Despite a rate cut by the Bank of Canada, the country’s housing market remained slow. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Washington D.C. this week, attending the NATO summit.
Here are the top stories this week.
CANADA AT NATO
Canada urged to spend more on defence as NATO chief addresses summit
Canada is facing mounting pressure to cough up more cash on defence, with the NATO chief saying the current benchmark representing two per cent of GDP is the minimum allies should be spending.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg insists the status quo is “not good enough,” warning leaders who gathered in Washington, D.C., for the alliance’s annual summit — including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — that more needs to be done.
Trudeau vows to reach NATO target by 2032, but calls it a ‘crass’ calculation
Facing pressure from allies, Canada has revealed a timeline for when it expects to hit the NATO defence spending target.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave no specifics on how Ottawa will reach a benchmark he described as a “crass mathematical calculation.”
“We can say with confidence and assurance that we will hit the two-per cent spending mark by 2032,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday, the last day of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C.
Canada to help train Ukrainians on F-16 fighter jets due to be flying by summer
Canada will help lead the training of Ukrainian fighter jet pilots on F-16s being delivered by NATO allies, which the U.S. expects will be flying by the summer.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government will commit up to $389 million over the coming year to “enhance” the training, along with $500 million in additional military aid as part of NATO’s long-term pledge for Ukraine.
U.S. ELECTIONS
How Project 2025 could upend Canada-U.S. relationship under Trump
Concerns are growing about how a far-right policy agenda known as Project 2025 could influence a second Donald Trump presidency — as well as Canada’s relationship with the United States.
Democrats have been attempting to tie Trump to the controversial initiative and convince voters its extreme conservative policies would be representative of how Trump will govern if he wins the U.S. election in November.
CONSUMER
Massive AT&T data breach includes calls to Canada
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Canadian phone numbers are among those impacted in a massive data breach reported by AT&T this week.
AT&T said Friday that the breach includes the data of nearly all of AT&T’s cellular customers, which includes more than 100 million individual customers in the U.S. and 2.5 million business accounts.
While the incident happened in April, the affected data is largely from a period in 2022.
A spokesperson for the telecom giant confirmed to Global News that calls to Canada were included in the data set.
That data is aggregated, the spokesperson noted, so personalized information like the content of messages or credit card details is not accessible.
AT&T is investigating the breach and cooperating with law enforcement.
The results are in: June’s rate cut didn’t revive Canada’s housing market
The Bank of Canada’s interest rate cut last month didn’t revive Canadian housing markets in the way some real estate observers expected.
The 25-basis-point rate cut in June didn’t translate to a surge in sales last month, data from local boards shows.
Experts who spoke to Global News say the quarter-point of easing in borrowing costs didn’t change the affordability picture for many sidelined buyers, particularly first-timers trying to get their first rung on the property ladder.
It’ll take more cuts before more buyers can take a meaningful run at the market, they said.
Some, meanwhile, pointed to an uptick in listings as signs that existing owners are getting ready to sell their homes before buying.
‘Welcome news’: CRA handling of bare trust filing to be probed
Canada’s taxpayers’ ombudsperson is launching a systemic review into the Canada Revenue Agency’s handling of bare trust reporting requirements, months after Canadians were left confused on if they needed to file the returns before the agency hit pause.
The ombudsperson’s office made the announcement on Wednesday, saying François Boileau would look into whether the CRA respected taxpayers’ rights in its administration of the reporting requirements for the 2023 tax year.
Canadian youth face the toughest summer job market in decades. Why?
It’s a hard time to be a student looking for summer work.
The youth unemployment rate (for those aged 15-24) rose to 13.5 per cent in June, the highest level in nearly a decade outside the temporary jump in the COVID-19 pandemic.
And fewer than half of students between semesters have been able to find a summer job this season, according to Statistics Canada.
There are two primary reasons why the unemployment rate is rising for Canada’s youngest workers.
For one, the overall labour market is cooling and businesses are pulling back their hiring — a marked shift from even 18 months ago when the jobs market was exceptionally tight.
But in that period Canada’s youth population has also ballooned. A swell of temporary workers and students are competing for the scant number of jobs available.
More and more young workers competing for fewer and fewer positions has led to a “gridlock in the job market,” explained Brendon Bernard, senior economist at job search site Indeed.
Silk, Great Value plant-based milks recalled in Canada
Several plant-based milks are being pulled off the shelves across Canada due to potential Listeria contamination that has resulted in illnesses.
The Canadian Food Inspection agency issued the nationwide recall on Monday for 18 beverages sold by the brands Silk and Great Value. Almond, oat, coconut and cashew milks were part of the recall, which was triggered by an investigation into a foodborne illness outbreak, the CFIA said.
According to the outbreak investigation linked to the recalled products, at least nine people in Ontario have become sick with listeriosis and five of them hospitalized, the province’s top doctor said.
Ticketmaster notifies Canadian customers of May data breach
Ticketmaster has finally notified its users who may have been impacted by a data breach — one month after Global News first reported that the personal information of Canadian customers was likely stolen.
In an email to its customers on Monday, Ticketmaster said that their personal information may have been obtained by an unauthorized third party from a cloud database that was hosted by a separate third-party data services provider. The security incident took place between April 2 and May 18, Ticketmaster said.
“On May 23, 2024, we determined that some of your personal information may have been affected by the incident,” the email said.
This was the first public acknowledgement by Ticketmaster of the massive hack impacting more than half a billion people in different countries.
Interpol data confirms Canada is ‘ground zero’ for car thefts: experts
As government, police and other stakeholders work to combat Canada’s auto theft crisis, a May report from Interpol says the country ranks among the top 10 countries in hits it has received in its database of stolen motor vehicles this year, with some calling it “ground zero.”
According to the agency, that ranking comes just three months after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police integrated the Canadian Police Information Centre’s stolen vehicle database with Interpol’s own. Prior to that integration, all entries on the database were submitted manually.
HEALTH
Can’t make heads or tails of medical scans? A Canadian woman found a way
A new web-based tool called PocketHealth has partnered with hospitals and labs, enabling patients to access and share their images and reports.
PocketHealth allows patients to type in the name of the hospital or imaging centre where their images were taken. They can then sign up and access their images, often within minutes, he said.
And PocketHealth uses artificial intelligence to help read patient data.
Bird flu is on the move — here are the different strains around the world
Avian influenza, or bird flu, has public health officials on alert after an unprecedented spread in dairy cows in the United States this year. Four dairy workers have also tested positive in the country.
A particularly severe variant of the H5N1 strain has been spreading around the world in animals since 2020, causing lethal outbreaks in commercial poultry and sporadic infections in other species from alpacas to house cats. Until this year, it had never infected cows.
HEAT WAVE
Climate change made June heat wave up to 10 times more likely, scientists say
The above-normal temperatures in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada were made two to 10 times more likely as a result of human-caused climate change, Environment and Climate Change Canada scientists said on Tuesday.
The agency announced the results of its analysis from its new rapid extreme weather event attribution system, a tool meant to determine the degree to which climate change affects extreme climate events.
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