The annual pace of inflation held steady at 1.7 per cent in May as cooling shelter costs helped tame price pressures, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday.
Shelter costs rose three per cent in May, the agency said, marking a slowdown from 3.4 per cent in April.
Statistics Canada singled out Ontario as the major source of rent relief in the country. Slowing population growth and a jump in new supply helped dampen rent hikes in May.
“We know that population in Canada did not increase in the first quarter and immigration policies are a lot stricter now. That has led housing demand to go down, which in turn decreased rent prices, as well housing prices,” said Tu Nguyen, an economist at RSM Canada.
Mortgage interest costs, meanwhile, decelerated for the 21st consecutive month amid lower interest rates from the Bank of Canada.
Economists had broadly expected inflation would remain unchanged heading into Tuesday. And according to Nguyen, retaliatory tariffs haven’t fed as much into price growth as some were expecting.
“A lot of important exports were able to access the market tax-free, thanks to CUSMA,” said Nguyen, referencing the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement.
“A lot of goods became CUSMA-compliant, making them eligible to be imported or exported without getting tariffed, basically. I think that’s why we haven’t seen a material increase in prices — and that’s generally good news for Canadians.”
Core measures ticked down slightly
The removal of the consumer carbon price continues to drive down gasoline costs annually, Statistics Canada said, but a smaller monthly decline in prices at the pump from this time last year limited the drop.
The cost of food from the grocery store rose 3.3 per cent annually in May, half a percentage point lower than the hike seen in April.
Lower prices on travel tours and air transportation also dampened inflation last month.
The agency says the cost of a new vehicle accelerated in May, rising 4.9 per cent annually, thanks in large part to more expensive electric vehicles.
Inflation excluding tax changes — stripping out influences from the carbon price removal — was also steady at 2.3 per cent last month.
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said last week that the central bank would be paying closer attention to this figure as it tries to look past temporary impacts to see what’s really happening to inflation amid tariffs.
The central bank’s closely watched core inflation metrics ticked down a tenth of a percentage point to three per cent in May.
“The latest inflation results are broadly similar to April’s outing — a deceptively calm headline number with core hovering too far above the two per cent target for comfort,” wrote Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO.
“The [Bank of Canada] will likely need to see much more improvement before it’s convinced that underlying inflation is headed back to two per cent.”
The Bank of Canada’s next interest rate decision is set for July 30.
Scientists in Canada are scrambling. Over the past few months, the U.S. government has cut billions of dollars in funding from scientific research as part of sweeping cost-cutting measures.
“It’s really shocking. It’s really like this big cloud over science,” Kate Moran, CEO of Ocean Networks Canada, told Quirks & Quarks. Ocean Networks Canada participates in a project called the Argo system, an international program that collects information from on and under the ocean using a fleet of robotic instruments that drift with the ocean currents.
But that program, which is led by researchers in the U.S., could be at risk.
Kate Moran, CEO of Ocean Networks Canada, says Canada has an opportunity to step up and fill some of the funding gaps left by the U.S. (Gian Paolo Mendoza/CBC)
Many Canadian research groups rely heavily on U.S. partners for support and data. But since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, that support has taken a massive hit.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has fired hundreds of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and deleted government websites with data on the weather and climate. (Chandan Khanna/Getty Images)
“My Administration is committed to restoring a gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful, and that Federal decisions are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”
Environment and Climate Change Canada told CBC in a statement it “has a long-standing relationship with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on operational and research activities related to weather, climate, satellites, and water monitoring,” and that the “department has not been formally informed of any changes to its collaboration with NOAA.”
The trickle-down effect of cuts has left Canadian researchers trying to figure out how to adapt to these uncertain times, while others say it’s now Canada’s responsibility to step up.
The political climate has Debra Wench on edge. She relies heavily on information from long-term monitoring projects to fuel her research into the carbon cycle.
Wench studies how carbon flows between different climates. To do that, she needs long-term data sets collected from satellites. Wench says the U.S. operates a lot of the satellites used in her research.
“I’m not really sure how to express this. It’s mostly, for me, a sense of impending doom,” said Wench, an associate professor at the University of Toronto.
“It’s taken decades and the careers of thousands of people to build up these measurement records, and it looks like it will take months to destroy them.”
A woman holds a sign during a rally protesting the Trump administration’s science policies and federal job cuts in March. (Nam Y. Huh/The Associated Press )
Though she didn’t want to specify which specific instruments she uses, she says she’s concerned it’s on the chopping block in the U.S., which would mean a loss of long-term monitoring.
