In this edition:
Residential building decreases causes decline in building permits
Benchmark rate could top 3%
Legislation for new Canada Disability Benefit reintroduced
Financial assistance for Ukrainians in Canada available
Residential building decrease causes decline in building permits
The total value of building permits in Canada declined 0.6% in April to $11.7 billion. Decreases in residential permits (-3.3%) were mostly offset by gains in the non-residential sector (+5.0%).
The total value of permits in the non-residential sector advanced 5.0% to $3.9 billion in April. The industrial component surged 35.1%, stemming from large gains in Ontario (+48.8%) due to permits for several mining buildings in Greenstone.
To explore data using an interactive user interface, visit the Building permits: Interactive Dashboard.
Bank of Canada’s Paul Beaudry suggests benchmark rate could top 3%
The Bank of Canada appears to have concluded it will need to lift its benchmark interest rate to at least three per cent to keep inflation from becoming entrenched.
Canada’s benchmark rate is currently 1.5 per cent following a half-point increase on June 1.
That’s a quarter-point shy of the pre-pandemic rate of 1.75 per cent, which was as high as policymakers managed to push the rate during the tortured recovery that followed the Great Recession. The economy never really gathered significant momentum during the decade that followed the 2008-09 financial crisis, precipitating an environment of weak inflation that left central bankers looking over their shoulders for a re-emergence of deflationary forces.
But, as Paul Beaudry, one of the central bank’s deputy governors, said in a speech on June 2, the “situation today is totally different.”
Government of Canada reintroduces legislation to create a new Canada Disability Benefit
Today, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, Carla Qualtrough, reintroduced ground-breaking legislation that would establish a new Canada Disability Benefit (CDB).
The CDB would become an important part of Canada’s social safety net, alongside Old Age Security, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada Child Benefit. It could significantly reduce poverty and benefit hundreds of thousands of Canadians.
Through Budget 2021, the Government invested $11.9 million over three years to reform eligibility processes for federal disability programs and benefits. This work began in the summer of 2021 in the form of ministerial roundtables with the disability community and an on-line public survey. This work is ongoing and will directly inform the CDB.
Financial assistance now available for Ukrainians in Canada
Today, the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the Honourable Karina Gould, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, announced that Ukrainians arriving in Canada can now apply to receive transitional financial assistance. These funds will help Ukrainian nationals and their family members meet their basic needs—such as transportation and longer-term housing—as they arrive in communities across Canada and find a job. The benefit will consist of a direct, one-time payment of $3,000 per adult and $1,500 per child (17 years and under).
Reading Recommendations
Is Your Hiring Process Costing You Talent?
Harvard Business Review
Job seekers aren’t only looking for higher pay and better workplace benefits. They’ve also lost patience with ever-cumbersome hiring processes. They know that they are in demand, and they want to see that employers recognize their value.
Create a hiring process that is a positive experience for candidates to foster a good relationship from the start. By asking yourself the following four questions, you can make sure your hiring experience isn’t causing you to lose future talent.
This could be the one job where AI and robots can’t replace humans
Fast Company
A century ago, English mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson proposed a startling idea for that time: constructing a systematic process based on math for predicting the weather. In his 1922 book, “Weather Prediction By Numerical Process,” Richardson tried to write an equation that he could use to solve the dynamics of the atmosphere based on hand calculations.
A century later, modern weather forecasts are based on the kind of complex computations that Richardson imagined—and they’ve become more accurate than anything he envisioned.
There still are major challenges. Thunderstorms that produce tornadoes, large hail, or heavy rain remain difficult to predict. And then there’s chaos, often described as the “butterfly effect”—the fact that small changes in complex processes make weather less predictable. Chaos limits our ability to make precise forecasts beyond about 10 days.
As in many other scientific fields, the proliferation of tools like artificial intelligence and machine learning holds great promise for weather prediction. We have seen some of what’s possible in our research on applying machine learning to forecasts of high-impact weather. But we also believe that while these tools open up new possibilities for better forecasts, many parts of the job are handled more skillfully by experienced people.
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Through the Daily Updates, the GNCC aims to deliver important business news in a timely manner. We disseminate all news and information we feel will be important to businesses. Inclusion in the Daily Update is not an endorsement by the GNCC.
