While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Erik Hertzberg.
Bank of Canada research suggests the acceleration in food inflation last year was almost entirely due to rising import costs, not domestic factors. The total annual change in food costs, excluding fruits and vegetables, was 3.1% in 2025, and 2.7 percentage points of that increase was due to direct imports, imported inputs and international shipping costs, according to research released...
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem offered a staunch backing of Jerome Powell after the Federal Reserve chair said the central bank had been served with grand jury subpoenas. “I reiterate my full support for Federal Reserve Board Chair Jay Powell, who reflects the very best in public service,” Macklem said Monday in an emailed statement to Bloomberg News.
President Donald Trump’s push to unlock Venezuelan crude is strengthening the political case for a proposed pipeline that would allow Canada to ship more oil to China and other Asian markets. Refineries in the American Midwest are configured to process Canada’s heavy crude. But prices for the commodity slumped Monday as traders worried that the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas...
Canada’s budget watchdog is walking back his most charged criticisms of Mark Carney's fiscal policy, but says the government's decision to drop its debt-to-GDP guideline is a major shift that warrants more public debate.
The Bank of Canada is planning to eliminate hundreds of jobs, about 10% of its workforce, as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s bid to reduce government expenses. About 225 employees at the central bank will be affected, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg News. The cuts will take place “over the next few months” and be completed by...
Canada’s finance minister says his upcoming fiscal plan aims to “crowd in” private investment as the federal government ramps up capital spending on major projects and cuts regulations. Article content “What people will see in the next budget is fiscal discipline, a shift toward capital formation and a shift toward long-term prosperity,” Francois-Philippe Champagne said in an interview with Bloomberg...
The head of the International Monetary Fund says Canada has the fiscal room to make productivity-boosting investments, and praised the federal government’s proposed changes to budget timing.
One of Canada’s major lenders says Prime Minister Mark Carney will push the country’s deficit to about 3% of its gross domestic product as his government pursues major projects and tries to attract more investment. Stefane Marion, National Bank of Canada’s chief economist, said he expects Ottawa’s fiscal shortfall will reach C$100 billion ($72 billion) this fiscal year, more than...
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem offered a subtle endorsement of the government’s plans to spend on infrastructure, saying policymakers in the past have not done enough to boost productivity and real incomes. Article content Output per worker stagnated during the decade Justin Trudeau was prime minister as he prioritized policies to redistribute wealth. Since taking power in March, Mark...
Analysts expect Prime Minister Mark Carney to push the federal government’s budget deeper into the red as Canada ramps up spending to bolster its military and infrastructure.
Funding issues are cropping up in Canada’s money markets again, prompting some analysts to recommend the central bank step in. Article content The Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average, or Corra, has settled 5 basis points above the Bank of Canada’s overnight rate for most of September. On a weekly basis, that’s the widest spread since January and if it persists...
The Canadian economy shed jobs for a second consecutive month and the unemployment rate rose to a four-year high, increasing the odds of an interest-rate cut from the Bank of Canada this month.
The Canadian economy contracted for the first time in nearly two years as the trade war with the US pummeled exports and business investment. The Canadian economy contracted for the first time in nearly two years as the trade war with the US pummeled exports and business investment. Article content Canada’s gross domestic product shrank at a 1.6% annualized pace...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to remove many tariffs on imports from the US comes after a series of warnings from businesses and analysts that the levies were inflicting economic damage on Canada. On Friday, Carney announced th
The Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged, citing uncertainty posed by US tariffs, but kept the door open to more cuts if the economy weakens and inflation pressures stay in check.
Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods are partially offsetting weaker revenue from corporate and sales taxes as federal government expenditures continue to rise.
The supply of Canada’s government debt is set to hit a record this fiscal year as Prime Minister Mark Carney pledges to use the federal balance sheet to make investments in the economy. Article content Gross issuance — the amount of government of Canada bonds and treasury bills put to market — is expected to rise to C$612 billion this...
Canada’s budget watchdog urged Prime Minister Mark Carney to release an update on the federal government’s finances soon or risk eroding the government’s credibility with investors. Carney is promising to spend billions on infrastructure, military equipment, housing and transportation — part of his ambitious agenda to boost the potential of the Canadian economy. Those plans, combined with slow economic growth...
A Canadian government program that aims to minimize layoffs by providing benefits to workers who agree to work fewer hours has seen its uptake double in about half a year. Article content As of June 8, there were 799 so-called work-sharing agreements with employers in Canada, up from 399 in November, according to government data shared with Bloomberg News.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to delay Canada’s budget until later this year increases economic uncertainty but isn’t likely to spark worries among investors, say a majority of economists in a Bloomberg survey. Carney announced after winning an April election that he would push back an update of the country’s fiscal picture, typically delivered in the first half of the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is pushing to offset the economic pain caused by United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs by compelling Canadian provinces to liberalize trade with one another.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem offered support to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell from US President Donald Trump’s attacks, as the Canadian policymaker called the independence of central banks “sacrosanct.”
Canada’s next prime minister is set to inherit a half-year of flat economic growth, economists predict, an immediate test of their governance as President Donald Trump’s trade war grinds business investment and exports lower. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg see the economy contracting 0.2% in the second quarter and no growth in the third quarter. That would put it on the...
Economists at one of Canada’s biggest lenders are raising doubts about the fiscal plans offered by the leading parties in the country’s election.
Canada’s Conservative Party is promising to run smaller deficits than the incumbent Liberals as it bets heavily on tax cuts and deregulation spurring an economic boom, especially in the country’s energy sector.
