Melinda, via email – Something I now have on my radar, due to the high % of Toronto residents now on the dole.
Grocer Metro’s Toronto distribution centre has been shut down since Sep. 12 due to what the company calls a “refrigeration failure.” Stores remain stocked through contingency plan, no reopening date announced.
Is this really just about a “refrigeration failure”?#cybersecurity
— The Food Professor (@FoodProfessor) September 23, 2025
When the mainstream financial media starts to use the terms “alarm” and “collapse” in the same sentence, it’s probably too late to do anything about it.
The report from University of Ottawa’s Missing Middle Initiative compares housing starts and sales in 34 municipalities across the Greater Toronto Area and neighbouring Southern Ontario cities for the first six months of 2025 with the same period from 2021–2024. It found starts are down 40 per cent relative to that four-year average, with pre-construction condo sales plunging 89 per cent and other homes 70 per cent.
The mainstream financial media is looking at this the wrong way. It’s not gold that’s going up, but rather the dollar that is going down. For the most part, all the derivative currencies are doing even worse. The main reason is not imminent hyperinflation but rather fear of default as the fiat debt burden continues to rise exponentially.
Gold futures surged to around $3,750, while bullion for immediate delivery traded above $3,700 per ounce.
The jump to 15% minimum suggested tips is probably playing a role, but even without that the restaurant industry is struggling with the pandemic hangover and a marginal consumer who cannot afford to eat out.
Three in four Canadians are eating out less, often because of the high cost of living, a Restaurants Canada report published Monday found. That share is even higher among those aged 18 to 34 at 81 per cent.
Restaurants Canada chief executive Kelly Higginson said it’s an “alarming” trend for the foodservice industry.
It’s not like this incident happened in the core area of Winnipeg, but rather a quiet suburban neighborhood. Any bets on how long it will be until this guy is back on the street?
A 23-year-old man with a lengthy rap sheet is accused of barging into a northwest Winnipeg home Monday evening and randomly assaulting two elderly residents as they relaxed in their living room.
George has numerous prior convictions for possessing weapons and breaching court orders. He’s also been convicted of uttering threats, obstructing a police officer and assaulting an officer. George was barred from owning weapons for life after pleading guilty in August 2024 to several firearms possession offences he committed in November 2023.
Kevin Klein- Organized crime alleged in trucking industry tied to labour, immigration abuse
Industry executives are clear in how they describe the nature of what is unfolding. “If this were the United States, it would be a racketeering case,” one said. “This is a criminal enterprise, not paperwork sloppiness.” They argue that what may appear at first glance as tax avoidance is, in reality, organized crime: immigration fraud, human exploitation, money laundering, and a deliberate effort to evade the law.
Why is it that no one in the mainstream financial media ever asks, “Whatever happened to higher for longer?”
The Bank of Canada reduced its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday, a move observers had almost universally expected amid various signs of economic weakness.
The Bank cited the “weakening economy and less upside risk to inflation” in its decision to cut.
Look at what Trudeau govt did to Canada. My God. And we re-elected the same govt. h/t @MichaelAArouet pic.twitter.com/4b3Vi4aNzt
— Martin Pelletier (@MPelletierCIO) September 17, 2025
Race to the bottom: WTF is happening in Germany?! Germany announced 125,000 industrial job cuts in 6 weeks.
Inquiring minds want to know: can the Bank of Canada cut interest rates quickly enough to avoid a collapse of the housing market?
Butler says clients who locked in around 1.7 per cent in 2020 and 2021 are now renewing closer to four per cent, pushing payments up 20 to 25 per cent.
Even if the BoC cuts this week, affordability challenges will persist. “You cannot solve something that has taken 20, 30 years to build up in five minutes,” Tal said.
The list of what the Liberals consider to be “infrastructure” projects continues to boggle the mind. The main criteria apparently is that they be money-losing boondoggles.
Some of the projects identified for further development include enhancements to the Port of Churchill in Manitoba, a high-speed rail line between Toronto and Québec City, a 50-gigawatt wind energy project in Nova Scotia and an Alberta-based carbon capture and storage project.
I recently had an interesting encounter with a “Dragonfly” delivery guy that pegged my paronoia meter. I was washing my car and was expecting an Amazon delivery. When he came he delivered the package then turned his attention to the car and then to the neighbourhood, asking and the questions seemed abnormal, values of not only my car but of those of my neighbors and the houses. At the time I thought it was odd but I moved on.
Later I began to think this would be a perfect means to scout for vehicles, as there are literally hundreds of “new” Canadians running around in delivery vans in every community abling them to pass this intelligence back to the “theft” ring.
Man…..I’m losing it…..or maybe just my spidy sense is tingling
So the mainstream financial media is finally waking up to what most of us on SDA acknowledged long ago.
The job market is exhibiting some other recessionary characteristics, too. Desjardins Economics, in a report last Thursday, said the current youth unemployment rate “is now at a level more commonly seen during a recession.”
The unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 in August was 14.5 per cent, according to Statistics Canada, compared to nine per cent in July 2022.
Is rising unemployment part of Canadian exceptionalism too? I’m sure this can all be fixed with zero percent interest rates in any case.
Canada’s labour market shed a net 65,500 jobs in August and the unemployment rate jumped to 7.1 per cent, according to Statistics Canada data released on Friday.
The unemployment rate is now at its highest point outside of the pandemic since May 2016, and has risen 0.5 percentage points since the start of this year.
We seem to be having more contractions than a woman in labor, but I’m sure all the buy Canadian campaigns will make up for it, right?
Canada’s manufacturing sector contracted in August, clocking seven monthly reductions in a row, as manufacturers grappled with low export demand due to U.S. tariffs, along with logistical and pricing pressures, data showed on Tuesday.
Canada’s economic decline is getting noticed south of the border. Too bad many Canadians don’t appear to care.
More: Parliamentary Budget Officer reveals federal employees cost more than double the average Canadian income
The total federal public service headcount all categories, not just permanent was 282,980 in 2010. By 2024, it was 367,772. That’s a 30% increase overall. But notice the difference: indeterminate jobs grew even faster than the public service as a whole. In other words, the growth has been concentrated in the most secure, most expensive category. The permanent class.
Guess who’s buying all those new homes in Canada? Apparently, almost no one. The central question that the article fails to ask is this: whose balance sheets are taking the hit? In any case, retirees are never going to take up all the slack that investors are leaving behind.
There were just over 300 new homes sold across the entire Toronto region in April. A population of about 6.4 million people was mainly too scared to pull the trigger.
It was one of the worst months ever for sales, according to the Building Industry and Land Development Association. The market hasn’t improved much since.
“It’s a crazy market out there with condos,” she said, fully aware of the drop in sales and prices. June sales were just 510 units, 82 per cent below the 10-year average for the month, BILD said.
Learn to code, they said. But just don’t expect a job in Canada.
Canada’s tech job market has gone from boom to bust in a matter of years, a new study says.
The research released Tuesday by job postings site Indeed says August openings in the sector posted on its platform were down 19 per cent from their early 2020 levels.
Outside of a federal election every six months, I don’t see what could possibly prevent this ship from sinking.
Canada Post reported a loss before tax of $407 million in its second quarter as its parcels business fell due to labour uncertainty.
The company said its mail volume increased in the quarter, but it was largely driven by one-time federal election mailings, while parcels declined sharply as customers chose other carriers due to the labour uncertainty.
