The Supreme Court of Canada says a person must wait seven years after completely finishing their post-secondary studies before they may be released from student loan debt under the federal bankruptcy law, The Canadian Press reported. The top court's decision comes today in the case of a woman who received government student loans in the course of three university programs from 1987 to 2003. She later returned to school and earned a master's degree in 2009 without the help of additional student loans.
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The Bank of Canada released the following statement on Wednesday: "The Bank of Canada today maintained its target for the overnight rate at 2.75%, with the Bank Rate at 3% and the deposit rate at 2.70%,” Reuters reported. “The major shift in direction of U.S. trade policy and the unpredictability of tariffs have increased uncertainty, diminished prospects for economic growth, and raised inflation expectations. Pervasive uncertainty makes it unusually challenging to project GDP growth and inflation in Canada and globally.
The Canadian Real Estate Association has sharply downgraded its forecast for home sales in 2025 as buyers remain concerned about tariffs and interest rates, The Globe and Mail reported. The new 2025 forecast, which updates a prior forecast released Jan. 15, is CREA’s largest revision between quarters since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. CREA now expects 482,673 residential properties to trade hands in 2025, which would be virtually unchanged from 2024 levels. However, this is a large downward revision from the 8.6 percent sales increase predicted in January.
Several businesses under the Sunterra banner, known in Alberta for its agriculture and high-end grocery operations, have taken steps toward creditor protection as three of its U.S. subsidiaries face legal and financial scrutiny, CBC.com reported. Late last month, Sunterra Quality Food Markets, Sunterra Food Corporation, Sunterra Farms, Trochu Meat Processors and Sunwold Farms all filed notices under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, a process that gives financially strained companies 30 days of protection from creditors while they come up with a plan to restructure.
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The 25 percent tariff Canada began collecting on cars and trucks imported from the United States early Wednesday is not just the country’s latest act of retaliation against tariffs imposed by President Trump on Canadian exports, the New York Times reported. The estimated 8 billion Canadian dollars a year, about $5.7 billion, that those levies are expected to generate will also bankroll help for companies and workers now under economic threat from the United States. With no obvious or immediate end in sight to Mr.
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Wall Street lenders are postponing leveraged-finance deals as investors shy away from risky transactions while global markets have been shaken in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, Bloomberg News reported. In the past several days, banks have pushed at least two leveraged-loan sales to the sidelines. They involve funding for HIG Capital LLC’s planned purchase of Canadian firm Converge Technology Solutions Corp. and a dividend to ITG Communications LLC owner Oaktree Capital Management. Lender commitments for both deals were due last week.
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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a limited set of counter measures against U.S. tariffs on Thursday while calling President Donald Trump's protectionist moves a tragedy for global trade, Reuters reported. Carney said that the Canadian government will copy the U.S. approach by imposing a 25% tariff on all vehicles imported from the United States that are not compliant with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal. The new measure will apply to C$35.6 billion ($25.3 billion) worth of imports, a government spokesperson said.
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Canada’s unemployment rate climbed to 6.7 per cent in March, up from 6.6 per cent the month before, as the economy lost 33,000 jobs, Statistics Canada said on Friday, the Financial Post reported. The job losses were the largest decrease in employment since January 2022. Nearly 1.5 million people were unemployed in March, up 36,000 from the previous month and 167,000 from a year ago. Employment fell in the wholesale and retail trade, information, culture and recreation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction sectors.
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Canada’s economic growth came to a halt after a solid start to the year as tariff threats mounted, Bloomberg News reported. Advance data showed gross domestic product was unchanged in February, Statistics Canada said Friday. That followed a robust 0.4% expansion in January, the strongest monthly pace since April last year and beating the median estimate of economists. Assuming there’s also no growth in March, the industry-based numbers point to annualized 2.1% growth in the first quarter, versus the Bank of Canada’s forecast of 2% and the 1.6% expected by economists in a Bloomberg survey.
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Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney promised a C$2 billion ($1.4 billion) “strategic response fund” to help Canadian auto manufacturing and strengthen a supply chain that’s under threat from US tariffs, Bloomberg News reported. Carney, who became prime minister less than two weeks ago, said a government led by him would try to build an “all-in-Canada” network for auto parts, working with industry to make more parts in the country and limit the number that have to cross the Canada-US border during production. But he gave few details on how that would work.
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