Articles
Explainers
When a chart, map, or visualization needs context the picture alone can't carry, this is where the longform expansion lives — usually a few pages, always with the objections engaged honestly rather than ignored.
11 billion dollars of rail upgrades could get Montreal to Toronto in 3 h 42, a farm-backed study says
A study released by Quebec's farm union says about 11 billion dollars of work on today's Québec City to Toronto line could cut Montreal to Toronto from the 5 h 18 in VIA's timetable to 3 h 42 on an express train. Alto's high-speed line promises 3 hours. The budget officer puts Alto's construction at 75 to 113 billion.
Young men outnumber young women in 40 of Canada's 41 big cities
In Windsor, there are 127 men for every 100 women aged 18 to 34. Only one big city has more young women than young men. Here's how your city compares.
Ottawa cut 22,490 public servants. Outside spending rose 10% after inflation.
The public service shrank 6.1% in two years while spending on outside services rose 10% after inflation. The growth sits at National Defence and the Coast Guard it absorbed. Across the rest of government, the outside bill fell 1% after inflation.
P.E.I. jails nearly every impaired driver it convicts. Yet no province has more impaired driving.
Ontario jails about one in 20 convicted impaired-driving cases and has Canada's lowest rate. P.E.I. jails almost all of them, yet its police-reported rate is five times higher.
Kids outnumber seniors in only 9 of Canada's 66 biggest cities
In 2001, kids under 15 outnumbered seniors in 59 of Canada's 66 biggest urban areas. By 2025, only nine were left, seven of them on the Prairies. At the pace of the past five years, those nine run out by 2033.
A 20-year job is getting rarer in Canada, even in the public sector
In 2001, about 1 in 8 employed Canadians aged 25 to 54 had spent 20 years or more with their current employer or in their current business. By 2025 it was about 1 in 14. Public sector employees are still twice as likely as private sector employees to have a job that long.
Canada could grant a record 580,000 people permanent residence in 2027. Most already live here.
The regular target stays at 380,000. A one-time measure adds up to 200,000 more for people already in the country. The number arriving from abroad without a Canadian permit is set to be the smallest since the pandemic.
Can grocery stores charge you more because of what they know about you?
MPs began studying surveillance pricing this week. There is no public evidence Canadian grocers do it, but no regulator routinely checks, and Ottawa's privacy bill leaves the details to a regulator not expected before 2028. Manitoba already has a rule.
Young Canadians face more than twice the unemployment rate of older workers
Youth unemployment hit 13.7 percent in October. The bigger story is the gap. Young Canadians are jobless at 2.4 times the rate of workers aged 25 to 54, and Ontario's young workers are far behind Quebec's.
Ottawa's own analysis finds 99.5 billion in budget measures favour men
Finance Canada rates the gender impact of every budget measure. Adding up the five-year costs shows 99.5 billion in measures expected to mostly benefit men, against 11.1 billion for women.
Housing is the one budget item Liberal, Conservative and NDP voters agree on
Before the federal budget, a look at what Liberal, Conservative and NDP voters said they wanted more money spent on. Housing is the only item with a majority in all three camps.
Ottawa spends 112 dollars for every 100 it collects. Here's where the money goes
The 2026 federal budget plans 602.6 billion in spending against 540.3 billion in revenue. Debt interest now exceeds the Canada Health Transfer, and the largest single measure is a 36-billion business tax deduction.
An estimated 1,700 families hold more wealth than the bottom 6.7 million
An estimated 1,700 Canadian families held 873 billion dollars in net worth in 2023. The bottom 40%, about 6.7 million families, held 542 billion combined.
U.S. voters rejected data centres 40 times out of 41. Is Canada next?
American voters sided against data centres in nearly every local ballot on Nov. 3. Most Canadians want limits too, whichever party they back. But the question rarely reaches a ballot here, so the fight runs through city halls, regulators and courts.
The most common phase in Canadian aircraft accidents is not the most deadly
Between 2015 and 2025, more than half of Canadian aircraft accidents involved a landing-phase event, and only 2.5 percent of those were fatal. Accidents that involved manoeuvring were fatal 27.6 percent of the time, and en-route accidents 21.0 percent.
Democrats won Congress. Trump's Canada tariffs won't automatically disappear.
The 50% U.S. tariff on a list of Canadian goods rests on a 1930 law that lets the president keep it, change it or end it. Congress can rewrite that law, but only with votes that can survive a veto.
Big Tech wants more power and data centres. Will Canadians pay the price?
A new U.S. exit poll found 76% of voters oppose a data centre in their community. In Canada, 64% want their province to limit them. Ottawa says developers must pay the added electricity costs. But in Quebec, data centres pay about 5 cents per kilowatt hour less than Hydro-Québec says new energy costs.
U.S. midterms: live Senate and House results
Follow the Senate and House races as the Associated Press calls them. Below the chart, the seven Senate toss-up states, and how much each one sells to Canada.
It's getting harder to land your first coding job in Canada
Openings for coding jobs that ask for three years of experience or less are down 64 per cent since late 2022. Openings for more senior coding jobs fell 34 per cent. Hiring of young coders began falling before ChatGPT launched.
Private planes account for 55% of Canada's aircraft accidents. But are they more likely to be fatal?
