Tausi Insider

Ontario Premier Doug Ford sits in the Ontario Legislature during Question Period on Nov. 1. Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press Benjamin Dachis is associate vice-president of public affairs at the C.D. Howe Institute. From 2018 to 2019, he worked in the Ontario Premier’s Office and helped develop the Ontario government’s Housing Supply Action Plan and related legislative and regulatory changes. On Oct. 25, Ontario’s Ford government announced its More Homes Built Faster Act , which would allow the province to rewrite municipal plans, with the aim of allowing more land for development. These and many more recent changes have been controversial. And more such plans are expected. Premier Doug Ford has been accused of trampling upon democracy and the environment. But the bottom line is that Mr. Ford’s plans are going to have a substantial beneficial effect on prices for home buyers. Amid a housing crisis, this is what really matters, and Mr. Ford’s moves are necessary because, otherwise, Ontari...

Provinces peppering the public with cash to deal with soaring prices compounds inflation rather than easing it, economists say. They say the tactic used by Alberta this week and B.C. and Quebec earlier this year fails to quell inflation because having extra money means people will continue spending and demand for products and service will stay high, keeping decades-high inflation from budging. If people had less money to spend while prices were high it would weigh on inflation, they say. Inflation sat at 6.9 per cent last month down from 8.1 per cent in June. Giving money to households is “likely to contribute to the problem as opposed to solving it,” said Travis Shaw, senior vice-president of public finance at DBRS Morningstar. “It does contradict what the Bank of Canada is trying to do with monetary policy in terms of trying to take some heat out of the system and ultimately bring down inflation,” he said. His remarks come a day after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced her In...

Record-high oil and gas prices continue to bolster Alberta’s books, with the province forecasting a $12.3-billion surplus for 2022-2023 in its midyear fiscal update, released Thursday. The surplus is almost $1-billion less than forecast in the province’s previous fiscal update in August, but is still about $11.8-billion more than forecast when the 2022-2023 budget was tabled in February. That budget was released the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine, kicking off a global energy crisis and supply fears that sent commodity prices skyrocketing to record highs. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith used the province’s recent energy windfall to announce a series of measures earlier this week designed to help ease the burden of rising inflation, including direct payments to families and seniors. The optimistic financial forecast also comes six months before the provincial election in May, which will be Ms. Smith’s first campaign since taking over in October from Jason Kenney as Premier and Uni...

B.C. Finance Minister Selina Robinson speaks in Vancouver, on Nov. 10, 2021. DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press Faster-than-expected economic recovery has pushed British Columbia’s operating surplus to $5-billion more than estimated in the last quarter. Finance Minister Selina Robinson says much of the added surplus comes from higher personal and corporate income taxes, while sales taxes and natural gas royalties were also higher. The minister says the operating surplus of $5.7-billion, up from $706-million, puts the province in a “significant surplus position,” to continue using its resources to deliver results on housing, public safety, health care and climate change. “We will use these dollars we have to invest in things people need. We’re in a strong position to continue making thoughtful decisions.” Robinson says $2-billion of the added revenue has already been earmarked for cost-of-living measures announced since the summer. Those include $1-billion for the Climate Action Tax Credi...

Pakistan’s Supreme Court endorsed on Friday a settlement for Barrick Gold ABX-T to resume mining at the Reko Diq project, one of the world’s largest underdeveloped sites of copper and gold deposits, it said in an order. The endorsement was a condition of the settlement for Barrick to resume work on the project in the southwestern province of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran, in which it will invest $10 billion. Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, the head of a five-judge panel, read out the operative part of the brief order in court. “The agreements … have not been found by us to be unconstitutional or illegal on the parameters and grounds spelt out,” read the order seen by Reuters. President Arif Alvi had asked the court to review the deal. In an out of court agreement this year, Barrick Gold ended a long-running dispute with Pakistan, and agreed to restart development. Under the deal, the company withdrew its case in an international arbitration court, which had slapped a pe...

Ontario’s tourism minister says the province won’t be extending the staycation tax credit for another year, despite the hard-hit industry recommending the move as a way to help it recover from the pandemic. Neil Lumsden, the minister of tourism, culture and sport, says in a statement that the province temporarily introduced it for the 2022 tax year to spur pandemic recovery for the tourism, hospitality and culture sectors. That will end this year, but Mr. Lumsden says the province is supporting the sector in other ways, including $48.1-million for festivals and events and $19.1-million in support for Regional Tourism Organizations in 2022-23. A joint report earlier this week from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario said the sector won’t fully recover until 2025 and suggested dozens of ways the provincial and federal governments could help. Those recommendations included permanently keeping the staycation tax credit, which allows Ontarians t...

