Before Wednesday's Bank of Canada interest-rate hike, financial markets had priced in only a 50-50 chance of such a move. This means that half the market believed the bank would hold rates steady, creating significant market uncertainty.
Uncertainty has big economic costs for consumers and businesses alike. Does the bank need to continue to improve its communication to alleviate these costs? The short answer is yes – but the question is how.
The thinking on options tends to fall into two camps. In the first camp are those arguing for publishing a conditional interest-rate forecast. One of the primary benefits of such a conditional forecast is to provide realistic expectations to financial markets. Businesses and…Ontario's Education Quality and Accountability Office's 2016/2017 results released this week show that for the second year in a row, only 50 per cent of Grade 6 students met the provincial math standard, compared with 61 per cent ten years ago. It is important to reverse this trend since early achievement in math is a strong predictor of later success in math and future career options.
Another concerning point to emerge from the EQAO tests is that the percentage of students who met the math standard in Grade 3 but did not do so in Grade 6 has increased. This suggests that students are not being well-prepared in lower grades to handle more difficult math concepts. Mathematics is extremely cumulative in nature. A student cannot…
Did you pay HST on that streamed movie you watched last night? If it was from a foreign provider, you didn’t. If it was from a domestic provider, you did. Therein lies a problem that puts Canadian providers of online services at a disadvantage.
The digital economy is expanding access to global markets and changing the way Canadians access content, order taxis, find accommodations and shop for goods. It has also made it possible to purchase digital goods and services over the Internet directly from suppliers located outside Canada just as easily as from domestic vendors. While this is useful for consumers, it complicates tax collection and raises competitive pressures for both domestic and foreign businesses.
In particular…