Private airplanes were involved in 1,020 of 1,843 Canadian aircraft accidents between 2015 and 2025. About 1 in 10 of them was fatal, close to the share for commercial airplanes.
Six by-elections, but Carney's majority isn't at stake
Six House of Commons seats are empty and vote on Dec. 7. The Liberals hold 173 of 343 seats, one more than a majority, so they keep it even if they lose all six. Three of the races would have flipped in 2025 if fewer than 3,800 voters had switched.
Which U.S. states sell the most to Canada
Texas sells the most to Canada, at 34.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. North Dakota depends on Canada most, which buys 81% of what it exports. Canada is the top foreign buyer for 27 of the 50 states.
Canada pledges 780 million dollars to join the EU's Ukraine loan. Here is what it buys.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will initially put in 500 million euros, nearly 780 million Canadian dollars, to the European Union's 90 billion euro Ukraine Support Loan. In return, Ukraine could buy weapons from Canadian firms with EU money, and Canada shares the interest bill. The final terms have not been published.
Ottawa is buying into Cohere. Here's how its last two big stakes turned out.
The federal government will put up to 1.6 billion dollars of equity into Cohere, the Toronto AI company, in stages. The real test is whether that buys Canada lasting economic value, and getting the money back is only one measure. Ottawa's pandemic stake in Air Canada made money. The 2009 auto rescue did not.
Missed mortgage payments are rising fastest in Ontario cities
Toronto, London and Windsor had the biggest yearly increases in mortgages 90 or more days behind. Seven of the eight largest increases were in Ontario, while late payments fell in several Prairie cities.
The last pandemic mortgages are renewing at higher payments
About 12 per cent of outstanding Canadian mortgages are in the final wave of pandemic-era five-year fixed-payment loans renewing over the next 12 months. The Bank of Canada estimates their payments will rise by about 15 per cent on average, based on market rate expectations from May.
Quebec has Canada's cheapest electricity, not its lowest bills
A kilowatt-hour costs less in Montréal than in any other big Canadian city. Quebec households still pay more for electricity in a year than households in British Columbia or Ontario, and about the same as Manitoba and Saskatchewan, because they use far more of it.
University grads still earn more in Canada, but trades are catching up
Canadians aged 25 to 34 with a bachelor's degree or higher earned 39.18 dollars an hour in 2025, more than any other education group. But their inflation-adjusted pay rose just 1.5 percent since 2009, while wages for trades certificate holders climbed 13.7 percent.
Conservative and Liberal voters used to agree on immigration. Now they're 44 points apart
In 1993, seven in ten Canadians said there was too much immigration. In 2026, opinion is evenly split. What has changed is who says it: Conservative and Liberal voters gave similar answers for decades and are now 44 points apart.
Toronto mayor polls vs betting markets: the polls missed by 10 points
Every final poll underestimated Olivia Chow, and three of seven had Brad Bradford ahead. Betting favourites lost 6 of 19 Ontario mayor races, close to what their own odds implied.
Ontario voters turned on their mayors. 9 of 20 lost
Mayors in Mississauga, Kingston, Windsor, Oakville, Milton, Waterloo and Niagara Falls lost on Monday, and Hamilton's Andrea Horwath finished third. In 2022, every mayor in these cities who ran again won.
Toronto ward results 2026: all 25 councillors elected
Five of the councillors who voted with Olivia Chow most often are gone. Six of the seven new members ran with labour and progressive endorsements, and her majority now depends on them.
Bettors have four sitting Ontario mayors losing today
Betting site Polymarket has markets on 23 Ontario mayoral races where the mayor is running again. Bettors have the mayors of Mississauga, Cambridge, Hamilton and Waterloo losing. Toronto's Olivia Chow is at 86 per cent, though her final polls were close.
Olivia Chow re-elected Toronto mayor, and the polls missed by about 10 points
Chow beat Brad Bradford by 13.1 points with all polls counted. The final polls had her ahead by 2.6, a miss more than twice Toronto's average in close races.
BC election final results 2026 by riding: Conservatives win 64 of 93 seats
The Conservatives won 64 of 93 ridings with 47.7 per cent of the vote, a 10.1-point lead over the NDP. The final polls averaged 5.0. Twenty-one ridings moved from the NDP to the Conservatives. Final count, Nov. 9.
Which Canadian city votes most in local elections? 27 cities ranked
Across 27 Canadian cities over 200,000 people, only three averaged more than 40 percent turnout in municipal elections since 2016. Thirteen of them pick a mayor this week, starting with Toronto and Ottawa on October 26.
Conservative voters hardened on immigration about 1.7 times as fast as the country overall
Three statements about immigrants, asked in the same words in the 2019 and 2025 Canadian Election Studies, show voters of every party becoming more skeptical on average, though only the Conservative and Liberal changes are big enough to be sure they're real. Conservative voters moved furthest, and views on immigration now predict a Conservative vote much more strongly.
Canada added 219,350 new citizens in eight months, 13% more than 2025 but 20% fewer than 2024
Citizenship grants rebounded in 2026 after a sharp 2025 slump. India, Nigeria and Afghanistan account for three-quarters of the gain.
How many work permits did Canada issue in 2026? A record 728,960, but not 728,960 new workers.