Canada’s fiscal position is set to worsen as the country’s two leading political parties vie to win an election by promising tax cuts and measures to protect industries from US President Donald Trump’s tariff barrage.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to plunge Canada into an election campaign on Sunday, as US President Donald Trump’s trade war sharpens the focus on fixing long-standing problems that have hindered the Canadian economy.
Optimism among Canada’s small and medium-sized firms fell to the lowest level in at least a quarter-century after the US started a trade war with the country, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. The CFIB’s Business Barometer index fell to 25 this month, according to a flash poll of 1,065 firms taken between March 5 and March 7...
Canada’s economy is headed for a contraction — the first since the Covid-19 crisis — if a tariff war with its largest trading partner lasts for long.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem launched the central bank’s review of its framework, but strongly suggested that officials are likely to re-endorse the bank’s current approach to targeting 2% inflation.
The Ottawa-based central bank announced that Alexopoulos, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto, would join the bank’s governing council for a two-year term starting March 17. She joins the policymaking body as the second external deputy governor.
Governor Tiff Macklem has successfully wrestled down one of the worst inflationary crises in the Bank of Canada’s history, putting his nation on track for a soft landing. U.S. president-elect Donald Trump may dismantle all that with a stroke of a pen.
Donald Trump’s planned tax cuts would wipe out Canada’s slim corporate tax advantage, likely driving more capital from the northern nation and deepening its productivity crisis. Canada’s federal corporate income tax rate is 15%, compared to 21% in the US. After accounting for provincial and state levies, the two countries are roughly similar, with the corporate rate between 25% and...
Foreign direct investment into Canada remained steady in the third quarter, an encouraging sign that businesses continued to park capital in the northern nation even as uncertainty mounted ahead of the US election. FDI totaled C$27.1 billion ($19.3 billion) in the three months between July and September, Statistics Canada reported Thursday from Ottawa, driven by merger and acquisition activity and...
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signaled a return to his free-spending playbook as inflation wanes and an election looms, accelerating a bond selloff due to expectations of faster growth and a deeper deficit. Most Read from Bloomberg
Canada’s budgetary watchdog says Justin Trudeau’s government has likely blown past a self-imposed fiscal guardrail, and is warning about the consequences of delaying the release of final spending and revenue numbers. Yves Giroux, the country’s parliamentary budget officer, expects the federal government ran a deficit of C$46.8 billion in 2023-24. That’s deeper than the C$40 billion forecast by Finance Minister...
The Bank of Canada’s second in command cautioned against “tinkering too much with the mortgage market” to fix housing affordability. Canada’s high home prices are primarily a function of a supply and demand imbalance, and the fix “will take time,” Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers said Wednesday in Toronto. While she said she was encouraged by “governments at all levels”...
The Bank of Canada is likely to make a jumbo cut to interest rates, acknowledging that borrowing costs should fall more quickly as inflation wanes and economic growth stagnates. Markets and economists expect policymakers led by Governor Tiff Macklem will cut the policy rate by half a percentage point to 3.75% on Wednesday, the first reduction of that magnitude since...
An ex-member of the Bank of Canada’s governing body said officials should cut borrowing costs by half a percentage point later this month. There are “good reasons” to move interest rates “back to as close to neutral as quickly as possible,” former Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry said, including boosting household and business optimism. Now that policymakers are more sure that...
Former Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz is examining a list of ideas to get the country’s pension funds to invest more in the domestic economy – including the creation of a pooled fund that would make dealmaking easier for some of them. People in the industry have also told him the government may need to change regulations for pension...
Canada’s benchmark two-year yield briefly dropped below the 10-year for the first time in more than two years, as traders looked ahead to Federal Reserve cuts and Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem made dovish comments to the Financial Times.
Economists see the Bank of Canada cutting interest rates for a third consecutive meeting next week, continuing what’s anticipated to be a steady downward trend in borrowing costs over the next year as inflation eases.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has turned to raising taxes on businesses to help fund Canada’s budget, adding headwinds to an economy that’s already struggling to attract investment.
The Bank of Canada needs to wrap up its quantitative tightening program or fix distortions in short-term funding markets that are keeping effective interest rates higher, according to Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce strategists. Canada’s central bank has been shrinking its balance sheet for more than two years, withdrawing the extraordinary stimulus it provided during the Covid-19 crisis. Assets have...
The leader of Canada’s Conservative Party has opened up a bigger lead among voters on the question of who would be the best economic manager, underscoring the political challenges faced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. About 30% of respondents in a recent Nanos Research Group survey for Bloomberg say they trust Pierre Poilievre the most among national party leaders to...
The Bank of Canada is doing a formal review of its pandemic-era policies, when it bought hundreds of billions in government bonds to suppress interest rates. It may represent a last chance for Governor Tiff Macklem to explain himself before one of his fiercest critics comes to power.
A Bank of Canada official defended the use of quantitative easing and extraordinary forward guidance during the pandemic, pushing back on criticisms that the policy actions were missteps that fueled inflation.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s upcoming budget has some in Canada’s business community concerned there will be tax increases to offset new government spending. Freeland and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will almost certainly bring in a package of tools to boost housing supply in the April 16 budget, according to people familiar with the government’s plans, and may commit additional spending...
Record-breaking immigration is muddying the economic picture for the Bank of Canada, distorting key statistics and making its battle against inflation more difficult. A surge of newcomers – largely driven by an unplanned spike in foreign students and temporary workers – has pushed Canada’s population growth rate to 3.2 per cent, one of the fastest in the world.