A report by Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator concluded that creating a net-zero grid by mid-century would nearly triple annual costs to roughly $60-billion, compared to $20-billion today. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press An emissions-free electrical grid in Ontario – one that could support mass adoption of electric cars and heat pumps – would cost three times more each year than what the province pays today, the body that co-ordinates the province’s electricity system said Thursday. In a report responding to questions from Minister of Energy Todd Smith concerning the future of Ontario’s grid, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) concluded that accomplishing a net-zero grid by mid-century would require approximately $400-billion in new infrastructure, not to mention lots of land. The annual costs would be roughly $60-billion, as compared to $20-billion today. The amount of electricity produced would double, displacing use of gasoline, natural gas an...

Logs are piled up at West Fraser Timber, in Quesnel, B.C. JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press British Columbia’s forest sector has “never been under greater stress,” Premier David Eby says. There is an “inescapable recognition … that change is needed to ensure our forest industry is sustainable,” he writes in his mandate letter for the new forests minister, Bruce Ralston. Eby’s letter to the minister of water, land and resource stewardship, Nathan Cullen, meanwhile, says “short-term thinking” in land management has led to “exhausted forests.” The new premier’s pointed language to his ministers highlights how British Columbia’s forests sector is in the throes of change, as the province embarks on plans to “modernize” how forests are managedamid ecological concerns, fluctuating lumber prices and dwindling supply of trees for harvesting. Bob Simpson, who served as mayor ofQuesnel, B.C., a longtime forestry community, between 2014 and 2022, said the province’s forest sector is “stuck in ...

Since the peak one month ago, the lowest nationally advertised five-year fixed has dropped 30 bps to 5.14 per cent (uninsured). On a standard mortgage, that saves $1,445 of interest over five years, per $100,000 borrowed. JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images Christmas ‘rate sale’ in progress All right, it’s not exactly a fire sale, but we are indeed getting some Yuletide rate relief. Since the peak one month ago, the lowest nationally advertised five-year fixed has dropped 30 bps to 5.14 per cent (uninsured). On a standard mortgage, that saves $1,445 of interest over five years, per $100,000 borrowed. McLister: Where could mortgage rates - fixed and variable - head in 2023? See how rising interest rates will affect the cost of your mortgage Compared with the lowest uninsured variable at 5.90 per cent, a 5.14 per cent five-year fixed might not seem so bad. But it’s literally the fourth-worst term you could take if you’re well qualified and risk tolerant. The worst, second-worst and third-worst...

Jane Glassco walks on the pier on part of the 300 acres of her woodland and farmland that she donated to preserve the Ontario Greenbelt, near Schomberg, on May 23, 2007. J.P. MOCZULSKI/Tausi Insider Ontario’s Greenbelt, a swath of land that encircles the Greater Toronto Area, is an aggregation of farmland, river valleys and other natural features. Established in 2005, it was to remain protected forever for the benefit of future generations, permanently off-limits to urbanization. Forever turned out to be less than 20 years. Seeking to solve what has been widely described as a housing crisis, the government of Premier Doug Ford this month removed 19 plots of land from the Greenbelt, on which it hopes at least 50,000 new homes will be constructed. The government suggested that many of these 7,400 acres never deserved protection in the first place. Environment Minister David Piccini told reporters at a briefing that some of the Greenbelt’s boundaries “were based more on political scienc...

Natural gas producers applauded a landmark settlement between the British Columbia government and the Blueberry River First Nations that will give the Indigenous group significantly more sway over projects in the province’s resource-rich Montney region, as other First Nations made ready to unveil similar deals. On Wednesday, B.C. Premier David Eby and Blueberry River Chief Judy Desjarlais announced what both called a “historic” agreement that, in addition to giving the band a formal role in natural gas projects on its territory, includes $287.5-million in funding. The deal also includes potential revenue sharing from natural gas projects in northeastern B.C., but the First Nation has not released details of those arrangements. The agreement resolves a lengthy legal dispute that came to a head when the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in June, 2021 that the province had infringed on Blueberry River’s Treaty 8 rights, which reflect agreements struck in 1899. The ruling prompted the province’...

A look at this week’s available mortgage rates on fixed and variable terms and HELOCs Rich Pedroncelli/The Associated Press HSBC is once again setting the pace for uninsured five-year fixed rates. Its new 5.09-per-cent offer leads all national lenders. Plus it’s forking out up to $5,000 cash back, depending on mortgage size. If you’re dead-set on a five-year fixed and there’s a meaningful chance you’ll break the mortgage early, find a lender with lower prepayment penalties than a bank. Mortgage brokers know who these lenders are. McLister: Does a short-term mortgage still make sense? Mortgages 101: What to know about fixed vs. variable rates in Canada In the one-year fixed market, note the dramatic savings for insured one-year rates versus uninsured rates. That’s largely thanks to much lower funding costs for government-backed insured mortgages where borrowers pay the default insurance premium. QuestMortgage’s 4.64-per-cent insured one-year fixed remains one of the nation’s best valu...