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RATE 2.25% on hold INFLATION 3.2% from 2.8% UNEMPLOYMENT 6.5% ▼0.1pt AVG WAGE $37.20 ▲3.3% YoY GDP ▲0.5% MoM NEW-HOME PRICES ▼2.4% YoY

Economy · Small business

Nearly Half of Businesses Selling Soon Say They Could Shrink or Close Without a Buyer

A brand-new Statistics Canada table shows 20.3 percent of private-sector businesses in Canada plan to sell or transfer ownership within 10 years, rising to 26.6 percent among businesses more than 20 years old. Among the smaller group planning to sell within 2 years, StatCan asked for the first time what happens if a buyer can't be found: 46.8 percent called closing or scaling down likely, and 46.5 percent called selling at a reduced price, or to a less-preferred buyer, likely too.

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Fast facts

Six numbers that name something real about Canada right now.

1,967
dollars per resident Ontario spent on hospitals in 2023 — the lowest of any province
Nova Scotia spent 2,941, about 974 more per person. Adjusting for Ontario's younger population barely moves the number.
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95 %
of everything Alberta records as arson since 2006 is one single fire
Arson is a rounding error by area. A fifth of what Alberta maps carries no cause in the province's own file — though other governments hold one for almost all of it.
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4×
rise in extortion across Canada since 2000 — tenfold in Peel
Robbery has been cut nearly in half and attempted murder sits at a 28-year low. Extortion stays piled up in B.C.'s Fraser Valley and the Mississauga–Brampton corridor.
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3 of 3
biggest shifts in Canadian opinion of the U.S. in 24 years are presidential handovers
Not wars, tariffs or trade fights. Pew's series moves 26 points at Trump to Biden and 20 the other way at Biden to Trump — more than anything else it has captured.
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112
Edmonton's 2025 transit ridership, with 2019 set to 100
The only major Canadian system above its pre-pandemic level. Vancouver sits at 87, Toronto at 79 — and in the 2026 data so far, every one of them is down year-over-year.
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13th
where soccer ranks in federal program funding, despite being Canada's most-registered sport
About 3 dollars a player, below diving and curling — while 220 million dollars went to hosting the World Cup.
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Top stories

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Line chart indexing real GDP for seven Canadian industries to January 2019 equals 100, monthly through June 2026. Six industries end above 100; manufacturing ends at 95, the only one still below its starting level.
Economy

Manufacturing Is the Only Major Industry Smaller Than It Was in January 2019

Real GDP is up 14.6% since January 2019, but the industries behind that number aren't the ones you'd guess. Finance and professional services have each grown by nearly a third; health care by about a quarter. Manufacturing is the one broad industry that still hasn't gotten back to where it started.

August 2026 · Statistics Canada, table 36-10-0434-01
A hand holding a black smartphone, the Apple logo and "iPhone" wordmark visible on the back.
Investigation · Economy

Canada's mobile prices remain among the priciest in the G7 — and they're rising again.

Ottawa spent two years tracking wireless prices down and declared victory in January 2022. A federal price-comparison study shows Canada has stayed among the three most expensive places for a basic mobile plan among G7 countries plus Australia, at every plan size tracked, and by late 2025 the prices that did fall were climbing again.

August 2026 · ISED price comparison study
Line chart showing Canadian crude oil production and oil and gas extraction employment, indexed to 2014 = 100, from 2001 to 2025. Production climbs to +34% by 2025 while employment falls to -14%.
Labour · 6 min

Canada Produces More Oil Than Ever. The Jobs Haven't Come Back.

Crude oil production is up 34% since 2014 and sits at a record high. Oil and gas extraction employment is down 13.6% over the same span and has never recovered its 2014 peak. Pembina Institute flagged a version of this gap in 2025; this piece extends the comparison through 2025 with Statistics Canada and Alberta Energy Regulator data, plus a separate look at oil sands capital spending.