Then there’s HAWC, a project that will use three Canadian-built instruments to measure the amount of aerosols, water vapour and thin ice clouds in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.
The information could be used to improve future climate projects, assuming it continues to receive NASA support.
WATCH | Canadian scientists trying to keep world’s ocean sensors afloat:
Canadian scientists trying to keep world’s ocean sensors afloat
15 days ago
Duration 1:32
These robot scientists dive deep into the ocean to measure the vital signs of planet Earth. But proposed funding cuts in the U.S. could mean critical climate data is on the chopping block.
“Much of it is just so speculative, right?” said Chris Fletcher, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo.
“We’re still kind of on the descent…. So it’s unclear yet exactly how all of this will shake out, and it’s quite unsettling.”
One of the HAWC instruments was supposed to be attached to a NASA satellite. But Fletcher says that’s now in question.
“I’m confident from the Canadian side that because of this tremendous investment that Canada has made, that our instruments will fly. The question is about which components of the proposed NASA mission will fly,” said Fletcher.
CBC reached out to the Canadian Space Agency, but did not recieve a comment before publication.
What happens next
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada did not provide an interview or comment to CBC about how Canada plans to respond to funding cuts in the U.S.
Frédéric Bouchard says the turmoil in the U.S. means a greater responsibility for Canada to assert its scientific sovereignty. He was part of the federally funded Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System, which, in 2023, took a deep dive into how Canada could better support scientific research.
“It’s our own responsibility to make sure that we have a strong and generous science capacity so we have access to the experts we need, when we need them,” said Bouchard, a philosopher of science and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at the Université de Montréal.
Workers prepare the NISAR satellite, a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization in 2023. Researchers worry satellites like this could be at risk. (Patrick T. Fallon/Getty Images)
“We shouldn’t wait for other countries to do all the hard work and hope that we can benefit from it.”
He also said it will be important to invest in the future, including support for graduate students both in Canada and abroad in the United States, to make sure they’re able to continue work in their field.
Even so, Bouchard says, what’s happening in the U.S. is going to have an impact — there’s no stopping that.
“What’s happening is destabilizing science across the world,” said Bouchard.
“We need to make sure we play a larger role and that we build our own muscle mass, if you will, to be able to withstand more of the disruption.”
Frédéric Bouchard says Canada has a responsibility to step up amid turmoil in the U.S. (Jeff Kowalsky/Getty Images)
Moran says Ocean Networks Canada, and other organizations like it, are ready to do so. She says they are prepared to do simple things, such as download data to protect the long-term data sets.
And if there are more cuts in the U.S., she says she’s prepared to make the case to the Canadian government and request more funding.
“We’re talking about what we could do to fill those gaps,” said Moran. “Canada has all the skills and knowledge and scientists.”
LISTEN | How Canadian scientists are coping with U.S. cuts and chaos:
Quirks and Quarks54:00Scientific Sovereignty — How Canadian scientists are coping with U.S. cuts and chaos
Two former athletes from Garden River First Nation in northeastern Ontario will be inducted into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame this year.
Former NHL player and coach Ted Nolan, and his cousin Darren Zack, a fastball pitcher, will both receive the honour at a ceremony in Gatineau, Que., in October.
“It’s a big deal to have two people from the same First Nation community in northern Ontario,” Nolan told CBC News.
“Who would ever think that we would get the highest honour in probably the most prestigious sports hall of fame in Canada?”
Lesotho scrambled to put together a delegation on Friday to head to Washington to engage with the United States on tariffs that risk wiping out nearly half of its exports, its trade minister said, in what could be a death blow to its economy.
The 50 per cent reciprocal trade tariff on the tiny southern African mountain kingdom was the highest levy on U.S. President Donald Trump’s list of target economies.
“The latest policy direction undertaken by the United States is shocking,” Trade Minister Mokhethi Shelile told parliament on Friday, adding that 45 per cent of its exports went to the United States.
He said that officials had already engaged the U.S. embassy “to clarify and how, why Lesotho was included in the list of … such high reciprocal tariffs.”
Trump on Wednesday hit America’s global trading partners with tariffs, upending decades of rules-based trade that campaigners have long said is exceptionally favourable to rich countries like the United States. The rationale for the specific tariff rate has not been delineated by the White House, though theories of how the rates were calculated have emerged.
