Federal Government Tables Bill to Tighten up Mortgage Lending
The federal government has tabled a bill Thursday to provide the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) oversight of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The amount of lending that CMHC insures has tripled from $200 billion in 2000, to $541 billion in September of 2011. OSFI’s oversight should have a dampening […]
U.S. Announces National Bioeconomy Blueprint
The biotechnology sector has been eagerly awaiting the announcement of a national bioeconomy plan by the Obama administration that is expected to be released today. The White House blueprint intends to spur development of renewable resources such as crops and biofuels as well as biological manufacturing processes. Since President Obama’s announcement last September that a […]
Direct Government Funding – Benefits and Detriments
SR&ED and NRC IRAP are both substantial business support programs offered by the Canadian federal government. However, one of the major differences between the 2 programs is that NRC IRAP endorses direct up-front funding, whereas SR&ED is a tax credit for expenses that have already been incurred. In light of the recent Jenkins report, there has been […]
April’s Labour Force Survey
On Friday, StatsCan released the results of April’s Labour Force Survey, and after two months where we have seen very little change, employment rose by 58,000. While most of the employment was seen in part time, this has helped result in the unemployment rate dropping to 7.6%. Since April 2010, full-time employment has rose by […]
Quarterly Operating Profits
Today, Stats Can announced that operating profits in the fourth quarter had risen up 7.9% since the last quarter, to $65.5 billion among Canadian corporations. In the non-financial sector, profits increased a total of 7.3%, to $49.6 billion. Manufacturing itself saw profits increase 15.3%! Source
December’s Monthly Survey of Manufacturing
Yesterday, Stats Can posted the results of December’s Survey of Manufacturing. It turns out that in December manufacturing sales increased by 0.4% to $45.4 billion. A breakdown of industries is as follows: Primary metal: increased by 3.9% Petroleum and Coal products: increased by 1.5% Chemical products: increased 2.3% Food: increased 0.9% Aerospace product and parts: […]
Agricultural Industry Hampered by Agricutre Policy?
According to a new report published by the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI), Canada is not doing as well as we have in the past when it comes to the agriculture industry. The report suggests that Canada’s agricultural policy needs to be revisited and overhauled in order to compensate for this drop in the industry. […]
Employement in January Rose
Today, StatsCan released January’s Labour Force Survey. They stated that: Employment rose for the second consecutive month in January, with a gain of 69,000. At the same time, the unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 7.8%, as more people searched for work. Compared with January 2010, employment was up 1.9% (+327,000). Source The […]
Bank of Canada’s Semi-Annual Assessments
On Thursday, the Bank of Canada released the results of one of it’s semi-annual assessments. The results? Canada’s financial system is still at risk – in fact, even more so than it was six months ago. They have suggested a number of reasons as to why this may be so: Debt concerns in Europe could […]
November’s Labour Force Survey
On Friday, StatsCan released November’s Labour Force Survey. November saw the lowest unemployment rate since January 2009 – with 15,000 new jobs added that month, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.6%. This is 1.9% higher than it was in November, 2009 – since then, part-time employment has grown by 4% and full-time employment has grown […]