Good morning,
The Liberal government announced the first change to capital-gains taxes in 25 years to support billions in new spending when it unveiled its budget yesterday. The 2024 federal budget lays out about $53-billion in new spending over five years, and is expected to court younger voters with $19-billion going toward a package of housing and affordability policies. Other big-ticket items in the budget include $10.7-billion for defence, $9.1-billion for Indigenous communities and $6.4-billion for community health and safety measures.
- Federal budget 2024: The full highlights
- Campbell Clark: Higher taxes sold as fairness for a government that sees no other way
- Andrew Coyne: A government with no priorities, no anchors, and when it comes to growth, no clue
- Editorial: The Liberals move from borrow and spend, to tax and spend
Business: The tax increase will affect companies that will now have to pay income tax on two-thirds of their capital gains earnings, and wealthy individuals, but only on capital gains earnings over $250,000. The tax measure is expected to net the government $19.3-billion over the next five years. Lawyers and accountants are expecting a flurry of activity in the coming months, as affected individuals and businesses try to sell assets and realize their capital gains before the new higher inclusion rate takes effect on June 25.
- Budget’s capital gains tax changes divide the small business community
- Opinion: The budget’s tax changes on corporations and the wealthy are long overdue
- Indigenous loan guarantee program could transform resource sector in Canada
- Stephen Poloz will lead push to boost domestic investment by Canadian pension funds
- Ottawa makes federal consumer agency the new oversight body for Canada’s proposed open banking system
- Seven ways the 2024 federal budget affects your finances, from selling your cottage to RESPs
- Rob Carrick: A federal budget personal finance report card
Foreign interference: In its efforts to combat interference by foreign states, the government’s budget allocated more than $667.7-million over eight years to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to bolster operations at the spy agency’s regional office in Toronto. The city is most frequently cited in accounts of meddling in domestic affairs by foreign actors. Canada is in the midst of a public inquiry into foreign interference by China.
Immigration: The federal government announced $325-million to upgrade federal immigration detention centres to house those immigrants who may pose a threat to public safety. High-risk immigrants could be locked up in federal prisons under legislative changes being brought forward through the budget bill.
Read more on the 2024 federal budget:
- Shannon Proudfoot: What sort of vision for the country can you conjure from inside a very deep hole?
- Opinion: Great budget, Ottawa, but how to execute it when Canada fails to retain talent?
- CBC getting $42-million in budget after warnings of job cuts
- Disability benefit launched with $6.1-billion of funding
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland presents the federal budget in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
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Canada, U.S. set to diverge on rate cuts as prices ease
Canada looks increasingly set to lower interest rates before the United States and take a different direction for monetary policy because of weaker price pressures north of the border.
The Consumer Price Index rose 2.9 per cent in March from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported yesterday. While inflation went up from February, several measures of core inflation – which strip out volatile components of the CPI – continued to slow in March.
Speaking at an event in Washington yesterday, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said Canada is “moving in the right direction.” But his American counterpart, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, struck a different tone about the path of inflation in the U.S.
In Gaza, Palestinians with treatable injuries face amputations as medical supplies run out
About a third of Gaza’s hospitals have continued to provide acute care through more than six months of war, with medical personnel working day and night to provide life-saving interventions to those not killed by air strikes.
But doctors and aid workers say the often lengthy healing process has created a new set of medical difficulties, as the wounded struggle to secure proper medication and maintain hygiene in crowded camps.
Some lose limbs because they are too badly damaged. For others, amputation is a rapid but devastating medical response when doctors are overwhelmed with casualties. Accurate figures are not available from Gaza, but as many as 1,000 children have had limbs amputated, said Mohammed Shaheen, an orthopedic surgeon at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
- Palestinians pay small fortunes to buy their way out of Gaza
- Israel has decided to retaliate against Iran for missile and drone attacks, Britain’s David Cameron says
- Opinion: As the Middle East erupts, don’t look away from Gaza
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Also on our radar
Three men found guilty in Coutts blockade: The three men on trial in Alberta for their roles in the highway blockade in protest of government-ordered restrictions during the pandemic have been found guilty on a charge of mischief over $5,000.
