Nos choix de placements peuvent accélérer les changements exigés par l’urgence climatique. Heureusement, les institutions financières développent des produits plus amicaux pour la planète. La finance durable s’impose comme nouvelle norme.

Les entreprises qui composent les grands indices boursiers génèrent des gaz à effet de serre (GES) cadrant avec un réchauffement climatique de 3,5 à 5 degrés. L’indice du marché canadien TSX60, où le secteur pétrolier est fortement représenté, correspond à un scénario de 4,6 degrés, estime Mirova, filiale de la banque d’investissement Natixis.

Que faire alors ? Le réflexe de larguer les actions des pétrolières réussit davantage à nous donner bonne conscience qu’à réduire les GES.…

Last Wednesday’s interest rate announcement and Monetary Policy Report (MPR) from the Bank of Canada were the first under new governor Tiff Macklem. They provide welcome clarity on the bank’s thinking about the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and how monetary policy should respond

Back in March, the bank cut its traditional policy instrument, the target overnight interest rate, to 25 basis points, alongside heavy interventions in financial markets to provide liquidity. The high degree of uncertainty associated with the virus and the ensuing economic lockdown led the bank to be vague in its accompanying commentary, including the key question of how it intended to hit its two per cent inflation target. The April MPR did…

Last week’s federal fiscal snapshot unveiled numbers so awful that a reasonable person might suspect an expectations-management exercise. The projected deficit of $343 billion for this year was nearly $100 billion worse than the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s June 18 projection and $40 billion worse than the most pessimistic numbers circulating. If realized, it would be the same as last year’s total federal revenues. It would mean the federal government will borrow more than half the money it spends this year. It would increase Ottawa’s net debt by almost half in one year.

Adding to the impression in the snapshot’s numbers of an unfolding fiscal catastrophe was the absence in its commentary of either any…