From January to August 2026, 728,960 work permits took effect in Canada, the most for those months in IRCC data going back to 2015. The count includes renewals and extensions, so it isn't a count of new workers. Statistics Canada's count of people holding a work permit fell from January 1 to July 1.
Canada's House Prices Doubled After Inflation, the Most of 19 Peer Countries
Inflation-adjusted house prices in Canada rose 101% from 2005 to 2025, the most of 19 peer countries in a new CMHC comparison. Australia was next at 79%. Prices have fallen since early 2022, by 19% in dollars and 29% after inflation.
Alberta referendum results: how each of the 10 questions voted
The option to remain a province of Canada led Question 10, 74.9 per cent to 25.1. Questions 1 to 5 passed with 52 to 58 per cent yes. Questions 6 to 9 failed, with no between 53 and 58 per cent. Unofficial results, 5,501 of 5,540 polls reporting.
BC's close ridings could turn a small Conservative lead into a majority
The Conservatives have led 14 of 17 polls since the Sept. 22 snap call. Move every riding by the same amount from its 2024 result and that lead becomes 53 of 93 seats. A tied vote would still leave them first.
Why Young Canadians Still Think Inflation Is 8%
In the Bank of Canada's August survey, the median Canadian aged 18 to 24 put inflation over the past year at 7.85%. The official rate for August was 3.0%. Before 2020, younger and older respondents were about a point apart.
Americans rate Canada and Australia warmest among G20 countries
Asked to rate 18 G20 countries from 0 to 100, Americans gave Canada 67, tied with Australia for warmest. That is down from 71 in 2018. Pew finds the decline is concentrated among Republicans, especially those 50 and older.
Only 1 in 5 Canadians have a plan to care for aging family
A Sunlife survey found 19% of Canadians have a full plan for caring for an aging or sick relative. By 2045, Canada will have about half as many people aged 45 to 64 per person aged 85 and older.
CMHC revised Canada's housing starts sharply higher for July and August
CMHC's September release raised its estimate of July's annual pace of housing starts by 17,267 and August's by 13,177. Those are revisions to annual-rate estimates, not a count of extra homes. September came in at a 248,896 annual pace.
Express Entry will award up to 100 points for a high-wage job offer from Nov. 3
From November 3, 2026, a qualifying job offer in a high-wage occupation can earn up to 100 Express Entry points. Canadian work in a high-wage occupation can earn up to 70 points on top of work-experience points. Candidates get the higher option, not both.
Four companies control two-thirds of Canada’s grocery market. In the US, the top four account for about a third.
Four companies sell about 67 cents of every dollar spent on groceries in Canada, by a USDA estimate of 2023 sales. In the United States the top four sell about 35 cents. Other estimates for the top four or five run as high as 80 percent.
Calgary approved 2.8 times as many homes per resident as Toronto
Toronto approved more homes than any other Canadian metro. Per resident, it sits near the bottom of 42. Nine of the ten metros with the fewest approvals per person are in Ontario.
Canada Approved More Homes Than Its Population Grew in 2025–26
Canada's population grew by 189,425 people between July 2025 and July 2026. Over the same 12 months, permits were issued for 303,006 new homes. Two years earlier there were 4.3 new residents for every home approved.
Students at Ontario's private career colleges got more OSAP grant money than university students
Students at private career colleges received 1,331 million dollars in OSAP grants in 2024-25, more than university students. Ontario has since moved career-college students to loans only and paused all OSAP payments associated with private postsecondary institutions during an audit.
Saskatchewan has nearly 20 times as many local politicians per person as Ontario.
Saskatchewan has one mayor or councillor for every 258 residents. Ontario has one for every 5,093. The councils are about the same size; Saskatchewan just has far more of them.
The PQ won Quebec with 28 per cent of the vote, the smallest winning share in any province since 1960.
The Parti Québécois took 59 of 127 seats on 28.02 per cent of the vote, five seats short of a majority. Of 180 provincial elections since 1960, no winning party has had a smaller share.
Buying a typical Vancouver home requires about 225,000 dollars a year
At the five-year fixed rate three big banks are offering, none of our seven cities passes the 30% affordability test, and Edmonton sits right on the line. Even at the lowest rate we found, only Edmonton passes. Vancouver is the extreme, at about 225,000 dollars a year, twice what a typical household earns.
Quebec lost 49,000 jobs in September. That is 72% of Canada's drop
Canada lost 68,000 jobs in September, the second monthly fall in a row. Quebec alone lost 49,000 of them. Outside Quebec, the country has still added jobs this year.
Alto's High-Speed Rail Map: Seven Stops, a 15-km Tunnel and 130 km of Canadian Shield
Alto plans a Toronto to Québec City line with seven stops, but has not published an alignment. The Parliamentary Budget Officer's cost estimate of 75 to 113 billion dollars names the two stretches it treats as cost drivers: a tunnel under Mount Royal and the Canadian Shield.
1 in 20 Canadians who died in 2024 received MAID
16,499 people received medical assistance in dying in 2024, or 5.1 percent of people who died. That is about three times the 2019 number, but annual growth has slowed sharply. This week the government said it will keep MAID closed to people whose only condition is mental illness.
Men outnumber women until 48
At 22, there are 110 men for every 100 women in Canada. The two are even at 48. From 49 on, women outnumber men, and by 90 there are 63 men for every 100 women.
