Canada

The Bank of Canada will likely need to lower rates to their effective lower bound (ELB) more often in the future and will therefore have to use alternative stimulus to a greater extent to tackle shocks, Governor Tiff Macklem said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Macklem, in a virtual speech to a business audience, said the low global interest rate environment meant the bank would have to rely on tools like forward guidance and quantitative easing more often going forward. "A lower neutral interest rate means we are likely to need to use these policy tools more often in the future.

Canada dramatically hardened its tone with Washington in a dispute over proposed U.S. credits for electric vehicles on Friday, threatening to slap tariffs on a range of American goods unless the matter was resolved, Reuters reported. In a letter to senior members of the U.S. Senate, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Trade Minister Mary Ng also said Canada was ready to launch a dispute settlement process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade deal.

In the aftermath of disastrous floods last month that cut off Canada's main port, Ottawa will convene a summit of industry figures and shippers to discuss strengthening supply chains, a government source said on Sunday, Reuters reported. The event will take place in early 2022. Canadian transportation supply chains have been badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and the floods and landslides in the Pacific Coast province of British Columbia.

Canada’s national pension fund struck its first partnership to build and rent out single-family homes in the U.S., joining a rush to capitalize on a housing shortage, Bloomberg News reported. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board will join with Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC, the largest property manager in the U.S., to build and acquire communities of single-family rental properties there, according to a statement Wednesday. CPPIB will own 95% of the $840 million joint venture and Greystar 5%. The surging price of homeownership in the U.S.

The Bank of Canada on Wednesday held its key overnight interest rate unchanged, as expected, and said inflation was broadening even as it warned that the Omicron coronavirus variant has created "renewed uncertainty," Reuters reported The central bank, in a regular rate decision, left its key overnight interest rate at 0.25% and maintained guidance that economic slack would be absorbed in the "middle quarters" of 2022, setting the stage for a first rate hike as soon as April.

Canada will soon crack down on COVID-19 mandates, forcing banks, telecommunications companies and all other federally regulated workspaces to ensure their employees are inoculated, Ottawa said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan made the announcement two months after the government said it would oblige the public sector and employees working in the federally regulated air, rail and marine transportation sectors to get their shots.

The main trucking lobbies in Canada and the United States are warning that vaccine and testing requirements for workers will further disrupt supply chains because there is already a dire shortage of drivers, Reuters reported. Canada will require vaccines for truck drivers starting in January, while the Biden administration has issued rules requiring truck drivers at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. More than two-thirds of goods traded between Canada and the United States travels on roads and highways.

Canadians who have spent less than 72 hours in another country will no longer need a Covid-19 test to return to Canada, making it easier and cheaper for residents near the 5,500-mile border to make quick trips to the U.S. to pick up groceries, fill gas tanks or go holiday shopping, the Wall Street Journal reported. U.S. businesses along the Canadian border say they are anticipating a boost in cross-border shopping and tourism after nearly 20 months of suffering from Washington’s decision to ban tourists from entering the U.S. via northern land-border crossings.

Canada’s big banks have weathered the pandemic on the strength of the country’s heated housing market. This week, they’ll get the chance to show whether they also have other avenues for loan growth, Bloomberg News reported. Surging home prices and strong sales have boosted Canadian residential mortgage and home-equity credit balances at the country’s six biggest banks by C$151.2 billion ($118.2 billion) in the past year and a half. That 13% growth outstrips the gain of just 2.8% for all other types of loans from the banks’ domestic divisions since before Covid-19 took hold in North America.

The Bank of Canada is warning a rush of investors into the country’s housing market this year has fueled prices and heightened the risk of a correction, Bloomberg News reported. In a virtual speech on Tuesday to discuss financial stability issues, Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry said that risks around the housing market have intensified following a boom in prices that appear to be driven by speculative activity.