Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Bank of Canada holds steady on borrowing costs on expectation of falling inflation
As widely expected, the Bank of Canada has held its benchmark interest rate steady at 4.5 per cent, with the expectation that inflation will fall rapidly in the coming months.
At the same time, Governor Tiff Macklem pushed back against market expectations that the central bank will start cutting interest rates this year.
“The economy is expected to grow modestly even as inflation comes down. This is good news, but it is not job done,” he said in a press conference.
“If monetary policy is not restrictive enough to get us all the way back to the 2-per-cent target, we are prepared to raise the policy rate further to get there,” he added.
Related: ”Rate cuts are likely before the year is out”: How investors and economists are reacting to today’s Bank of Canada policy decision
Opinion:
- In today’s economy, rate relief for borrowers requires a grimmer outlook for your personal finances – Rob Carrick
- Bank of Canada was right to hold interest rates steady, even if that was difficult – Don Drummond, C.D. Howe Institute
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Federal workers vote to give union strike mandate in talks with Ottawa
More than 100,000 federal public servants could go on strike this week after a majority of them voted to walk off the job. It’s the latest action in a long-running labour dispute over wages between Ottawa and the union that represents the workers.
Public Service Alliance of Canada announced today that an “overwhelming majority” of members it represents voted in favour of a strike mandate. The union is in negotiations with the Treasury Board, and is in a legal strike position if the two sides do not reach a deal.
Ottawa has been in negotiations for new collective agreements with nearly all the unions representing more than 300,000 federal public servants over the past year.
Last week, 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers also represented by PSAC voted to strike, which could potentially come at the height of tax filing season. They will be in a legal strike position as of April 14.
How the Chinese donation triggered a governance crisis at the Trudeau Foundation
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation was plunged into crisis in March, weeks after The Globe and Mail reported that a large 2016 donation came from Beijing rather than a Chinese billionaire, according to an internal document obtained by La Presse.
The foundation had announced it would return $140,000 to the Chinese benefactor, but problems cropped up when it prepared to send back the money, the document shows. Its board was alerted that the name on the reimbursement cheque would not be the name of the real donor.
Because the name of the true donor did not appear anywhere on the foundation’s accounting records, such a reimbursement would have been unlawful, according to the document.
These and other revelations emerged after the foundation announced its CEO and board of directors resigned, citing political backlash.
ALSO ON OUR RADAR
War in Ukraine developments: Ukraine has compared Russia to the Islamic State and called on the International Criminal Court to investigate after a video emerged online showing apparent Russian soldiers filming themselves beheading a Ukrainian captive with a knife.
U.S. inflation cools: Lower costs for gas and food helped ease consumer inflation in March in the United States. But prices are still rising fast enough to keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates at least once more, beginning in May.
Prince Harry going to coronation: The Duke of Sussex will attend the coronation next month of his father King Charles, but his wife Meghan will remain in California with the couple’s young children.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index rose today as higher commodity prices boosted resource shares and the central bank kept interest rates unchanged as expected. Wall Street indexes closed in the red, after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s March policy meeting revealed concern among several members of the Federal Open Markets Committee regarding the regional bank liquidity crisis.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index advanced 32.47 points or 0.16 per cent to 20,454.32. The loonie traded at 74.39 U.S. cents.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 38.29 points or 0.11 per cent to 33,646.50, the S&P 500 fell 16.99 points or 0.41 per cent to 4,091.95, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 102.54 points or 0.85 per cent to 11,929.34.
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TALKING POINTS
His progressive mission accomplished, Trudeau should prepare his departure
“He can leave with a good liberal legacy in place. Or like many power-addicted leaders before him, he can let his ego get the better of him and run the risk of going down in flames. The choice should be obvious.” – Lawrence Martin
The stadium – and team – is better at Blue Jays home opener
“The improvements have made the Toronto’s concrete baseball tomb less like an Albanian pillbox and more like Cleveland. This is the unusual instance where that is a good thing.” – Cathal Kelly
LIVING BETTER
Listen and learn: Buying items used is a great way to save money and cut back on waste. It isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s gaining more popularity as the cost of living soars. In the latest episode of the Stress Test podcast, three guests share their experiences thrifting and advice on how to get a good deal.
TODAY’S LONG READ
Map of dark matter sheds new light on forces shaping the universe
Researchers used the Atacama Cosmology Telescope to create this new map of the dark matter. The orange regions show where there is more mass; purple where there is less or none. The whitish band shows where contaminating light from dust in our Milky Way galaxy, measured by the Planck satellite, obscures a deeper view.ACT Collaboration/Supplied
A sprawling map that shows how dark matter was distributed in space during earlier periods in cosmic history has given researchers an important new tool for measuring the large-scale forces shaping the universe.
The result has deepened a scientific mystery around why measurements that are based on stars and galaxies much closer to us in space and time are not in exact agreement with measurements taken from the very early universe. But researchers behind the map say the result is so precise it reduces the chances that there are unknown laws of physics that can account for the mismatch.
“The realm of where new physics would have to be is getting smaller and smaller,” said Mark Halpern, an observational cosmologist at the University of British Columbia and a member of the international research team behind the map. Read Ivan Sememiuk’s full story.
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