Last Week in Canadian Business: A Recap

Real Estate

In a bid to cool down the overheating market in Vancouver, the British Columbia legislature met again last Monday in a bid to debate whether to impose taxes on vacant houses in the city. There are fears that a large number of people are buying houses but leaving them vacant in a city where houses come at a premium. In Wednesday of last week also, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released the latest quarterly housing assessments analyzing the market conditions in certain cities.

The Economy

Last week Friday, the country released the GDP numbers of May which happens to be the month that wildfires erupted in Fort Murray. The wildfires really impacted the economy negatively, it caused the closure of oil sands operations and significantly reduced crude oil production. These have effectively caused the growth prospects of the second quarter to be of a pessimistic one.

Blackberry

The mobile phone company is trying to change the perspective of people and organizations when it comes to mobile security and privacy, it held a special event for this last week Tuesday.

Net Earnings

It is that time of the year when companies evaluate their earnings and check their income. A number of companies from different industries reported their income and earnings last week. These companies are Canadian National Railway Co., Torstar Corp., BarrickGiold Corp., Loblaw Cos. Ltd., TransCanada Corp., Enbridge Inc. and WestJest Airlines Ltd.

U.S. Politics

With Republican nominee Donald Trump promising the renegotiation of the North American free-trade deal and voicing his discontent with the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal all eyes will be on the Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton. The Democratic nominee gave a speech last week and many parties, including Canada, will have had keen interest in what she had to say about trade deals giving that she has been unsupportive of the TPP.