Canada's gasoline sales are back to 2019. Per person, they are down 10%.
Canadians bought 44.8 billion litres of gasoline in 2025, virtually the same as in 2019. The country has 4.0 million more people since then, so each of us bought 1,076 litres, down from 1,191. That is below every pre-pandemic year in the series, back to 1987.
56% of Canadians Who Don't Own a Home Don't Expect to Ever Own One — More Than Double the Global Average
Canada has the highest share of the 22 countries in Habitat for Humanity's 2026 survey. Canadians aren't cutting back harder than people elsewhere, but house prices here have pulled further ahead of incomes than in most other OECD countries.
Older Canadians more likely to support airport privatization
Two September polls found the same age pattern in how Canadians view the plan to bring private operators into the country's four biggest airports. Older Canadians were more likely to support it in both.
PBO: Canada's High-Speed Rail Could Cost Up to 113 Billion Dollars. An Old Estimate Was a Third of That.
Canada's Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates the Toronto to Québec City high-speed rail line could cost about 75 billion dollars, with an upper estimate of 113 billion for the baseline route. A 2011 study, for a different route and design, came to 37 billion in today's dollars.
Government Workers Went From 38% Working From Home to 20%
In May 2026, about 13% of Canada's broader public sector worked mostly from home, against 19% of other workers. Government alone was 20%, above the 17% average.
Pacific Link Pipeline: Route Map and Cost
Ottawa listed the Alberta-to-B.C. oil pipeline as a project of national interest on Oct. 1. Here is what the route, the cost estimates, the ownership plan and Trans Mountain's own record say about it.
Life Expectancy Is 7.8 Years Lower for Indigenous People in Canada
Statistics Canada's census-linked estimate for 2016 to 2021 puts Indigenous life expectancy at 77.2 years, against 85.0 for non-Indigenous people. The gap is 11.0 years for registered First Nations people, 13.1 for Inuit and 4.5 for Métis.
Canada's economy was flat in July: construction rose, factories and stores fell
Real GDP was unchanged in July, as Statistics Canada's early estimate said. Construction and utilities grew. Manufacturing, retail and mining shrank. A first look at August points to +0.2%.
Recorded bedsores in Canadian hospitals are 2.7 times their 2014 level
Hospital harm rose slightly, from 5.3 to 5.8 per 100 stays. Infections are flat and infections after surgery fell. Recorded bedsores and heavy bleeding after childbirth are what climbed.
Canadians went back to the office. Working from home still more than doubled.
In May 2026, 17.0% of Canadian workers did most of their hours from home, up from 7.1% in 2016 and down from 37.8% in 2020. B.C. and Ontario lead. Saskatchewan is the only province lower than in 2016.
Are Driscoll's berries safe? Why some imported berries exceed Canada's pesticide limits
A whistleblower says half of Driscoll's shipments to Canada broke pesticide limits. Seven years of government tests on imported berries show why fruit can pass US rules and still fail Canada's.
Canada's foreign aid by country: Ukraine got 14 times more than anyone else, almost all of it as loans
Canada sent aid to 135 countries in 2024, but Ukraine took 1.83 billion US dollars, more than the next 34 recipients combined. Strip out loans and Ukraine drops to sixth, behind Haiti, Ethiopia, Mali, the West Bank and Gaza, and Bangladesh. Less than half of all Canadian aid can be traced to a single country at all.
Alberta Added More People Than Ontario This Year. That Hasn't Happened Since 1981.
Canada had 41,798,407 people on July 1, 2026. The country grew by 0.46% over the year, its slowest growth since Statistics Canada's quarterly series began in 1946, and Alberta added 76,419 people while Ontario added 45,160.
Young Canadians Are the Most Pessimistic About What AI Will Do to Jobs
69% of Canadians aged 18-34 expect AI to mean fewer jobs in Canada over the next 20 years — more than any older age group, and one of the larger such generational gaps Pew found anywhere in the world.
Lake Ontario Is Running Above Normal. Lake Superior Is Below It
Every Great Lake started 2026 below its long-term average. By September, on provisional figures, Lake Ontario was 40 centimetres above it, its 7th-highest September since 1918, while Lake Superior sat 5 centimetres under.
Canada's Population Decline Vanished After a 301,008-Person Revision
Three months ago, Statistics Canada's preliminary estimates showed Canada's population falling for three straight quarters. Today's revision adds 301,008 people to the April estimate, turning that apparent decline into a brief pause. Canada's population reached a record 41.8 million on July 1.
Construction Workers' Opioid Death Rate Is Now Far Ahead of Every Major Ontario Sector
A new study using linked Ontario health records tracked opioid toxicity deaths across the province's workforce from 2018 to 2024. Construction and trades workers now die from opioids at more than 6 times the rate of Hospitality, the next-largest sector, and the gap has grown sharply since 2018.
In 1981, 27% of young adults in Canada lived with their parents. The latest housing survey puts it at 55%.
Census data show the share climbing to 42% by 2011. Statistics Canada's 2024 housing survey puts it at 55%, up from 51% in 2022, about 3.5 million people.
