New Ontario funding available to advanced manufacturers

Today, the Ontario government launched the Advanced Manufacturing and Innovation Competitiveness (AMIC) program. As part of the 2021 Fall Economic Statement, AMIC is a new stream of the Regional Development Program (RDP). The two-year, $40 million program will support advanced manufacturing businesses.

Beginning today, eligible businesses can apply for the new program. Eligibility requirements include:

• minimum of 10 employees
• three or more years of financial statements, and
• minimum of $500,000 in eligible project costs.

The first round of applications will be open until February 10, 2022. Click here for more information.

Statistics Canada: Manufacturing sales up in November

Sales in constant dollars increased 1.9% in November, indicating a higher volume of goods sold. The Industrial Product Price Index increased 0.8% month over month in November.

Manufacturing sales rose for a second consecutive month in November, rising 2.6% to $63.1 billion on higher sales in 18 of 21 industries, led by the primary metal, petroleum and coal product, non-metallic mineral, and food product industries.

Despite the gains observed for November, supply chain issues continued to impact manufacturing production in many industries including transportation, chemical, and food. Moreover, floods in British Columbia further exacerbated the situation.

Click here for more information.

Bank of Canada: many Canadians believe inflation will last at least two years

In the Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations for Q4 2021, the Bank of Canada found that many Canadians think inflation will be high over the next two years because of supply disruptions caused by the pandemic. They are more concerned about inflation now than they were before the pandemic and believe it has become more difficult to control.

Although consumers anticipate significant price increases in the near term, they believe their wage increases will be relatively stable.

Showing confidence in the labour market, workers are more likely than ever to want to change jobs. Another sign of strength in the labour market is that most people are working more hours than they would like to. Marginalized individuals, however, want to work more hours than they currently do.

The Bank’s Q4 Business Outlook Survey found that a broadening set of firms saw a solid recovery in sales supported by strengthening domestic and foreign demand. At the same time, more firms reported impacts from labour shortages and supply chain disruptions, including a continued drag on their sales. Reports of capacity pressures were widespread.

In response to capacity pressures, most businesses across sectors and regions are set to increase investment and plan to raise wages to compete for workers and retain staff. Many firms also expect selling prices to rise in the next six months because of supply constraints.

The Bank noted that both surveys took place before the recent surge in Omicron cases, which may mean that these results are no longer accurate.

Canada receives first delivery of COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment

The Government of Canada has received an initial shipment of 30,400 treatment courses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 oral antiviral treatment, PAXLOVID^TM, with 120,000 more expected to be delivered between now and the end of March. Canada has secured 1 million courses of the treatment in total. The treatment received Health Canada regulatory authorization earlier today. Distribution to provinces and territories will begin imminently.

Click here for more information.

Reading Recommendations

Q&A on At-Home Rapid Tests

Factcheck.org

Antigen tests are viral tests that check for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins in a sample from a person’s nose or mouth to help determine if the person is currently infected with the coronavirus.

Sometimes known as lateral flow tests or lateral flow devices, rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are similar to pregnancy tests in that they detect proteins in a specimen using antibodies embedded in a test strip. Typically, COVID-19 rapid tests use antibodies that recognize parts of the nucleocapsid, or N, protein of SARS-CoV-2 because more of that protein is made and because it’s less likely to change over time as the virus mutates.

Antigen tests are generally reliable, but they aren’t as sensitive as molecular diagnostic tests, such as polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests. Compared with those tests, antigen tests are more likely to fail to register a coronavirus infection, resulting in a false negative reading.

To a lesser extent, antigen tests are also less specific than molecular tests, incorrectly flagging some people as being positive when they aren’t infected, and showing what’s known as a false positive. These performance features, however, are expected — and are a trade-off for having a test that can return a result in minutes rather than hours or days.

Deadline for CEBA loan repayment extended until December 31, 2023

The repayment deadline for CEBA loans to qualify for partial loan forgiveness is being extended from December 31, 2022, to December 31, 2023, for all eligible borrowers in good standing.

Repayment on or before the new deadline of December 31, 2023, will result in loan forgiveness of up to a third of the value of the loans (meaning up to $20,000).

