The Bank of Canada held its principal interest rate at 2.25 per cent Wednesday, but warned rising oil and natural prices caused by the war in Iran will push up inflation in the short term, BNNBloomberg reported. In its latest monetary policy decision, Canada’s top bankers painted a picture of a weaker-than-expected economy that is facing new levels of uncertainty because of the war. Canada’s economy is dealing with a lot. And now, we face more volatility,” Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s rate announcement.

Canada's financial intelligence unit, the Financial Transactions and Analysis Centre (FINTRAC) pulled the registrations of 23 cryptocurrency service providers in a single enforcement action Tuesday, marking an escalation in the country's anti-money laundering efforts targeting digital asset businesses, Decrypt.com reported.

Statistics Canada says the amount Canadians owed relative to their income climbed for the fifth consecutive quarter, BNN Bloomberg reported. The agency says that the ratio of household credit market debt as a proportion of disposable income rose to 177.2 per cent in the fourth quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis. In other words, Statistics Canada says there was $1.77 in credit market debt for every dollar of household disposable income in the fourth quarter.

Statistics Canada said that the annual rate of inflation dipped below two per cent in February as the end of last year’s federal “tax holiday” helped take some steam out of the yearly price comparisons, BnnBloomberg.ca reported. The agency said Monday that February’s inflation reading came in at 1.8 per cent year-over-year, half a percentage point lower than January’s figures and just under economists’ expectations for the month.

Canadian and Mexican officials on Thursday reaffirmed the importance of ​maintaining the trilateral free trade agreement between their ‌countries and the U.S., amid signals from Washington it could be interested in bilateral deals, Reuters reported. Canada's ambassador to Mexico Cameron MacKay ​and Mexican deputy trade secretary Luis Rosendo Gutierrez ​both told a conference in Mexico City that ⁠maintaining the trilateral U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement was a priority for ​their nations. The meetings follow an announcement by U.S.

Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw hopes an ongoing provincial viability review on the Town of Gibbons can prevent similar cases in the future, CBC.ca reported. At a county meeting Tuesday, councillors heard from members of a team representing the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, on what the viability review would look like. The review is meant to help residents and the government decide whether Gibbons should remain a town, or if it should dissolve into Sturgeon County. Gibbons is one of five municipalities that exist within the boundaries of Sturgeon County, north of Edmonton.

Canada will ​look at ways to increase its crude production to help global efforts to stabilize oil ‌prices in the face of the Iran war, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The Canadian government is talking to the country's oil producers about delaying planned maintenance projects at oil sands facilities in order to temporarily increase output, Hodgson ​told reporters in Ottawa.

The Canadian auto industry has been rocked by President Donald Trump’s abandonment of subsidies for electric vehicles and embrace of tariffs, the Washington Post reported. Major automakers have abandoned planned vehicles and delayed the start of new ones, battering Jahn Engineering and scores of outfits like it in Canada’s automotive heartland. “This is definitely the worst I’ve seen it in 42 years,” said Louis Jahn, the company’s president. “We’re just trying to stay alive.” Trump’s hostility to his northern neighbor is not helping.

Laurentian University is freezing new admissions to four programs because they failed to meet requirements set in place by the Ontario Universities Council on Quality Assurance, the school announced on Friday, CBC.ca reported. The four programs are criminal justice, criminology, interdisciplinary studies, and equity, diversity and human rights. Laurentian initially created the four programs as majors between 2015 and 2017, Alain Simard, the university’s interim provost and vice-president of academics, told CBC News.