Morning Update: Bank of Canada’s policy-makers split on need for further rate hikes

Good morning,

The Bank of Canada’s Governing Council is divided on whether more interest-rate increases will be needed to get inflation back in control, according to a summary of the discussions that took place ahead of the central bank’s latest rate decision.

The bank held its policy rate steady at 5 per cent on Oct. 25 for the second announcement in a row, but warned that it could hike again.

The summary of deliberations, published yesterday, shows Governor Tiff Macklem and the bank’s five deputy governors remain concerned that high inflation is becoming unshakeable, with some wondering whether they’ve tightened monetary policy enough.

The rare public split among senior policy-makers highlights the challenge the Bank of Canada faces amid conflicting economic signals.

• David Parkinson: There’s dissent at the Bank of Canada, and the fact we know about it is progress

Open this photo in gallery:

This is the daily Morning Update newsletter. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for Morning Update and more than 20 other Globe newsletters on our newsletter signup page.

Huawei still filing patents tied to work with Canadian universities after Ottawa’s restrictions

Huawei Technologies is still seeking patents for research it conducted with publicly funded universities in Canada, more than two years after the federal government began restricting funding for academic partnerships with entities connected to foreign states considered national security risks.

In the past two years, the Chinese tech company has filed patent applications for research on 5G wireless, artificial intelligence, semi-conductors and optical communications, done in collaboration with academics and inventors at the University of Toronto, McMaster University, Western University, the University of British Columbia and Queen’s University.

All of those universities, with the exception of Queen’s, told The Globe and Mail they are fulfilling pre-existing contractual partnership agreements, but that they intend to cut ties with Huawei and will not commit to new research collaborations with the company.

For Canadians who fled Gaza, a mix of relief and survivor’s guilt

The first group of Canadians to escape the Gaza Strip felt a sense of relief as they settled into their hotel rooms in Cairo yesterday, but also a sense of survivor’s guilt as they left family and friends back in the besieged territory where food, water and other basic necessities are scarce.

A group of 75 Canadians, permanent residents of Canada and their eligible family members were allowed to cross Gaza’s Rafah border with Egypt on Tuesday. At least 29 more appeared on a list of 560 people approved to make the crossing yesterday. But unspecified security concerns led officials to close the border unexpectedly before any evacuees could get through, stranding hundreds of people desperate to escape as the war entered a second month.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller says the immigration status and supports available for evacuees will have to be determined based on individual circumstances once people make their way to Canada.

• Israeli strikes pound Gaza City as tens of thousands flee
• Justin Trudeau decries ‘terrifying’ rise in antisemitism, growing Islamophobia
• Opinion: Canada has a duty to do more for innocent civilians in Gaza

Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop

Also on our radar

Allegations about ArriveCan app ‘extremely concerning,’ Trudeau says: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced questions from the opposition in the House of Commons yesterday, a day after the former director-general of Canada Border Services Agency told MPs that Minh Doan, the current federal chief technology officer, lied to MPs about whether he was involved in the decision to award the ArriveCan app contract to an IT staffing firm. Trudeau called the reports “extremely concerning” and said “the respective authorities will be taking this extremely seriously.”

• Campbell Clark: A bureaucrat points a finger in an ArriveCan whodunnit

Smith’s overhaul strips health agency of powers: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is stripping her province’s health authority of the power to formulate policy, allocate funding and make other major decisions – and shifting those responsibilities to the government.

Trump’s rivals take aim in third debate: Donald Trump’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination took direct aim at the former president even though he skipped the debate – accusing him of “getting weak in the knees” on foreign policy and failing on signature campaign promises such as the Mexican border wall – as they desperately tried to arrest his runaway momentum in their third debate.

• David Shribman: Field of Republican presidential candidates is smaller, but latest debate shows the differences are bigger

Actors, studios reach deal to end strike: The actors union and Hollywood studios reached a tentative deal yesterday to end a months-long strike that brought the entertainment industry to a historic halt.

Mental health crisis grows for Ukrainian children: Trauma among soldiers who endured brutal combat situations is well-known, but less is known about how trauma is crushing children across Ukraine. War trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder, has created what some trauma psychiatrists and psychologists call the silent crisis among children in Ukraine.

Morning markets

Global shares shift higher: The bulls remained in charge on Thursday as bets that major central banks are now done with rate hikes and the recent slide in oil prices kept global borrowing costs near their lowest levels in months. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 0.02 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 added 0.38 per cent and 0.57 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei rose 1.49 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slid 0.33 per cent. New York futures were modestly higher. The Canadian dollar was up slightly at 72.51 US cents.

What everyone’s talking about

Editorial: “Thirty years ago, Canada could be rightly thought of as one of the more prosperous countries in the world. … That’s the past. The present and future look to be a great deal less pleasant: Canada is not just losing ground relative to other countries but there is an increasing likelihood of an outright decline in living standards.”

Jon Shell: “The impact of cutting investors’ share of future home sales in half, to a level not significantly lower than it was 10 years ago, would be both immediate and dramatic. It would open up about 75,000 homes next year for first-time homebuyers and, as the supply of homes ramps up, could make upward of a million available over the next decade. All with no additional shovels, and no additional costs. If we do nothing on that front, too many new homes will go to investors, reducing the impact of a much-needed housing supply strategy.”

Today’s editorial cartoon

Open this photo in gallery:

Living better

How to manage the costs of kids’ sports

Most parents know how expensive organized sports have become. At a time when higher interest rates and mortgage payments, coupled with soaring inflation, are hurting household budgets across the country, how are families paying for such activities? Here’s some advice on how not to blow the family budget.

Moment in time: Nov. 9, 1989

Open this photo in gallery:

Berlin Wall falls

At the end of the Second World War, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, each controlled by one of the Allied powers: Britain, France, the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The German capital, Berlin, was similarly divided into four sectors, even though the entire city was located within the eastern part of Germany under Soviet control. In 1949, two Germanys were established: the capitalist Federal Republic in the West and the communist Democratic Republic in the East. The standard of living in the Western zones of Berlin improved quickly, and residents of East Berlin, fleeing poverty and political persecution, crossed over in great numbers. That ground to a halt in 1961, when East Germany erected the Berlin Wall to keep residents from leaving. On this day in 1989 – less than a week after half a million took to the streets of East Berlin demanding democracy – the Berlin Wall collapsed. Thousands of ecstatic Berliners chipped away at it with hammers and pickaxes in scenes televised around the world. The Soviet Union collapsed two years later, in no small part because of the fall of the Wall. Daniel Reale-Chin

Enjoy today's horoscopes. Solve today's puzzles. Read today's Letters to the Editor.

If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday morning, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.