In this edition:
- Five years of the Daily Update
- Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government terminates consumer carbon price
- Poilievre non-committal on climate target, promising to kill industrial carbon price
- Tariff uncertainty keeping home buyers on the sidelines
- Canadians will wake up to much lower gasoline and diesel prices on April 1
- Carney orders review of F-35 fighter jet purchase from U.S.’s Lockheed Martin
- Construction industry up in January, with residential building in the lead
- Focus on Markets
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Five years of the Daily Update
Today marks five years, to the day, since we issued the first-ever GNCC Daily Update. It started as a way to keep businesses informed about the ever-changing government rules and regulations concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Daily Update since evolved into a news roundup, containing everything you need to know about Niagara’s business landscape and the world we find ourselves in. The Daily Update is now received by four thousand subscribers every day.
Five years later, we have found ourselves in another very turbulent time for businesses, and as before, it’s our commitment to keeping you up-to-date on everything that matters.
We hope that you find the Daily Update useful and that it helps you and your organization stay up-to-date on the news you need to know about. We look forward to continuing to serve you.
Photo credit: Andrii Yalanskyi / Adobe Stock
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government terminates consumer carbon price
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first move after taking office on Friday was to eliminate the consumer carbon price, undoing Justin Trudeau’s signature climate policy.
Carney addressed members of the media after the Friday afternoon cabinet meeting, saying the government is “focused on action.”
Photo credit: Pierre Poilievre / YouTube screenshot
Poilievre non-committal on climate target after promising to kill industrial carbon price
“Technology, not taxes, is the best way to fight climate change and protect our environment,” said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. “What we need to do is acknowledge that the best way to reduce emissions is to bring home clean production here.”
Poilievre would not commit to upholding any of Canada’s emissions reduction targets, and instead emphasized that climate change is “a global problem,” after vowing to dismantle one of the Liberal government’s marquee climate policies.
Click here to read more.
Photo credit: Tinnakorn / Adobe Stock
Tariff uncertainty keeping home buyers on the sidelines
Canadian home sales fell sharply from January to February, as home buyers remained on the sidelines in the first full month of the ongoing trade war with the United States.
Sales activity recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems dropped 9.8% month-over-month in February 2025, marking the lowest level for home sales since November 2023, and the largest month-over-month decline in activity since May 2022.
Image credit: Fxquadro / Adobe Stock
Canadians will wake up to much lower gasoline and diesel prices on April 1 and that’s no joke
Newly sworn-in Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a prime ministerial directive to remove the consumer carbon tax effective April 1. Drivers currently pay a carbon tax of 17.61 cents per litre of gasoline and 21.39 cents per litre of diesel — both figures had been scheduled to increase April 1 — but the price decrease will be even greater than that, points out Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
The actual price drop at the pump will be around 20 cents per litre on gasoline and close to 25 cents on diesel.
Picture credit: ranchorunner / Adobe Stock
Carney orders review of F-35 fighter jet purchase from U.S.’s Lockheed Martin
Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked for a review of Canada’s plan to purchase a fleet of F-35 fighter jets.
The deal with Lockheed Martin and the U.S. government is for 88 planes at a cost of about US$85 million each.
A spokesperson for Defence Minister Bill Blair said Carney has asked Blair to look into whether the F-35 contract is the best investment for Canada, or if there are better options.
Photo credit: ungvar / Adobe Stock
Construction industry up in January, with residential building in the lead
Overall, investment in building construction rose 1.8% (+$393.7 million) to $22.1 billion in January. The residential sector increased 2.3% to $15.4 billion, while the non-residential sector was up 0.8% to $6.7 billion.
Year over year, investment in building construction grew 5.7% in January.
Focus on Markets
Bank of Canada would need to hike interest rates by up to 1.25% in full-blown tariff war, warns OECD
Canada’s economy may have ended 2024 on a high note, but that could all be undone as world trade is upended by Donald Trump’s tariff war, according to a new report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The OECD cut its growth forecast for Canada by more than half Monday, and predicted knock-on effects on inflation and interest rates that could result in the cost of borrowing rising and staying higher for longer if the country ends up facing 25 per-cent tariffs from the United States and a tit-for-tat retaliation. The analysis also accounts for tariffs exchanged between China and the United States, as well as Washington’s broad-based 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which include Canada.
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.
