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Enbridge Inc. says 800 employees have voluntarily left the company, allowing it to avoid layoffs as it cuts costs to counter impacts from COVID-19 and lower global oil prices. The Calgary-based pipeline company announced in May it would defer $1 billion in capital spending this year and reduce costs by $300 million through measures including salary cuts and voluntary staff reductions.
Innovate Niagara has been selected to help deliver Digital Main Street programming across the province. As part of a $57-million investment announced today by…
Last week I had a chance to sit in on a video meeting with architects and real estate developers in the United States. As they considered possible projects and designs, the discussion inevitably turned to questions about the impacts of COVID-19 on the future real estate market. Part of this is just trying to figure out how the real estate market will behave when things improve – but part of it is also a bigger set of questions. How will the real estate market change after COVID-19? Will offices (for example) still be in demand? For that matter, will the office as we know it still exist?
COVID-19 and the province’s Declared State of Emergency (in place currently until June 30, 2020) has caused the rules of employment law to be in a state of flux, with business and employment relationships changing how they operate. There are, and will be, many unknowns as we move forward. Some certainty have been provided by amendments to employment legislation and the enactment of new regulations providing new standards during or related to the Declared State of Emergency. Such regulations are not themselves static. They have been passed, updated and will likely be updated moving forward as the economy re-opens. One is Regulation 82/20 – Closure of Places of Non-Essential Businesses passed on May 18, 2019, which is reviewed in this article.
The Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal said earlier this week that their fiscal quarter profit was cut in half. Both banks were forced to set aside huge amounts of money to possible loan losses due to COVID-19’s impact on the Canadian economy.
Canadian communities are now about two months into the COVID-19 crisis, and the passage of time has started to give us some insights into the pandemic’s impact on the economy – and what we can do to prepare for economic recovery. I’ve been running a series of online workshops for communities with the Economic Developers Association of Canada (EDAC), and this article – the final piece in a three-part series for The Niagara Independent – draws on materials from sessions I ran for about 125 communities in April and May.
To absolutely no one’s surprise the Consumer Price Index for April – more commonly know as the inflation rate – dropped into negative territory in Canada for the first time in more than a decade. The last time the CPI was in the red was September 2009 as a result of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Canadian communities are now about two months into the Covid-19 crisis, and the passage of time has started to give us some insights into the pandemic’s impact on the economy – and what we can do to prepare for economic recovery. I’ve been running a series of online workshops for communities across Canada, and this article – the second in a series of three for the Niagara Independent – draws on materials from a session I ran for 103 communities on April 30th (And for those who are interested, the Economic Developers Association of Canada has asked that I run this session again on May 26th – sign up details can be found at https://uwaterloo.ca/economic-development/courses-and-seminars/covid19-and-economic-developers-online).
COVID-19 has hit hard. Businesses shutdown, people have lost their jobs and are sitting at home waiting for the day they can restart their business and/or go back to work. Starting just last weekend across Niagara and the province, hardware and safety supply stores were allowed to open to the general public to shop, with safety measures laid out by the Government of Ontario.
Part One: Reaction Canadian communities are now about two months into the COVID-19 crisis, and the passage of time has started to give us some insights into the pandemic’s impact on the economy – and what we can do to prepare for economic recovery. I’ve been running a series of online workshops for communities across Canada, and this article – the first in a series of three over the next three issues of The Niagara Independent – draws on materials from a session I ran for 103 communities on April 30th.