Prospective jurors questioned by Trump’s legal team: In the second day of his hush-money trial, Donald Trump’s legal team grilled prospective jurors yesterday about their politics and social-media posts in a bid to remove anyone who may be biased against their client.
- David Shribman: In the case of Biden vs. Trump, the challenge is overcoming a calcifying political environment
British MPs vote to make tobacco illegal: British MPs voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve in principle legislation that will make it an offence to sell tobacco products to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2009. The move brings Britain a step closer to enacting some of the toughest anti-smoking measures in the world.
Scientists discover bumblebees can survive underwater: Scientists at the University of Guelph have made the amazing discovery that hibernating bumblebees can survive for days entirely immersed underwater. The insects’ superpower is well suited to a world where increased flooding is expected because of climate change.
Lululemon unveils Olympic, Paralympic uniforms: Lululemon unveiled uniforms for Canada’s Olympians and Paralympians yesterday, saying the design combined function and fashion. The kit includes features such as magnetic-close zippers, pull-on loops, and sensory touch guides to support a diverse range of body types and abilities.
Morning markets
World shares steadied though investors stayed cautious at the prospect of U.S. interest rates staying higher for longer, which in turn pushed Treasury yields to five-month highs and buoyed the U.S. dollar.
In early trading in Europe, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.47 per cent, Germany’s DAX advanced 0.56 per cent and France’s CAC 40 was up 1.13 per cent.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.4 per cent while Japan’s Nikkei, however, dropped 1.3 per cent to its lowest in two months.
The dollar traded at 72.41 U.S. cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Gary Mason: “[British Columbia Premier David] Eby does not seem intent on following a war-worn dictum in politics: leave the place better than you found it. In fact, he’s creating problems that could take years to resolve.”
André Picard: “The crime and public disorder that has become all too common on city streets is unacceptable, and the public is right to be angry and demand action. But recriminalizing drug use and possession is not going to make any of those challenges disappear.”
Today’s editorial cartoon
Editorial cartoon by David Parkins, April 17, 2024.Illustration by David Parkins
Living better
Today’s popular bathroom upgrade turns showers into spas
Shauna Walton’s client had just one request for the primary bathroom in his new home: A steam shower, with a bench where he could lie down. “Spa-like” has become the new trend in bathroom renovations so interior designers are incorporating steam showers, natural ambient lighting and organic materials to help home bathrooms mimic a spa experience.
Moment in time: April 17, 1610
A mid-19th century print shows Henry Hudson, his son John, and seven crew members adrift in a small boat after the mutiny of the crew of the Discovery, which is sailing away in the Hudson Bay.Library of Congress
Henry Hudson sets off on the ship Discovery for ill-fated voyage to the Northwest Passage
One of the great mysteries of Arctic exploration was what happened to English navigator Henry Hudson. On this day in 1610, Hudson sailed from London aboard the Discovery in search of the Northwest Passage. It was his fourth attempt to find a more direct route to China across the top of the world. The expedition would be hampered by a disgruntled crew. Hudson’s ineffectual leadership would only make morale worse, especially among senior men. The Discovery reached Iceland without incident and then continued west around the bottom of Greenland into Davis Strait. Instead of continuing north, Hudson sailed west through the strait that bears his name today between Baffin Island and Northern Quebec, and then down the east coast of Hudson Bay. The expedition was forced to spend a difficult winter in the southeast corner of James Bay, probably at the mouth of the Rupert River. Come spring, several crew members had had enough of Arctic exploration and Henry Hudson. The mutineers put the captain, his son John and seven crew members adrift in a small boat in June, 1611, and sailed the Discovery back to England. The fate of the castaways remains unknown. Bill Waiser
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