Briefing highlights
- Vancouver, Toronto account for all jobs growth
- Toyota profit to be hit by rising yen
- Ottawa denies BCE appeal
- The next 'I am Canadian' ad?
- Video: How to build a perfect to-do list
Jobs and housing
Vancouver and Toronto don’t just boast Canada’s hottest housing markets.
They can also boast the fact they alone represent all of the country’s employment gains, BMO Nesbitt Burns says.
“Yes, that means the rest of the country has created precisely no new jobs in the past year,” said BMO chief economist Douglas Porter.
“This is extremely unusual considering that these two cities account for 25 per cent of total employment in the country.”
As BMO noted in a separate report, British Columbia’s jobless rate is now the lowest in Canada, and at 5.8 per cent is well below the national average of 7.1 per cent.
That separate look by BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic found that Canada’s westernmost province accounted for 110,000 of the country’s 144,000 net new positions in the last year.
Ontario’s unemployment rate is still elevated, at 7 per cent, as is Toronto’s at 7.5 per cent.
But job creation in Toronto, and several nearby cities, is stronger.
“This simply highlights the extreme regional divergence that the Canadian economy is now seeing,” Mr. Porter said of Vancouver and Toronto.
“The strong job growth in these two cities at least partly explains the strength in their housing markets,” Mr. Porter added.
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Toyota profit to tumble
Toyota Motor Corp. is being hit hard by a rising yen.
The giant Japanese auto maker today projected profit will decline this year to ¥1.5-trillion ($18-billion), ending a string of annual gains.
“We have benefited from an exchange rate tailwind that has helped raise our earnings above the level of our true capabilities,” said president Akio Toyoda.
“Although this has enabled us to take on new challenges, that set of circumstances is likely to change for the worse this year,” he added, citing the company’s efforts to “respond speedily to severe changes in the business environment.”
Ottawa denies appeal
Ottawa has denied a cabinet appeal launched by BCE Inc. over a regulatory ruling that would grant third-party Internet providers access to the company’s newest fibre-optic service, The Globe and Mail’s Christine Dobby reports.
The company argued that forcing it to give small Internet service providers the ability to resell its highest-speed broadband service would deter investment as it is still in the process of building that service, known as fibre to the home.
But Navdeep Bains, minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, said Wednesday the government has denied BCE’s petition to the governor in council and will allow the regulatory decision to stand.