Federal public service fell by 12,683 in Carney's first full fiscal year
That's 54% larger in magnitude than the combined increase during Martin, Harper and Trudeau's first full fiscal years.
Canada's Top 10 Reported Infectious Diseases, 100 Years Ago and Today
Comparing Canada's leading reported notifiable diseases from the 1920s and 30s to the last decade, only two names appear on both lists. The disease that currently tops the list is reported at almost the exact same rate as the disease that topped it a century ago.
Canada's Job Market Is Changing Unevenly
Total job vacancies barely moved in the second quarter. But vacancies moved in different directions by education and occupation: down 5.8 percent for positions requiring a bachelor's degree, up 3.8 percent for positions requiring a trade certificate.
Canada's 3% inflation rate masks a much wider provincial split
From 2.41% in Ontario to 5.10% in Nova Scotia — Statistics Canada's August 2026 CPI release shows one of the widest provincial inflation gaps of the past year, and it traces back almost entirely to a single category: shelter.
89% of Ukrainians who came under CUAET are still in Canada — and 61% of Ukrainian newcomers aren't planning to go back
Two 2025 surveys of Ukrainians in Canada point the same way, most aren't leaving. The one dedicated path to permanent residence closed in 2024. Temporary status keeps getting extended, but four years after the program launched as a temporary "safe haven," no broad path to stay permanently has replaced it.
Canada's science scores hit a record low in PISA 2025
Canadian 15-year-olds scored above the OECD average in science, reading, and math on the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment, but science, the assessment's focus this cycle, fell to its lowest recorded level since testing began in 2006, and reading and math are down sharply too. Provincial results vary by as much as 51 points depending on subject.
Women in Public-Sector Industries Were 34% More Likely to Have a First Child
A new StatCan study links Canadian women's chances of having a first child to where they work. Women in public administration, education and health have pulled far ahead of women in administrative and service jobs since 2017. Union coverage matters too, but only modestly, and income still matters more than either.
Canada Looks Relatively Equal on Income. Then You Look at Wealth.
Canada's top 10% earn 33.5% of national income but hold 60.4% of wealth. The middle 40% owns just 25.7% of wealth, the lowest share of 15 high-income democracies compared here.
Foreign Control of Canada's Businesses Has Been Shrinking for 14 Straight Years — And More Than Half of What's Left Is American
In 2024, foreign investors legally controlled 13.9% of the assets held by businesses operating in Canada, the lowest figure Statistics Canada has recorded since the series began in 2010. Of that shrinking foreign share, the United States alone accounts for more than half.
How Canadian Men Came to Die Younger Than Women
A century of mortality records shows the opposite was once true. Before 1940, women in their 20s and 30s often died younger than men, mainly from childbirth. Every year since the 1940s, men have died younger, and by the 1980s a 22-year-old man was more than four times as likely to die as a 22-year-old woman.
Canada's Older Men Are Closing the Mortality Gap With Women
Canada's 65-80 male-to-female death rate ratio has fallen from 1.79 in 1970 to 1.53 in 2022, the lower end of a plateau it has held since the early 2010s. Most of the G7 closed a similar gap over the same period. Japan went the other way: its ratio rose from 1.61 to 2.37, the sharpest widening in the group.
Canada's Youth Unemployment Rate Is Now Above the US and OECD Average
For most of the past two decades, Canada's youth unemployment rate sat below the OECD average. Since late 2023 that has flipped. Canadian youth are now more likely to be unemployed than their peers in the United States or across the OECD as a whole, and Statistics Canada's own numbers confirm it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Young Canadians Are More Likely to Think AI Data Centres Will Hurt the Economy
A Nanos poll finds a real generational split on whether AI data centres will hurt the economy, 38% of Canadians 18-34 versus 28% of those 55+. Opposition to government subsidies for building them is a separate story, high at every age, with no meaningful age gap at all.
Canada added 75,000 jobs in July. Government cut 27,000 of its own.
The headline jobs number is genuinely good: full-time and part-time gains were balanced, and unemployment matched a two-year low. But almost 60 percent of July's employment growth came from people going self-employed, private employers added 57,900 jobs, and the public sector cut 27,000 — the piece no outlet covering the release reported.
Vegetable oil is up 138% since 2020 — Canada grocery movers, June 2026
Vegetable oil has climbed 138% since January 2020, the steepest sustained increase among items StatCan tracks. Beef striploin is up 89.5% over that same stretch and 46% in the past year alone. Month to month, cantaloupe jumped 25.1% in June even as broccoli and tomatoes both got cheaper. The swings show how uneven grocery inflation remains from one item to the next.
Fraud used to be solved like a violent crime. Now it almost never is.
In 1998, Canadian police cleared 60% of reported frauds — on par with how often they cleared a sexual assault that year. By 2025, that number is 10.3%, the largest decline of any offence among the 17 major categories we examined. It's happening against a backdrop of its own: the national violent-crime clearance rate bottomed at a 28-year low in 2023 and has only partly recovered since.
Cheap EVs can't replace Quebec's lost rebate before the year is out
Quebec's EV market crashed when its provincial rebate ended in January 2025. The first 2026 numbers are in, and matching last year's total by December would take almost triple the current sales pace, more than a revived federal rebate or a new quota on Chinese imports can deliver.