August 2026 · Statistics Canada, Alberta Energy Regulator

The latest

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Choropleth map of Canada shaded by 2023 road fatality rate per 100,000 population, by province and territory. New Brunswick is darkest at 8.5; Ontario is lightest at 3.9. Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are shown with dashed borders and an asterisk.
Transit · 4 min

New Brunswick Has Canada's Highest Road Fatality Rate — But the Ranking Changes When You Count Driving

New Brunswick had Canada's highest road fatality rate in 2023, 8.5 deaths per 100,000 people, more than double Ontario's 3.9. Switch to fatalities per kilometre actually driven and Atlantic Canada is still worst, but the order inside it shifts, and a couple of provinces move a lot: Alberta looks mid-table by population and drops close to the national average once its driving distances are counted. Nova Scotia moves the same way.

August 2026 · Transport Canada, Canadian Motor Vehicle Traffic Collision Statistics 2023
Bar chart showing Q2 2026 foreign bond purchases split by transaction type, 90 percent secondary-market trading versus 10 percent new issuance, Statistics Canada
Economy · 4 min

Foreigners bought 106B in Canadian bonds. Most wasn't new money.

Statistics Canada reported foreign investors bought a record 106 billion dollars of Canadian bonds in the second quarter of 2026, coverage that led with the headline number. Break the total down by transaction type and about 95 billion dollars was secondary-market trading of bonds that had already been issued — not new financing for Canadian borrowers.

Q2 2026 · Statistics Canada
A TTC streetcar stopped in mixed traffic on a downtown Toronto street, with a car visible alongside it.
Transit · 4 min

What's actually delaying Toronto's streetcars

Diversions and cars parked on the rail account for 35 percent of all streetcar delay-minutes since the start of 2025, far more than mechanical failure. Crews and cars in the way combined explain six in ten delay-minutes across the full 2024-2026 period.

August 2026 · City of Toronto Open Data
Map of all 71 TTC subway station rows, dot size showing 2025 delay record counts and dot colour showing delay intensity per 100,000 typical-weekday station uses
Transit · 8 min · Follow-up

The TTC stations with the highest delay intensity aren't the busiest ones

Adjusting 2025 delay records for typical-weekday station activity produces a completely different ranking than the raw count. Twelve of the top twenty stations by this measure never show up in the raw top twenty at all.

August 2026 · City of Toronto Open Data · TTC Subway Ridership 2023-2024
Dot plot ranking the top 10 TTC subway stations by 2025 delay-minutes intensity per 100,000 typical-weekday uses, with 95% bootstrap confidence intervals
Transit · 7 min · Follow-up

Rosedale Tops TTC Subway Delay Intensity. The Rest Is Much Less Certain

We ranked TTC stations by 2025 delay-record counts weighted for station usage. This time we ranked them by actual delay minutes instead, and ran a tougher statistical test on top of it. Rosedale, Donlands, Summerhill and Greenwood all lock in a top-five spot. The fifth is a genuine toss-up among five stations.

August 2026 · City of Toronto Open Data · TTC Subway Ridership 2023-2024
Union members marching in Toronto's 2011 Labour Day Parade behind a banner reading "Speak Out in Defence of Our Public Services," with the downtown skyline behind them.
Labour · 4 min

Union Coverage Lowest in Alberta and Ontario, Highest Gains in P.E.I.

Alberta and Ontario have the lowest union coverage rates of any Canadian province in 2025, and both have bounced back from a low point since — Alberta's bounce three times as large as Ontario's. But being lowest today isn't the same as falling fastest: Prince Edward Island actually posted the largest gain of any province since 1997, while British Columbia, not Alberta or Ontario, saw the steepest decline of the full period.

August 2026 · Statistics Canada Table 14-10-0070-01

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01

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Every figure traces back to a named primary source — Statistics Canada, Health Canada, Bank of Canada, CMHC, provincial open-data portals. Table identifiers are linked on the chart page.

02

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