadian expert in higher education, student recruitment and strategic planning, said statistics from the Ontario Universities' Application Centre show first-year enrolment confirmations are down 30 per cent at LU. That's significant because most of the students would have applied in January, before the university declared insolvency Feb. 1.

With fiscal spending booming and households flush with cash, investors are betting that the Bank of Canada's next tightening cycle, expected to begin in 2022, will result in interest rates climbing above the previous peak for the first time in decades, Reuters reported. In four major tightening cycles since the early 1990s, the Bank of Canada's key interest rate has peaked at a level that was lower than the preceding endpoint.

Canada’s banking regulator raised a key capital requirement for large domestic banks, a signal that it considers the economic risks of the Covid-19 pandemic to have largely subsided, Bloomberg News reported. The country’s bank superintendent said Thursday it will raise the domestic stability buffer to 2.5% from 1%, beginning in October. The regulator lowered the buffer in March 2020, giving banks more room to absorb losses while still lending through the crisis.

The U.S. Transportation Department said Tuesday it is seeking to fine Air Canada about $25.5 million for what it termed extreme delays in giving refunds to thousands of passengers whose flights across the U.S.-Canada border were canceled or rescheduled, the Associated Press reported. The department said that since March 2020 it has received complaints from more than 6,000 consumers who claimed Air Canada canceled or changed their flights and then took five to 13 months to provide a refund. Air Canada vowed to challenge the proposed fine.

Tourism businesses pushed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to relax stringent Canadian border rules in time to salvage the summer travel season, calling for a nationwide plan to reopen the country as the Covid-19 pandemic eases, Bloomberg News reported. The Tourism Industry Association of Canada, the National Airlines Council of Canada and other business groups lambasted the government’s lack of clarity over future travel rules, even as vaccination rates climb rapidly.

Centerra Gold Inc. could part ways with Kyrgyzstan’s government over its seized flagship mine in the Central Asian nation, but the company’s top executive would like to discuss it first, Bloomberg News reported. Relations between Centerra and the Kyrgyz Republic have soured so much since the government took control of Kumtor gold mine that it would be difficult to go back to the way things were, said Chief Executive Officer Scott Perry.

The Bank of Canada said on Thursday that inflation could remain higher than projected if supply imbalances and pressures on capacity persist, which might lead it to reduce stimulus more quickly than currently expected, Reuters reported. When asked during a news conference if above-target inflation could be a sign there is less slack in the economy than the central bank is projecting, Deputy Governor Tim Lane said it was a “certainly a possibility.” Inflation hit 3.4% in April, its fastest pace in a decade, mostly due to base-year effects and high commodity prices.