43 of 44 Canadian Social Assistance Scenarios Fell Below the Poverty Line in 2025
Across every province, Maytree modelled 44 household scenarios against Canada's official poverty line in 2025. Forty-three came in below what the basics cost. The one exception, in Quebec, reaches just 3 percent of the province's social assistance caseload.
Ontario spends the least per person on hospitals. Age doesn't explain it.
Ontario's government spent 1,967 dollars per resident on hospitals in 2023, the lowest of any province and about 974 dollars less than Nova Scotia. The obvious defence is that Ontario has a younger population. Adjusting for age barely moves the number.
What Alberta's wildfire cause records actually show
You asked us for an arson versus lightning breakdown of the wildfires we mapped. Only Alberta publishes one. It shows arson is a rounding error by area, 95 per cent of it a single fire, and a fifth of what Alberta maps has no cause in the province's own file — though other governments hold one for almost all of it.
Extortion has more than quadrupled in Canada since 2000 — and in Peel it has risen tenfold
Robbery has been halved and attempted murder sits at a 28-year low, but extortion has quadrupled in a generation. It has come off its 2023 national peak, yet stays concentrated in B.C.'s Fraser Valley and in Peel, where it is still climbing.
Canadians reprice America every time the White House changes hands
The three largest shifts Pew has recorded in Canadian opinion of the United States in 24 years are not wars or trade fights. They are the three most recent changes of president.
Every big Canadian city is losing transit riders again — and only Edmonton ever beat its pre-pandemic level
Six years of ridership data from the agencies' own records show one Canadian city carrying more riders than before the pandemic. Then, in 2026, every city we can measure turned down at once.
Soccer is Canada's most-registered sport. Its federal funding ranks 13th.
The World Cup Canada co-hosted ends this weekend. Federal grant records show soccer gets about 3 dollars a player in program funding, less than diving or curling, while 220 million dollars went to hosting the tournament.
Canadians rate China above the U.S. again, and by the widest margin yet
Pew finds 44% of Canadians view China favourably against 33% for the United States, the lowest U.S. reading in Canada since 2002. It is the second time Canadians have rated China the higher of the two, after a narrower crossover in 2017 and 2018.
One shipment on the record in six years: Canada's forced-labour import ban now carries a U.S. tariff
The United States has stopped 42,807 shipment lines under its forced-labour import ban. Canada, bound by the same CUSMA obligation, has one shipment on its public record, later released. Washington has charged a 10% tariff over it since July 24. Ottawa's fix has been consulted on but is not law.
After 306 Million Dollars in Federal Funding, Bombardier Asks to Hire Record 40 Foreign Workers
The request coincides with 306.5 million dollars in federal funding for Bombardier's aerospace business, and lands during a technical recession, with manufacturing unemployment rising.
Seniors Are More Worried About Climate Change Than Gen Z
New StatCan survey data flips the usual climate-anxiety script. Canadians 65 and older report the highest concern of any age group, while 15-to-24-year-olds report the least.
Canada spent 14 billion Canadian dollars on foreign aid in 2025: here's where it actually went
While the United States slashed foreign aid by 57 percent and the rich-country average fell by nearly a quarter, Canada trimmed just over 2 percent. Yet a look at where the money went shows more than half of it now goes to Ukraine or is spent inside Canada on refugees, leaving the smallest share for the developing world in years.
Every major Canadian airport lost U.S. flights in 2026
The drop in cross-border trips was mostly by car. In the air the U.S. pullback is milder, about 10% nationally, but it lands unevenly. Toronto and Vancouver carry the most U.S. exposure. Edmonton and Winnipeg fell the hardest.
Canada's electricity grid in 2050, in one chart
The CER's net-zero scenario maps every technology from 2024 to 2050. Wind grows ninefold to become the biggest source of capacity, hydro stays roughly flat, gas keeps a smaller but real role, and nuclear stays modest. It is the regulator's modelling of one pathway to net-zero, not a forecast.
Canada's nuclear strategy is built on a number the regulator's own model doesn't deliver
Canada's new National Nuclear Energy Strategy promises to supercharge atomic power. The regulator's own net-zero model hands nuclear 5 percent of new capacity through 2050 — and assigns wind 62 percent. Ontario alone faces a potential 14.6 GW nuclear delivery gap by midcentury.
The outsized power of the supply lobby
Tariff-protected dairy, poultry and eggs earn about 16% of Canadian farm revenue. Measured against that revenue, they lobby Ottawa harder than any other part of agriculture, and the pace climbed ahead of the July 2026 CUSMA review.
Ontario EI rolls surged 24% since 2024, and factories are not the reason
In the two years since January 2024, Employment Insurance beneficiaries in Ontario grew by nearly 36,000 to 185,010, a 24% jump at nearly double the national rate. Manufacturing and utilities occupations, the ones cited most in tariff coverage, account for none of it.
Every major Metrolinx transit line is opening years behind schedule
Measured against the opening date first committed for each project, every major transit line in the Greater Toronto Area is landing three to five years late. Two have finally opened. Three are still under construction, and their targets keep moving.