Encircled by South Africa, the kingdom of two million people is one of the world’s poorest countries, with GDP per capita of $916 US in 2023, according to World Bank figures.
Lesotho’s exports to the United States, mostly textiles for popular brands such as Levi’s jeans as well as diamonds, represented more than one-tenth of the country’s GDP.
“The 50 per cent reciprocal tariff introduced by the U.S. government is going to kill the textile and apparel sector in Lesotho,” Thabo Qhesi, a Maseru-based independent economic analyst, told Reuters.
American exports to Lesotho in 2024 were $2.8 million, according to U.S. government figures. U.S. goods imports from Lesotho in 2024 were $237.3 million, up from 2023, but less than in many recent years, when the figure hovered near or above the $300-million mark.
According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, delivery trucks, vaccines and food preparation machinery made up the bulk of American exports to Lesotho in 2023.
Previous pain from USAID cuts
Oxford Economics said the textile sector, with some 40,000 workers, was Lesotho’s biggest private employer and accounted for roughly 90 per cent of manufacturing employment and exports.
“Then you are having retailers who are selling food. And then you have residential property owners who are renting houses for the workers. So this means if the closure of factories were to happen, the industry is going to die and there will be multiplier effects,” Qhesi said.
WATCH l The peculiar names found on Washington’s tariff list:
Trump’s tariffs target a U.S. airbase and penguins
3 months ago
Duration 1:21
U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping ‘Liberation Day’ reciprocal tariffs were described as ‘meticulously planned,’ but among the targets are the landlocked African nation of Lesotho, an island home to a U.S. airbase, and Australia’s Heard Island and McDonald Islands — where most residents are penguins.
Shelile, the minister, said Lesotho is assembling a high-level delegation to the United States. In the medium term, he said, the kingdom would “increase efforts to export to alternative markets such as the European Union and the Africa free continental trade area.”
Lesotho was previously impacted by the Trump administration’s change in philosophy from previous administrations with respect to foreign aid.
Its foreign minister told Reuters last month that the country, which has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world, was already feeling the impact of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cuts as its health sector had been reliant on them.
Trump, in an address to Congress last month, decried some of the aid that had previously been earmarked for Lesotho, characterizing at as an “African nation” that “no one has ever heard of.” Laughter from Republican lawmakers could be heard in the House of Representatives chamber after his comment.
The B.C. billionaire looking to turn Hudson’s Bay’s old digs into her own retail empire left court Monday with the beginnings of her venture in hand — and a looming fight that could curtail her full ambitions.
Ontario Superior Court Judge Peter Osborne granted Ruby Liu permission to take over leases for three Hudson’s Bay properties in malls she owns. She will pay $6 million for the set of leases at Tsawwassen Mills in Vancouver, Mayfair Shopping Centre in Greater Victoria and Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo, B.C.
“She is contributing millions of dollars of real value to the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act process,” said David Ward, a lawyer representing Liu. “She is betting on herself.”
As he spoke, Liu and an entourage of her staff looked on from the gallery. Earlier that morning, she arrived clad in a stylish black blazer and high heel boots, carrying a Louis Vuitton purse. She posed for photos beside the court coat of arms and told media she was planning to move to Toronto.
WATCH | The Bay closes its doors:
Hudson’s Bay closes its doors after 355 years
1 month ago
Duration 2:06
Canadians said a final farewell to the Hudson’s Bay Company on Sunday as the country’s oldest retailer closed the doors to all its stores after filing for bankruptcy in March.
The sale of some Hudson’s Bay leases comes after the storied department store filed for creditor protection in March, a few months shy of its 355th birthday. In the months after, it looked for a buyer who could keep some semblance of the retailer alive, but the search was fruitless.
By June 1, all 80 Bays and 16 stores run under the Saks brands closed, putting their leases up for grabs. A dozen bidders made offers on a collective 39 properties.
Liu looks to open chain of modernized department stores
Liu, who made her money in China’s real estate market, wound up winning the leases at three malls she runs because her bid had a superior value and terms, the Bay has said.
Liu wants to use the properties to open a chain of modernized department stores she will name after herself. She has told The Canadian Press they will sell makeup, jewelry and apparel, but will also have play spaces for children, dining areas and entertainment space.
Liu will pay $6 million for the set of leases at Tsawwassen Mills, pictured here, as well as Mayfair Shopping Centre and Woodgrove Centre. (Farrah Merali/CBC)
She expects to spend more than $30 million to revamp the spaces at her malls to accommodate her Ruby Liu stores.
