Mortgage broker Ron Butler goes off on the concept of “blanket appraisals” in the Canadian mortgage market. Basically, they’re a form of fraud that allows lenders to pretend that mortgages on their balance sheets are worth much more than they actually are.
“…I bought it for a million… My lender says it’s only worth 820 and I don’t know what to do. Oh, don’t worry. Don’t worry. We have this… uh, developer loan bank. Yeah. No, no, we can get it done. Don’t worry…”
My advice to the Conservative Party of Canada: just be patient. Your time in the sun may be coming.
Statistics Canada says the economy stalled in November and early estimates suggest a decline in real gross domestic product for the final quarter of 2025.
November saw manufacturing of durable goods hit its lowest levels since 2011, outside the COVID-19 pandemic.
Update: Even the mainstream financial media is noticing that something is not right.
Canada’s main stock index fell 1,092.61 points or 3.3 per cent on Friday.
The bad news just keeps popping up for the Canadian economy.
General Motors Co. on Friday will eliminate the third shift at its assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., cutting about 700 jobs inside the plant, plus another 300 to 500 workers at parts companies that supply the facility, according to Unifor, the labour union representing the workers.
Update: Those workers can just transition to building Korean EV batteries, apparently. An “agreement” has been reached.
It says the the countries plan to co-operate on advancing a Korean automotive industrial footprint in Canada and to create domestic electric vehicle manufacturing opportunities.
The cheery facade belies the deep divide that actually exists within “Team Canada”.
Eby said later that Alberta has yet to identify sites where a pipeline would exit, it has not yet identified a proponent who would fund it, nor engaged with coastal First Nations.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has also protested Ford’s plans to pull Crown Royal whisky from government-run liquor store shelves. The product is made in Gimli, Man.
Ford said he understands Kinew is “doing what any other premier would do, try to protect his jobs,” while Ontario is doing the same.
Maybe it’s time for a passive/aggressive approach to idiotic court rulings. In this case, I’d suggest putting every single story house on Bonaire on stilts and/or prohibiting the occupation of the first floor on multi-floor buildings. That much stair climbing will see that residents grow tired of climate change hysteria in short order.
A court on Wednesday ordered the Dutch government to draw up a plan to protect residents on the tiny Caribbean island of Bonaire from the effects of climate change — a sweeping victory for the islanders.
The Hague District Court, in a stunning rebuke of Dutch authorities, also ruled that the government discriminated against the island’s 20,000 inhabitants by not taking “timely and appropriate measures” to protect them from climate change before it’s too late.
If Carney’s polling numbers hold up, a spring election is a distinct possibility, and a Liberal majority would be the likely outcome. The reason is simple enough: once again, NDP and Bloc voters are stampeding to the Liberals. Inevitably, some will suggest that the Tories reinvent themselves to appeal to the left, but a string of electoral defeats with Red Tories at the helm points to the futility of that gambit. If that’s the best conservatives could do, why have a conservative party at all?
From coast to coast, Léger finds Mark Carney’s Liberals at 47% support among decided voters, up four points since Léger’s previous poll back in December. And this newfound support for the Liberals does not come at the expense of the Conservatives, who sit at 38%, themselves up two points.
As economist Daniel Lacalle points out, the rising dollar price of gold does not mean the US dollar is on the way out. Things are a bit more complicated than that in a fiat currency world with no exit ramps.
The same sources that show soaring gold demand also show that there is no true “dedollarization” in the sense of a fiat‑to‑fiat substitution. This also makes sense. The US dollar is the world’s strongest weak currency because it has a higher level of liquidity, more independent institutions, and better legal and investor security than any alternative. The US dollar is losing its place as a global reserve to gold but not losing its position relative to the euro, yen, pound, or yuan.
IMF COFER figures show that the US dollar’s share of allocated FX reserves remains at 59.6%, and when adjusted for exchange‑rate moves, the IMF itself concludes that the dollar’s share has been broadly stable, with recent declines explained mostly by valuation effects, not active selling. The euro, at 20.3%, is not even close to being a contender.
I’m not so sure that central banks have much of a choice when it comes to cutting interest rates, given the dynamics of fiat currencies with an exponentially growing debt load, but the fact that the mainstream financial media is even publishing Pelletier’s analysis is, in itself, a warning sign.
The issue now is that central banks appear close to implementing yet another round of QE, not to stabilize markets but simply to absorb the massive issuance of government debt. That’s where the real danger emerges: currency debasement. When a central bank prints money to finance deficits, the purchasing power of that currency erodes rapidly.
Now is an ideal time to revisit your portfolio. Start by examining your government bond exposure, especially in jurisdictions such as Canada, where the federal government holds no gold reserves and where 10‑year yields near three per cent offer little compensation for the level of risk.
Gold (and silver’s) near meteoric rise in terms of dollar price over the past few months periodically rekindles interest in “monetizing” the gold stock that sits in the vaults of a number of central banks, in the belief that this will usher in a financial bonanza. In my most recent Substack article, I demonstrate why such a move won’t do anything of the sort.
…the proposal that the Treasury can unlock over a trillion dollars of capital, and borrow against it, by correcting a bookkeeping error…might work if the Treasury had not undertaken to rack up $36 trillion in debt in the period since 1973, but that’s clearly not the case today. Simply put, the gold stock has already been borrowed against. Creditors have lent this sum of money to the US government with the knowledge that the gold stock is already implicitly underpinning the debt, even though today it can only underpin a small portion of it.
