In this edition:
- The Honourable Vic Fedeli joins us next week for SP⬤TLIGHT
- Shaw to revise plans for Royal George after community feedback
- Decision on new Niagara-on-the-Lake vacation rental rules delayed until October
- Ford government plans to grant asylum seekers work permits
- Motor vehicle and parts dealers see retail drop while rest of sector holds steady
- Number of EI claimants in Niagara up 6% year-over-year
- Plumbing leads residential construction cost growth
- Canada-U.S. immigration changes see a narrowing brain drain
- Number of federal public service jobs could drop by almost 60,000, report predicts
- Focus on International Trade
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Picture credit: Shaw Festival
Shaw to revise plans for Royal George after community feedback
After the Shaw Festival’s open house last week at the Royal George Theatre, executive director Tim Jennings said the festival plans to revise its proposed design based on what it heard from the public.
“I thought that the event went very well, and we got excellent feedback and heard some consistent concerns,” he said. “We are working on incorporating some of those ideas and concerns into the updated design, which we hope to have updated for mid-August.”
Photo credit: Andrii Yalanskyi / Adobe Stock
Decision on new Niagara-on-the-Lake vacation rental rules delayed until October
People hoping for updates to Niagara-on-the-Lake’s short-term rental bylaw or an end to the moratorium will have to wait longer.
Council voted Tuesday to postpone its decision until October, delaying proposed amendments that were expected at the meeting.
Picture credit: Joey Coleman / CC BY 2.0
Ford government plans to grant asylum seekers work permits via constitutional clause
Ontario is planning to sidestep the federal government and begin issuing work permits to asylum seekers living in the province using a clause written into the constitution.
At the end of a three-day summit with the nation’s leaders in Muskoka, Ont., Premier Doug Ford said his government would start studying how it could give asylum seekers the right to work immediately in the province.
Photo credit: Nomad_Soul / Adobe Stock
Motor vehicle and parts dealers see retail drop while rest of sector holds steady
Retail sales decreased 1.1% to $69.2 billion in May. Sales were down in three of nine subsectors and were led by decreases at motor vehicle and parts dealers. Core retail sales—which exclude gasoline stations and fuel vendors and motor vehicle and parts dealers—were relatively unchanged.
Picture credit: snowing12 / Adobe Stock
Number of EI claimants in Niagara up 6% year-over-year
The number of persons claiming Employment Insurance (EI) benefits dropped 2.8% between April and May to 5,960, but year-over-year, the number had increased by 6% from 5,620.
On a year-over-year basis, the number of national regular EI beneficiaries was up by 44,000 (+9.2%) in May.
Photo credit: karamysh / Adobe Stock
Plumbing leads residential construction cost growth
Residential building construction costs increased 1.0% in the second quarter, following a 0.9% increase in the previous quarter, new Statistics Canada data shows. Behind the increase were noticeable rises in the plumbing (+3.7%), HVAC (+3.0%), utilities (+2.9%) and structural steel framing (+2.7%) divisions.
Picture credit: photobyphotoboy/ Adobe Stock
Canada-U.S. immigration changes see a narrowing brain drain
The gap in immigration flows between Canada and the U.S. has narrowed in the last few years, with a growing number of Americans gaining permanent residence here, according to a new Statistics Canada report.
Despite the historical Canadian brain drain to its superpower neighbour, the average annual number of Canadian-born citizens gaining U.S. permanent residence fell by 30 per cent, from 15,600 in the late 2000s to 10,900 in the late 2010s, while the number of American-born immigrants to Canada increased, said the report released on Wednesday.
Photo credit: Wangkun Jia / Adobe Stock
Number of federal public service jobs could drop by almost 60,000, report predicts
A new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the federal public service could shed almost 60,000 jobs over the next four years as Ottawa looks to cut costs.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne sent letters to multiple ministers asking them to cut program spending at their departments by 7.5 per cent next spring, 10 per cent the year after and 15 per cent in 2028-29.
Focus on International Trade
The U.S. isn’t the only customer in town
Meredith Lilly, Maclean’s
The political and economic volatility in the United States has led many Canadians to wonder if it’s time to diversify our trading partners. It’s a fair question—and one we should have been asking long before the tariffs were even a possibility. Yes, the United States is our closest ally and our largest trading partner, but it’s time we grew out of our dependence. Not out of bitterness or ideology, but out of long-term strategic sense.
We don’t need to ditch the Americans—nor can we. The U.S. is the world’s largest market, and it’s right next door. We share a common language, similar regulatory environments and decades of integrated supply chains. But overreliance on the States is dangerous. Roughly 75 per cent of Canada’s goods exports go south of the border, while the U.S. sends only about 15 per cent of its exports to us. We need the Americans a whole lot more than they need us, and they know it.
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.