Outstanding loans would subsequently convert to two-year term loans with interest of 5 per cent per annum commencing on January 1, 2024, with the loans fully due by December 31, 2025.

The government is also announcing that the repayment deadline to qualify for partial forgiveness for CEBA-equivalent lending through the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund is extended to December 31, 2023.

The GNCC had previously recommended to the Government of Canada that CEBA loan deadlines be extended as the pandemic has lasted longer than anticipated. This decision will help a lot of businesses and assist in our economic recovery.

Click here for more information.

Vaccine clinic coming to Fleming Centre in Beamsville on January 16

A COVID-19 vaccine clinic will take place at the Fleming Centre in Beamsville to administer the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to eligible individuals 29 years of age and younger, and Moderna to eligible individuals 30 years and older, while supplies last. No appointment is required.

Click here for more information.

No delivery yet scheduled for 80% of Ontario’s rapid tests

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says Canada is in crisis when it comes to COVID-19 PCR testing capacity, even as the federal government struggles to make good on its promise to deliver 140 million rapid tests to provinces by the end of the month, the CBC reports.

Duclos says access to PCR tests in provinces is a crisis, and that’s why at-home rapid tests will be such an important tool to combat the Omicron wave of COVID-19.

But some provinces have flagged that shipments of those vital rapid tests from the federal government have been slow to arrive.

In Ontario, fewer than 0.3 per cent of the rapid tests committed to the province in January have been delivered so far, and there is no delivery scheduled for about 80 per cent of them.

Click here for more information.

J.P. Morgan expects Bank of Canada to increase interest rate

Economists at J.P. Morgan expect the Bank of Canada will raise its benchmark interest rate at its Jan. 26 meeting, ahead of the central bank’s own timeline for liftoff, Bloomberg News reports.

“Based on rhetoric from the Bank of Canada in December, it was clear that labour market dynamics and outperforming economic data had created heightened concerns at the Bank that the output gap was closing more rapidly than expected,” wrote Silvana Dimino, a New York-based economist at J.P. Morgan, in a report to clients Tuesday.

Dimino sees the Bank raising its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 0.5 per cent in January; her team previously called for the first move in April. She expects there will be five rate hikes this year, which would push the benchmark rate to 1.5 per cent by year-end.

Click here for more information.

Reading Recommendations

Ottawa reviewing Quebec plan to tax unvaccinated

CTV News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says “incentives and strong measures” have worked in the fight against COVID-19, weighing in on Quebec’s proposed tax on unvaccinated residents.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday during a pandemic update, Trudeau said Ottawa is reviewing Quebec’s plan to penalize those without a medical exemption with a financial levy “with interest” and is awaiting more details from the province.

“As we’ve said, incentives and strong measures, whether it’s vaccine passports, whether it’s requirements for travellers, whether it’s the requirement for public servants to be fully vaccinated, we have taken very strong measures in the past and they have worked in terms of keeping Canadians safe,” he said.

Luxury home sales soar by triple-digits, shattering records across Canada

Financial Post

Any home in Canada is expensive these days, but apparently that hasn’t dulled demand for the top tier of the market.

The pandemic stampede for homes and increasing confidence in the economy’s recovery had buyers snapping up properties that ran into the millions in 2021, depleting inventory and setting new sales and price records.

New data from Sotheby’s International Realty Canada out this morning show that luxury markets in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary all saw triple-digit increases in sales.

“Canada’s real estate market was redefined in 2021. There has been a transformative change in Canadians’ perceptions of the importance of their homes as an investment in lifestyle and pleasure, physical sanctuary and security, as well as financial stability and generational wealth,” said Don Kottick, president and CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada.

Domestic demand was the main driver, helped along by low interest rates and record cash savings. Anxiety over whether the stock market would continue to gain also encouraged Canadians to diversify into real estate, said Kottick. However, the year did see a gradual increase in international interest in luxury properties.

U.S. inflation hits 39-year high of 7%, sets stage for Fed hike

Bloomberg News

U.S. consumer prices soared last year by the most in nearly four decades, illustrating red-hot inflation that sets the stage for the start of Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes as soon as March.

The consumer price index climbed 7 per cent in 2021, the largest 12-month gain since June 1982, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. The widely followed inflation gauge rose 0.5 per cent from November, exceeding forecasts.