Canada's best pension fund? We ranked all 8 — the benchmark winner isn't the famous one
After Ontario Teachers trailed its benchmark, we pulled the latest annual report of all eight of Canada's pension giants and built one standardized scorecard. Over a decade, only HOOPP clearly beats the benchmark it sets for itself — by 2 full percentage points a year. CPP and PSP earn the highest raw returns. And on the question that started this — private companies — almost no fund reliably beats its own private-equity benchmark once you stop looking at a single year.
Canada TFW: How a Low-Wage Hiring Ban Pushed Restaurant Managers Into the High-Wage Stream
When Ottawa banned low-wage foreign-worker hiring in struggling cities in September 2024, approvals for low-wage restaurant managers collapsed. The same job reappeared in the high-wage stream, which the ban does not cover.
Canada's road and water networks are aging back to 2005 levels
Canada's headline measure of infrastructure health has climbed for two decades. The data underneath tells a different story: the country's roads are back where they stood in 2005, and waterworks have fallen every year since 2014. The national average hides the decline of two networks people use daily.
Carney talks like an economist. Trudeau talked like an advocate.
Two Liberal prime ministers, the same job, sharply different vocabularies. We counted every word in their House of Commons speeches. Mark Carney governs in the language of budgets and the economy; Justin Trudeau spoke in the language of care and climate. It shows in the words each man reaches for most.
Canadians are scared of AI. Their employers keep using more of it.
Two-thirds of Canadians want Ottawa to rein in artificial intelligence, even if it slows the technology down. Over the same stretch the share of businesses actually using AI has tripled, to about one in five. The fear and the reality have drifted apart, and the StatCan numbers on who is adopting, and why everyone else is not, tell a stranger story than the panic does.
Canadians aren't leaving in record numbers
A viral headline says 120,640 people emigrated in 2025, a record. They did. But as a share of the population the rate barely moved — and the real exodus is nearly a million temporary residents leaving as their permits expire.
Asking rents fell. The rent people pay went up.
Statistics Canada says asking rents fell over the past year. It also says rents rose almost four per cent. Both are correct. One number prices the apartment you would move into, the other the one you already live in, and the difference explains most of the confusion.
CPP sold Nvidia all the way up — and it became its biggest stock anyway
Before the AI boom, the Canada Pension Plan held 120 million Nvidia shares. It spent five years selling three-quarters of them — through the launch of ChatGPT, through the greatest stock run of the decade — then bought back in near the top. The shares it sold would be worth more than fifteen billion dollars today.
Ontario Teachers got into SpaceX early. A plain index fund still beat them in 2025.
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan bought into SpaceX in 2019, and the stake could be worth as much as 11.6 billion U.S. dollars if the company lists at its targeted valuation. Yet in 2025 the fund returned 6.7 percent — below its own 11.7 percent benchmark and less than half the S&P 500's 17.9 percent. Its private equity lost money for the first time in 16 years. A look at what the windfall hides, and how Canada's pension giants are quietly changing what they invest in.
BC's opioid deaths are falling everywhere but one Vancouver neighbourhood
British Columbia's illicit-drug deaths fell 21% in 2025, to 1,826. But one Vancouver neighbourhood still loses people at ten times the provincial rate. Mapped by all 88 Local Health Areas.
Canada has an "entrepreneurial drought," small-business group tells MPs
Appearing before the House Finance Committee on the spring economic update, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said more businesses are closing than opening across several sectors, for as long as 12 straight quarters. It warned that 55 percent of current owners would not recommend starting a business today, and pressed for a lower tax rate and a deduction threshold that has not moved since 2009.
A 4.2 billion dollar fix for a problem that's two-thirds not the system
Canada is rushing a new payroll system in to replace Phoenix. But its own Auditor General told a committee that most of the remaining pay errors aren't the software's fault at all — which raises an awkward question about what the 4.2 billion dollars is actually buying.
Canada was 90th in the world in 2013. It hosts the 2026 World Cup as its strongest team ever.
When Canada plays a home World Cup match for the first time this June, it does so as the strongest men's team in its history. A decade ago it sat 90th in the world. Measured in Elo, soccer's results-based strength rating, the climb since has carried Canada past the United States and into second place in North America, behind only Mexico.
As Dunkin' prepares for its Canadian relaunch via Foodtastic, public LMIA data shows the master franchisee hires foreign workers at nearly the same rate as Tim Hortons
Foodtastic, the Montreal company that just signed an exclusive deal to bring Dunkin' back to Canada with "hundreds of locations," has approved 109 Temporary Foreign Worker positions across its existing portfolio over the past two years. Normalized by workforce, that works out to roughly 5.7 per 1,000 employees — about 85 per cent of Tim Hortons' rate. Tim Hortons got every front page for promising to cut its TFW use. Foodtastic, with a similar per-worker rate, is opening hundreds of new stores under a "Dunkin' is back" headline.
Canada blamed Tim Hortons. McDonald's hired more foreign workers — and stayed quiet.
Tim Hortons said this morning it will cut Temporary Foreign Workers and hire 10,000 Canadians instead. The chain's full franchise network — every "12345 Ontario Inc o/a Tim Hortons" plus the two big franchisee groups whose corporate names don't carry the brand — has 747 LMIA-approved positions for 2024-2025. Roll up McDonald's the same way and you get 907. The chain making headlines about foreign-worker cuts isn't even Canada's biggest fast-food user of the program.
More cops, less crime? Not in Canadian cities.
