Alberta, the province that produces most of Canada’s oil, expects to lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions by July as vaccinations pick up and infections decline, Bloomberg News reported. Outdoor dining will be permitted in restaurants starting next week and hair salons will be allowed to book appointments, Premier Jason Kenney said in a press conference. By the middle of June, gyms will be allowed to reopen and restaurants will be able to serve people indoors. Two weeks after 70% of the population receives a first dose of vaccine, almost all restrictions will be lifted.

Canada's biggest pension managers boosted their investments in the country's major oil sands companies in the first quarter of 2021, raising questions about the funds' recent commitments to greening their portfolios, Reuters reported. The cumulative investment by the country's top five pension funds into the U.S.-listed shares of Canada's top four oil sands producers jumped to $2.4 billion in the first quarter of 2021, up 147% from a year ago, a Reuters analysis of U.S. 13-F filings show.

The Tokyo Olympics, postponed in 2020 during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, are facing increasing hurdles in putting on a 2021 show, CNN.com reported. The latest troubling sign for the Summer Games came on Monday when the State Department advised U.S. citizens against traveling to Japan because of a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases. The "Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisory is the highest cautionary level in the department's hierarchy of warnings. It's been more than a year since Americans have paid tourist calls to the nation. Japan has been closed to U.S.

The U.S. government is preparing to downgrade Mexico's aviation safety rating, a move that would bar Mexican carriers from adding new U.S. flights and limit airlines' ability to carry out marketing agreements, Reuters reported. The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) planned move is expected be announced in the coming days and follows a lengthy review of Mexico's aviation oversight by the agency. One airline industry source said the FAA's concerns did not involve flight safety issues but rather Mexico's oversight of air carriers.

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party said it will push for a vote in parliament on Monday over support for U.S. plans to introduce a global minimum corporation tax rate, Reuters reported. The U.S. Treasury Department earlier this week said that it would accept a floor of at least 15% during international negotiations, a rate significantly below its proposed 21% minimum for U.S. multinational firms.

European Union governments agreed to allow quarantine-free travel for vaccinated tourists and visitors from countries deemed safe, paving the way for the resumption of hassle-free trans-Atlantic flights, Bloomberg News reported. Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 member states backed a proposal to waive quarantine for those with coronavirus inoculations approved by its drug regulator, including shots from Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. The approval could be finalized this week and implemented soon after.

The Council of the EU is questioning the demands of the U.S. on countries to roll back national "unilateral" tech taxes once a global levy on multinational companies is agreed on, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. The pushback comes in the form of an internal Council document that the Portuguese EU presidency has prepared for a technical meeting on Friday among tax officials.

A wave of accounting revisions is hitting two of Mexico’s largest nonbank payroll lenders and the international bond investors who lent them billions of dollars in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported. Privately held AlphaCredit Capital SA de CV and publicly listed Credito Real SA CREAL -2.60% B de CV disclosed unexpected losses in recent weeks, and AlphaCredit also said financial statements from 2018 to 2020 could no longer be relied upon. Credito Real incorporated a relatively large loan it had made to a small business into its past-due loan book.

Bankruptcies in Alberta dropped dramatically during the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this spring’s recent uptick in insolvencies could be a sign of things to come, the Calgary Herald reported. Across Canada, business and consumer bankruptcies both dropped to record lows during COVID-19, with Alberta being no exception. Despite the province being hit by the double whammy of a pandemic-induced recession and slumping oil and gas prices, consumer insolvency filings in Alberta were 27 per cent lower in the 12-month period ending March 2021 than they were the year before.