And that’s just the beginning. The Bay has reached a deal with her for 25 more leases belonging to it and its sister Saks companies.
Anyone who made an offer for leases had to make a deposit of 10 per cent of their estimated purchase price. Court documents show Liu made a deposit of $9.4 million, in addition to $6 million for the three approved leases, which would equate to a purchase price of $100 million for 28 leases.
“That is not really a business plan, that is a full-circle investment,” Liu’s lawyer Ward said in recommending the court accept the three-lease deal.
‘Troubled’ process: lawyer
The remaining 25 leases are in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario properties she doesn’t own. The Bay has yet to seek court approval for the arrangement, but landlords for the spaces are overwhelmingly opposed to her moving in.
Court documents filed last week show landlords representing 23 leases in a group of 25 Liu wants to purchase won’t approve her plan.
“We actually think it is 25 of 25 that have objected,” David Bish, a lawyer for landlord Cadillac Fairview, told the judge in court on Monday.
Liu says she plans to name her retail stores after herself. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
He said his client and others have been provided with no copies of Liu’s bid and little information about her plan.
“The process has been very troubled,” Bish said.
“At some point, we may discuss, if there is a forced assignment, how troubled it has been.”
Lawyers for Oxford Properties and Primaris echoed his comments.
Since it became clear that Liu’s 25-lease transaction was facing opposition, she and her staff have been on a charm offensive.
They launched a petition asking the public to support their goal. It had about 330 signatures as of Monday morning.
They also published a public letter from Liu, who said her quest to own the Bay’s leases is about reimagining retail and finding a way to give back to a country that gave her a new life.
Liu admitted her task “won’t be easy.” She said some, including her own family, have questioned her and whether she will spend her whole fortune on the venture.
“To me, this isn’t a gamble. It’s not just about money or profit,” she wrote. “It’s about building something meaningful — a space full of life, where people can reconnect in the real world.”
Liu had bid on owning the Bay’s name and trademarks but says she backed down after realizing she would have to continue to increase her offer to compete with Canadian Tire, which ultimately won the right to buy the intellectual property for $30 million.
British police charged actor-comedian Russell Brand with rape and multiple counts of assault connected to a number of allegations between 1999 and 2005, a police statement on Friday said.
Brand, 50, the former husband of U.S. pop singer Katy Perry and once one of Britain’s most high-profile comedians and broadcasters, had repositioned himself in recent years as an internet social commentator.
Police said Brand, who lives in Oxfordshire, southern England, was charged with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault, and the charges relate to four separate women.
The alleged offences took place in central London and the English seaside town of Bournemouth.
“The [police] investigation remains open and detectives ask anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information, to come forward and speak with police,” the statement said.
In September 2023, British media outlets Channel 4 and the Sunday Times published claims by four women of being sexually assaulted or raped by Brand. The accusers have not been identified.
The comedian, author and podcaster has denied the allegations, saying his relationships were “always consensual.”
WATCH | Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assault in 2023:
Russell Brand accused of rape, sexual assault
2 years ago
Duration 2:07
According to a joint investigation by three British news organizations, comedian Russell Brand is being accused of rape and sexual assault. Four women are alleging that Brand sexually assaulted them at the height of his fame — which he denies.
Known for his unbridled and risque standup routines, Brand hosted shows on radio and television, wrote memoirs charting his battles with drugs and alcohol, appeared in several Hollywood movies and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry between 2010 and 2012.
In recent years, Brand has largely disappeared from mainstream media but has built up a large following online with videos mixing wellness and conspiracy theories. He recently said he had moved to the United States.
In a video posted Friday on X, Brand said “I’ve never engaged in non-consensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”
He added that “I am now going to have the opportunity to defend these charges in court, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.”
Brand is due to appear in a London court on May 2.
Jaswant Narwal, of Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, said prosecutors “carefully reviewed the evidence after a police investigation into allegations made following the broadcast of a Channel 4 documentary in September 2023.
“We have concluded that Russell Brand should be charged with offences including rape, sexual assault and indecent assault,” Narwal said.
“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds everyone that criminal proceedings are active, and the defendant has the right to a fair trial.”
In January, the BBC apologized to staff members who felt unable to complain about Brand’s conduct because of his celebrity status. Brand had two weekly radio shows on the BBC from 2006 to 2008, and worked periodically on a number of short-term projects.
The BBC acknowledged it was “clear that presenters have been able to abuse their positions” in the past.
