'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
With fiscal spending booming and households flush with cash, investors are betting that the Bank of Canada's next tightening cycle, expected to begin in 2022, will result in interest rates climbing above the previous peak for the first time in decades.
In four major tightening cycles since the early 1990s, the Bank of Canada's key interest rate has peaked at a level that was lower than the preceding endpoint.
But that could change in the next cycle, as historic levels of government spending globally raise prospects of an economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis that is more robust than previous recoveries.
The Canadian government is spending C$101 billion ($81 billion), about 5 per cent of GDP, to stimulate the economy over three years, while U.S. President Joe Biden has proposed trillions of dollars of infrastructure spending. Canada sends about 75% of its exports to the United States.
A higher endpoint for rate hikes could give the BoC more firepower to fight the next downturn. It could also spur changes to the economy, raising the incentive to save and invest rather than borrow. Canadians have borrowed heavily in recent years to participate in one of the world's hottest housing markets.
Canada's central bank has signaled that it could begin raising rates from a record low of 0.25 per cent in the second half of next year, well ahead of the 2023 projection from the Federal Reserve.
Swap market data puts the peak of the expected tightening cycle, or the terminal rate, at about 2 per cent in five years, above the previous peak of 1.75 per cent.
"There is a lot more fiscal policy this time ... to me that's the real game changer," said Andrew Kelvin, chief Canada strategist at TD Securities. "Canada, last cycle, was part of a global cycle where no central bank really achieved what they would regard to be neutral rates."
The neutral rate is the level that is expected to be in place when the economy is at full strength and inflation is on target, so it's a signpost of sorts for where rates could go. The BoC's current estimate for the neutral rate is a range of 1.75 per cent to 2.75 per cent.
The central bank has also estimated that Ottawa's support for households during the pandemic combined with reduced spending by Canadians, who endured lengthy lockdowns, boosted savings in 2020 by about $180 billion.
That extra cash is likely to add to consumer spending over the coming decade, which could support a terminal rate that is higher than not only the previous cycle peak but the neutral rate, said Royce Mendes, a senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets.
"All that money has to eventually go somewhere," Mendes said. "It is not just going to sit in the bank accounts of households for decades into the future."
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.