A beleaguered manufacturing sector was weighing on the economy heading into the end of 2025, Statistics Canada said on Friday, The Canadian Press reported. Real GDP growth was flat in November, rebounding somewhat from a decline of 0.3 per cent in October, the agency said. StatCan said drops in activity in goods-producing industries were offset by expansion on the services side of the economy. Manufacturing faced a 1.3 per cent decline in November.
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Bank ​of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem told Reuters he saw unusual potential for a new shock to the economy, given ‌elevated geopolitical risks and U.S. trade policy, Reuters reported. Macklem said in an interview on Wednesday that more factors than usual could deter Canada from achieving the bank's economic forecasts, citing U.S. President Donald Trump's threats toward Greenland, his removal of Venezuela's leader, and repeated threats to impose more tariffs on Canada.
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After threatening to euthanize about 30 beluga whales, Marineland, a shuttered Canadian aquatic park, is now likely to send the animals to marine facilities in the United States, the Canadian government said on Monday, the New York Times reported. Marineland, once a bustling tourist destination in Niagara Falls, Ontario, is headed toward bankruptcy and last year asked the federal government for financial help and approval to export the animals to a theme park in China.
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Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney will likely visit India the first week of March and sign deals on uranium, energy, minerals ​and artificial intelligence, Dinesh Patnaik, India's High Commissioner to Canada said in an interview, Reuters reported. Carney is making all-out efforts to diversify Canada's alliances beyond the U.S., its top ‌trade partner. In Davos last week, he earned a rare standing ovation for saying the old rules-based order is over and called on middle powers like Canada to build coalitions to shape a fairer, more resilient world.
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The Bank of Canada is widely expected to keep its policy interest rate ​on hold at 2.25% on Wednesday but economists and money markets are divided over where Canada's monetary policy cycle ‌is headed for the rest of the year due to economic uncertainty, Reuters reported. From December, money markets have started betting on odds of a rate hike late this year after a long pause for most of the year. But some economists differ given the uncertainty around the upcoming renegotiations of the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) free trade pact.
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Canadians remain cautious with their spending, with retailers registering a pullback in sales for the final month 2025 that rounds out a year of choppy trade, the Wall Street Journal reported. Retail sales in November increased 1.3% from the month, only for sales to drop an estimated 0.5% in December, based on an advance tally of receipts by the national data agency. November’s increase, while the strongest in five months and modestly sharper than the 1.2% rise in sales that economists had expected, followed weakened sales the previous two months, including a 0.3% slide in October.
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Chief justice Geoffrey B. Morawetz of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario is set to retire on May 15 after nearly seven years in the role, LawTimesNews.com reported. Morawetz has been a judge for over 21 years, having been appointed to the bench in 2005. For four years, he led the team on Toronto’s Commercial List, which handles complex commercial issues. He became Toronto’s regional senior justice on December 18, 2013. Read more.
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President Donald Trump threatened Canada with 100% tariffs against all its exports to the US if it makes a trade deal with China, escalating tensions between the U.S. and its northern neighbor, Bloomberg News reported. Trump, referring to Prime Minister Mark Carney as “Governor Carney,” said the Canadian leader was “sorely mistaken” for opening up his country to more business from China, including a recent deal allowing an increase in Chinese electric vehicle exports.
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The ​Canadian dollar extended its weekly gain against the U.S. dollar on Friday as ‌the greenback posted broad-based declines and domestic data showed that retail sales rose in November, Reuters reported. The loonie was trading 0.5% higher at 1.3715 per U.S. dollar, or 72.91 U.S. cents, after touching its strongest intraday level since January 2 at 1.3705. For the week, the currency was ‌up 1.5%, its biggest weekly gain since May. Investor angst in the currency ​markets this week over intensifying geopolitical tensions has largely been borne by the U.S. dollar.
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