Bank of Canada maintains interest rate
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada today held its target for the overnight rate (the interest charged by banks to lend funds in the overnight market, used as a target for monetary policy) at the effective lower bound of ¼ percent, with the Bank Rate (the interest charged by the central bank to domestic banks) at ½ percent and the deposit rate (the interest paid by banks on the cash deposits of account holders) at ¼ percent. The Bank’s extraordinary forward guidance on the path for the overnight rate is being maintained. The Bank is continuing its reinvestment phase, keeping its overall holdings of Government of Canada bonds roughly constant.
The global economy continues to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Economic growth in the United States has accelerated, led by consumption, while growth in some other regions is moderating after a strong third quarter. Inflation has increased further in many countries, reflecting strong demand for goods amid ongoing supply disruptions. The new Omicron COVID-19 variant has prompted a tightening of travel restrictions in many countries and a decline in oil prices, and has injected renewed uncertainty. Accommodative financial conditions are still supporting economic activity.
Canada’s economy grew by about 5½ percent in the third quarter, as expected. Together with a downward revision to the second quarter, this brings the level of GDP to about 1½ percent below its level in the last quarter of 2019, before the pandemic began. Third-quarter growth was led by a rebound in consumption, particularly services, as restrictions were further eased and higher vaccination rates improved confidence. Persistent supply bottlenecks continued to inhibit growth in other components of GDP, including non-commodity exports and business investment.
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Niagara Falls votes unanimously in support of integrated regional transit
610 CKTB
Niagara Falls unanimously approved the the plan to combine all of Niagara’s existing services into one single, integrated transit commission serving all of Niagara.
They followed the lead set by Fort Erie on Monday night when their council supported the plan.
Tonight, St. Catharines city council will hold a special council meeting to discuss the changes. Welland City Council will vote tomorrow.
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Winter weather travel advisory in effect for southern Niagara
Environment Canada
A locally heavy flurry has developed and is moving inland into the Fort Erie area. Snowfall will be heavy at times, with a quick 5 cm of accumulation possible. Visibility may briefly be reduced to 500 metres or less, resulting in difficult travel conditions at times.
Motorists should expect hazardous winter driving conditions and adjust travel plans accordingly. Be prepared to adjust your driving with changing road conditions. Visibility may be suddenly reduced at times in heavy snow.
For road conditions and other traveller information from the Ministry of Transportation, visit ontario.ca/511, 511 Ontario on Twitter, or call 5-1-1.
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AWS outage impacting Amazon and other services for thousands of users
CBC News
Several Amazon.com Inc services, including Prime Video, its namesake e-commerce website and applications that use Amazon Web Services (AWS) were down for thousands of users around the world on Tuesday.
Amazon said the outage was likely due to issues related to the application programming interface (API), which is a set of protocols for building and integrating application software.
“We are experiencing API and console issues in the U.S.-East-1 region,” Amazon said in a report on its service health dashboard.
The effect is not limited to the U.S., however. The tracking website DownDetector says there are almost 2,000 reports from Canadians of online services being down on Tuesday. In the U.S., there are 24,000 such reports.
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Bank of Canada signals worries about inflation, but keeps rate on hold
Financial Post
The Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, but signalled it’s worried elevated inflation rates could persist longer than previously thought, setting the stage for a shift in policy early next year.
Inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), “is elevated and the impact of global supply constraints is feeding through to a broader range of goods prices,” governor Tiff Macklem and his deputies on Governing Council said in an updated policy statement . “The effects of these constraints on prices will likely take some time to work their way through, given existing supply backlogs.”
The new language amounts to a concession that supply constraints related to the pandemic, combined with a strong recovery from last year’s recession, will stoke inflationary pressures until well into next year. That’s too long to satisfy most definitions of “temporary,” which was how the Bank of Canada had been characterizing inflation since annual increases in the CPI first exceeded three per cent — the upper limit of the central bank’s comfort zone — in April.
What China’s plans to decarbonize its economy mean for Canada’s energy exports
The Conversation
One of the surprises to come out of COP26 was the U.S.-China joint declaration on enhancing climate action through the 2020s. Although the declaration lacked details, it offers a positive sign of progress toward curbing global greenhouse gas emissions, in part because China and the United States are the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
The declaration also marks “a rare moment of co-operation between two superpowers locked in geopolitical rivalry” over trade tariffs and intellectual properties, among others, according to Bloomberg News.
For scholars who have been following China’s climate politics closely, this news reaffirms China’s resolution to rapidly decarbonize its economy. This resolution, however, has been largely neglected by Canadian policy-makers and investors in the oil and gas sector, in part because the Canadian mainstream media has underreported China’s evolving climate governance.
Regrettably, such neglect entails significant economic risks for Canada: China’s increased decarbonization efforts will cast shadows on the future of Canada’s fossil fuel exports.
Niagara COVID-19 statistics tracker
Niagara COVID vaccination tracker
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