Calgary spends roughly a third less per resident on policing than Montréal, and has less violent crime to show for it. Across 29 major Canadian metropolitan areas, the correlation between officers per 100,000 residents and the violent Crime Severity Index is essentially zero. Built from the 2025 Police Administration Survey, released Wednesday.
Canada was the world's 4th-largest carmaker in 2000. It now ranks 14th.
In 2000 Canada built 2.96 million vehicles and sat fourth in the world. In 2025 it built 1.24 million and slipped to 14th, behind the Czech Republic and Turkey. Mexico now builds 3.3 times as many vehicles as Canada does.
Canada's 2026 Census is being collected now — here's when each result lands, and what's worth watching
The fieldwork started in May. Statistics Canada hasn't published its 2026 release calendar yet, but the 2021 cycle gives a tight template — first headline counts about nine months after census day, full picture about eighteen. Ten things the new data is set up to settle.
Canada's military recruitment hit a 30-year high. The surge was officers, and women officer intake nearly doubled.
466 women enrolled as Canadian Armed Forces officers in fiscal year 2025/26 — a 94 percent year-over-year jump and the largest single-year shift for any subgroup in 28 years of DND open data. The composition of the 2025 cohort doesn't match the working-class enlistment story most coverage told.
Canadian millennials are twice as likely to live with their parents as boomers were
16.3 percent of millennials aged 25 to 39 lived with at least one parent in 2021. Boomers at the same age in 1991 — 8.2 percent. The rate has roughly doubled, and the figure is from the last census, before mortgage rates and rents climbed further.
Three categories did 86% of Express Entry's 2025 invitations. Three more were dormant. One has never drawn.
Canada lists seven federal "priority" categories on its Express Entry page. In 2025, French, CEC, and Healthcare did 86,350 of the 113,998 invitations issued. STEM hasn't drawn since April 2024. Agriculture has never drawn at all.
Canada will pay 107 CRS points for a French speaker
A French-speaking Express Entry candidate gets accepted at a score 107 points lower than an otherwise-equivalent candidate. The gap is the policy, and almost nobody is talking about it.
When Canada closed the side door to permanent residency, 100,000 'students' vanished
New first-time international college entries fell 75 percent in two years. Universities fell 46 percent. The gap is the story.
Canada has lost 111,000 full-time jobs since January. Quebec is taking the worst of it.
April was the fourth straight monthly decline in full-time employment. Unemployment hit a six-month high. Wages still grew 4.5 percent year-over-year. The headline number of minus 18,000 hides what is happening underneath it.
How Canadian provinces took control of immigration policy — and what got cut along the way
Ottawa called the 2026 Provincial Nominee expansion "historic." Provinces had already overshot their 2025 cap by 30,000 admissions. The 2026 plan formalizes it — and cuts family reunification, refugees, and federal merit selection to keep the total flat.
Ontario's opioid crisis is concentrated in the North — Thunder Bay's death rate is nearly 4× the provincial average
Ontario as a whole had 2,242 opioid toxicity deaths in 2024 — a rate of 13.9 per 100,000, well below Canada's 17.7 national rate. But the provincial average hides a sharp split: five northern Public Health Units sit between 35 and 54 per 100,000, while Toronto and Peel sit near or below the average.
Canada's EV market didn't slow — it was switched off
Honda is shelving its largest-ever North American EV investment, citing 'sluggish U.S. demand.' The Canadian story is sharper — ZEV market share fell from 18% to 9% in one quarter when both major rebates ended within weeks of each other.
Toronto rates its apartments two ways — and they almost never agree
500 Dawes Road is the only building both of Toronto's parallel rating systems flag as one of the worst — and that agreement is unusual enough it might be why Mayor Chow went there.
Canada's immigration slowdown, and the one stream growing
Study-permit and temporary foreign worker permit totals have fallen from their peaks, and permanent-resident admissions are lower. Protected-person admissions have risen sharply in 2026.
1 in 4 — how India became Canada's dominant immigration source
From 5 % of PR admissions in 1990 to a 31.5 % peak in 2021. Holding at 25 % even as the total falls. Four mechanisms explain the shift, including Express Entry's 2015 launch.
An area larger than England has burned in BC and Alberta since 2000
Every mapped fire perimeter in British Columbia and Alberta, animated month by month over 26 years. Most of the burning happened in the last six. What the acceleration means for carbon, water, communities and insurance.
Canadian trips to the U.S. are rising again, but remain 23% below August 2024
Canadians made 3.2 million return trips from the U.S. in August 2026, up 9% from a year earlier. Trips have now topped the same month a year before for five months in a row. That is still 23% below August 2024.
What's actually delaying the TTC subway
1,385 hours lost across 10,087 incidents. Disorderly patrons top the chart by total time but Line 1 carries 56 % of all delay. Built directly from the open-data file.
The 987 — what Ontario's 2024 police use-of-force data on youth says
Black youth 6.3× their population share. Middle Eastern 4.4×. Indigenous 1.7×. The four objections that survive scrutiny, and what the chart can and can't tell you.
Why Canada's opioid death rate just passed the US
17.7 vs 16.4 per 100,000 in 2024 — but the headline depends on whether you count British Columbia. Strip BC out and Canada drops to 14.0, well below the US rate.
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