Another corporate headquarters heads south.
Green For Life Environmental (GFL), the ubiquitous waste management company that holds numerous local garbage contracts, announced on Wednesday that it is moving its corporate headquarters from Vaughan to Miami, resulting in about “a dozen” job losses, its CEO told CityNews.
Rather than shovel ever more taxpayer dollars at administratively bloated post-secondary institutions, why not privatize them so they are free to allocate resources based on actual demand from employers? Otherwise, they’ll just continue to give gender studies the same priority as engineering.
Ontario’s universities and colleges are looking for billion-dollar funding boosts in the province’s upcoming budget, investments they are framing as critical to Premier Doug Ford’s plan to “protect Ontario” from tariff impacts by strengthening domestic capabilities.
The Council of Ontario Universities says in its pre-budget submission that its institutions are at “a breaking point” and they are calling for an additional $1.2 billion in operating funding next year, with that amount increasing to $1.6 billion by 2028-29.
Related (from Kate): Up to 25 percent of U.S. colleges may close soon, Brandeis president warns
There’s a lot of talk these days about how the European Union is going to “stick it” to the US by potentially selling trillions of dollars worth of US treasury bills. But there’s a problem. Since every currency on earth is just a derivative of the US dollar, and has been since the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, Europe wouldn’t be “dumping” US dollars. Whatever financial instrument they get in return, they all share the same root: the US dollar.
One of my favorite financial commentators, Rafi Farber, explains the problem fully in this short video.
A cultural movement has to be dedicated to something more specific than “problem solving” to be remotely effective. Marxists, for instance, are as keen on solving problems as anyone, but view class warfare as the go-to solution and we know where that leads. It’s no shock that the backers of this vacuous nonsense are comprised of the usual gang of mainstream celebrities and non-profits.
Founding members range from nonprofits — including GivingTuesday, Goodwill Industries and Habitat for Humanity, businesses like Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment and the National Basketball Association, to funders like the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and More Perfect.
Hooks said this is a 10-year commitment toward trying to achieve what would be a profound shift in behavior and culture. He referenced a 2024 Pew Research Center survey that found most Americans in 2023 and 2024 did not believe that the U.S. could solve its most important problems, saying it was a “red alert” for the country.
In an expanding economy, mergers and acquisitions can streamline productive capacity to meet growing demand. In a shrinking economy, the purpose of a merger is often to sweep up the pieces of a dying business to salvage whatever is left of their capital. I’m not so sure that the upbeat tone of the article reflects the reality of the Canadian economy.
Canadian dealmaking activity is expected to pick up this year, driven by nation-building efforts and a stronger business outlook, according to a new survey by KPMG Canada.
Thirty-three per cent of business leaders polled indicated plans to make a major acquisition in the next 18 months to capitalize on potential growth opportunities, the survey released on Monday found.
I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that Canadians need to be less concerned about Trump and more concerned that voters essentially opted for a continuation of the Trudeau years with a few tweaks.
“Businesses aren’t panicking, but they aren’t betting big either,” Patrick Gill, vice-president of the business data lab at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said.
“Pessimism about the next 12 months is now at its highest point in several years,” he said. “In that environment, firms are holding back on major expansion and taking a clear wait-and-see approach as they look for more clarity on U.S. trade policy and demand conditions.”
Here’s a suggestion for Canadian airline regulators: maybe if foreign carriers were allowed to compete in the Canadian market, domestic airlines wouldn’t try to make their planes even more of a cattle car than they already are.
In the wake of a backlash sparked by a viral video, WestJet has cancelled a new seat configuration that squeezed an extra row on board many of its planes and left passengers with less legroom.
Already installed on 22 of WestJet’s Boeing 737s, the non-reclining seats in a majority of the cabin’s economy section featured the smallest amount of leg room on any large Canadian carrier.
I like Jeff Snider’s podcasts and in this one he spends the first half talking about Canadian real estate investment funds that are starting to restrict payouts. Given that Canadian real estate values are crashing, if they don’t halt outflows the funds could quickly become insolvent. The Bloomberg article he quotes is behind a paywall, but he conveniently scrolls through it so you can read the whole thing.
I have my disagreements with Plato, but I think he’s essential reading for a course in philosophy. Texas A&M, on the other hand, begs to differ.
Most philosophy nerds will recognize the “gender ideology” readings in question, which are lifted from the Symposium. The university apparently quibbled with Plato’s reference the the “Myth of Androgyne,” in which Aristophanes describes three genders.
The regents used AI analysis software to audit syllabi for unapproved content.
Now that the governing party is in disarray, maybe there’s hope for a solidly positive yes vote in a referendum.
Quebec Premier François Legault announced Wednesday that he would resign after more than seven years in power, triggering a leadership race and further upending the province’s political landscape with only months to go before the fall provincial election.
It looks like it’s not just a matter of people being unable to afford coffee at MacDonald’s anymore. The high end consumer looks to be tapped out as well. Maybe they should have hedged with some silver purchases.
The owner of Saks Fifth Avenue is seeking bankruptcy protection, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, just over a year ago.
On a personal note, a salesman from a manfacturing input vendor told me yesterday that one of his clients, a well know agricultural equipment manufacturer in western Canada, is bracing for a 40% decline in sales this year.