In the news today: Interest rate cut possible this week: Economists

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed…

President Joe Biden ends his 2024 re-election bid

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined a chorus of officials and political compatriots praising Joe Biden’s years of public service on Sunday after the president bowed to weeks of mounting pressure and officially withdrew from his country’s looming election.

Biden’s decision to step aside as the Democrat candidate, announced in a letter posted to social media, came after members of his own party spoke out in increasing numbers to voice concerns over the 81-year-old’s mental acuity and ability to win the faceoff with Republican rival Donald Trump.

Trudeau said he’s known Biden for years and called the president a “true friend.”

The Democrats’ calls for Biden to drop out of the race began after a disastrous debate performance against Trump and intensified following multiple missteps on the world stage during the recent NATO leaders’ summit in Washington.

Concern mounted as the president made more questionable public appearances, but it remained unclear whether Biden would continue. The president told supporters Friday he was ready to get back on the road this week after recovering from COVID-19, which he contracted during a critical time for his campaign.

But he changed direction Sunday afternoon, first sharing his announcement online then throwing his support behind Vice-President Kamala Harris soon after.

Here’s what else we’re watching…

Interest rate cut possible this week: Economists

Economists and market watchers are betting the Bank of Canada will deliver another interest rate cut this week amid mounting evidence that inflation is sustainably easing.

Expectations that the bank will lower its overnight lending rate when it makes its scheduled announcement Wednesday have been high since last week’s release of the latest Statistics Canada inflation report, which showed annual inflation cooled to 2.7 per cent in June.

The inflation reading was less than the 2.8 per cent that markets had been expecting and has helped to build market confidence that the Bank of Canada may be poised for a second rate cut, on top of the 25-basis-point cut it announced last month.

Last month’s interest rate cut, which reduced the central bank’s key rate from five to 4.75 per cent, was the first in more than four years.

Royce Mendes with Desjardins says in addition to the latest inflation report, recent data showing rising unemployment as well as subdued expectations for growth by Canadian businesses all support the prospect of another cut.

While inflation remains higher than the Bank of Canada’s two per cent target, Mendes said he believes delaying any longer could have negative repercussions.

LCBO workers back on the job after ratifying deal

Workers are back on the job today at Ontario’s main liquor retailer, but the Liquor Control Board of Ontario says stores won’t be open for business until Tuesday.

The union representing 10,000 of its workers announced Sunday members had ratified a new deal with the liquor retailer to end a strike that had closed its stores for two weeks.

The ratification came after the deal seemed to be up in the air on Friday.

Both OPSEU and the LCBO had announced a tentative agreement had been reached but the union said the strike would continue after the employer refused to sign a return-to-work protocol.

The retailer said the union had introduced new monetary demands and the employer would file an unfair labour practice complaint.

But the LCBO issued a statement on Saturday saying reopening plans were back underway, and a return-to-work protocol signed by both parties does not include any “new monetary items.”

A look at one year of strong mayor powers

In the year since so-called strong mayor powers were granted to the heads of council in a swath of Ontario municipalities, most mayors have used them sparingly — if at all — though in some corners a sense of unease with the sweeping authority remains.

As of this month, nearly 30 mayors have had the ability for a year or more to propose bylaws and pass them with the support of one-third of councillors, veto bylaws and hire and fire department heads, among other powers.

Premier Doug Ford’s government later doled out the powers to many more mayors, even when they were not interested in receiving them, and Ontario now has a total of 46 strong mayors.

Many of them are in the province’s largest cities, and the chair of the Ontario Big City Mayors group said by and large the mayors have “exercised enormous restraint and responsibility” in exercising the powers.

Year after flood took four lives, reforms are slow

The mother of a boy who died a year ago in a Nova Scotia flood says her grief returns daily, along with frustration over what she considers the province’s slow pace in reforming its preparations for climate disasters.

Tera Sisco’s six-year-old son Colton Sisco died after the vehicle he was in overturned during torrential thunderstorms on July 22, 2023. About 258 millimetres of rain to the municipality of West Hants — a rural area northwest of Halifax — fell during the overnight flash flood.

Natalie Harnish, six, died in the same vehicle as Sisco, while 52-year-old Nick Holland and 14-year-old Terri-Lynn Keddy were swept away from a vehicle on the same road and also died.

The tragedy has drawn repeated calls for the Progressive Conservative government to improve the province’s emergency alert system, as severe weather events are hitting the province with disturbing regularity.

A recent review released by the municipality of West Hants said two hours and 41 minutes passed between the first rescue responses and the province sending an alert urging citizens to “shelter in place.” Blair Feltmate, director of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo has called that “far too long a delay.”

Elation in Newfoundland town for rescued fishers

There was a powerful word being repeated in the joyful Newfoundland community of New-Wes-Valley on Sunday: “Miracle.”

Over and over, residents out walking or chatting to one another in local stores described the rescue of seven fishermen from the area who had somehow survived two days in a life-raft on the Atlantic ocean as nothing short of miraculous.

The Elite Navigator fishing boat and its crew seemed to vanish on Wednesday night after several days at sea fishing for turbot. The craft was reported missing on Thursday after transmitting its final signal at around 8:30 p.m. the night before, the Canadian Coast Guard said. The vessel had caught fire, forcing the crew to abandon the ship and wait for rescue on the life-raft.

In New-Wes-Valley, which is an amalgamation of three small fishing communities along Newfoundland’s northeast coast, people braced for the worst. Fishing is among Canada’s deadliest professions, and tragedy is a common thread linking coastal communities across Atlantic Canada.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2024.

The Canadian Press