The headline Ontario polling story shows the PCs’ support has fallen, now at 39 per cent, with the leaderless Liberals at 31 per cent and Marit Stiles’ Ontario NDP at 21 per cent, according to to an Abacus poll released last week.

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But first quarter fundraising was dismal for the Ontario Liberals, suggesting their polling pop may be more a halo from the Carney Liberals than reflective of their own momentum.

It’s a topic tackeledd in this week’s Left East to West podcast, which includes a feature interview with Nova Scotia NDP leader Claudia Chender.

OLP ran fourth in Q1 fundraising

The only independently verified fundraising numbers come from Elections Ontario, but they only include donors who have given $200 or more during the calendar year.

In the first quarter of 2026 the Ford PCs took in a massive amount, as usual. They are perfecting the cash-for-access system, a sort of policy-for-rent approach to governing, and it is paying off in power and cash.

The Liberals were nowhere close. They weren’t even second. Or third. In Q1, among the $200 plus donor crowd, the Ontario Liberals ran fourth, behind the Greens.

Among donors who have given $200 or more, the Ontario NDP raised just under $99,000 and the Ontario Liberals just below $69,000, according to Elections Ontario.

That weak result does not track with a party at 31 per cent support. And nor does their self-reported total of all donations, regardless of size.

While the Ontario NDP reported total Q1 fundraising of $750,000, the Ontario Liberals say they brought in just $423,000.

The OLP press release blamed the low numbers on Doug Ford’s new, higher fundraising caps saying “it isn’t just about fundraising numbers, it’s about fairness.” Yes, but it is also about their fundraising numbers.

The Ontario NDP statement just said “Doug Ford answers to insiders, Marit Stiles answers to people”.

Weak OLP leadership race also undercuts polls results

And this fundraising data isn’t the only contraindicator to the polling numbers. The Liberals have been weirdly unable to attract a leadership candidate other than Nate Erskine-Smith.

Erskine-Smith is the federal Liberal MP who finally made it to cabinet in the dying days of the Trudeau government, only to get bounced by Carney just a few months later. On the way out he took some very public shots at the PM. So he’s not in the big tent with the cool kids.

Now an unhappy backbench MP, Erskine-Smith has announced he wants to be nominated as the Ontario Liberal Party candidate in a Scarborough by-election as a step toward becoming Ontario Liberal leader. Erskine-Smith’s current federal seat is not in Scarborough.

And after the Ontario Liberals’ 2025 candidate said she wants to seek the nomination again, Erskine-Smith said she should back off so he could be acclaimed. That conflict has turned public with “he-said-she-said” accusations and personal attacks on Nate Erskine-Smith from other candidates.

But no one else has said they want the job of OLP leader. And that also does not track with a party polling at 31 per cent.

How much halo?

No doubt there’s some halo effect from Carney, and it’s impossible to say how much. But whatever the size, that halo is an opportunity to grab onto.

But the evidence of bad fundraising results and a weak leadership race suggests the Ontario Liberals are too disorganized to be able to seize it.

There were 5,800 fewer employed workers in Ontario in March than February, even as there were more employed workers in Canada as a whole, according to seasonally adjusted data released by Statistics Canada on Friday.

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Only 8,205,500 Ontario workers were employed last month, 69,000 fewer than in December, when there were 8,274,500 employed workers.

Unemployed workers increased for a third consecutive month, now numbering 676,100. In March, there were 31,600 more unemployed Ontarians than January.

Job losses led by job cuts in schools and stores

While manufacturing and construction have been the focus of attention in previous months, those were not where the big job losses hit in March. The number of employed workers in each sector fell only a few hundred workers last month. However, both are well below recent employment peaks set in January 2025.

In March, the hits landed hardest on Ontario service sector workers. StatsCan found there were about 35,000 fewer workers in wholesale trade and retailing, education, public service and accommodation and food services than in February.

The largest number of jobs lost, both in absolutely numbers and as a percentage, has been in the education sector. Private college employment has fallen after a funding model based on foreign student fees collapsed due to changes to student visa rules. Those changes plus government cuts have put several public colleges and universities under severe financial stress. And now school boards, many of which have been put under the direct administration of the Ford PCs, are terminating school staff.

The largest gain in employment was an additional 10,100 workers in professional and scientific jobs, though at 905,900 workers, the sector remains 12,300 jobs below the 918,200 workers in October 2025.

The Ontario economy is weak, but the big service sector losses point to a different cause than what headlines focus on. A loss of manufacturing jobs can be blamed on Trump. Fewer employed construction workers may be attributed to the housing market failure.

But big job losses at schools, stores, restaurants, bars and hotels are a different story, one almost certainly driven by actors and factors in Ontario, and one that has gone far less examined.

— Tom

There were 103,000 fewer people resident in Canada at the start of 2026 than on January, 1 2025 according to Statistics Canada data released Wednesday.

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The lower population has been driven by a falling rate of natural population increase, falling immigration, and a falling number of people in Canada on a work or study permit and without permanent residency.

Is depopulation worsening economic challenges?

This morning’s data comes after StatsCan Labour Force Survey reported that for a second month the number of employed workers in Canada fell as did the number of workers in the labour market, which includes those looking for work. In February the unemployment rate increased while the participation rate decreased, a double-negative trend.

Without doubt there are many factors affecting Canada’s job losses, particularly Trump’s tariff attack and the housing construction melt-down. What is less clear from public analysis is whether depopulation is among the factors.

The specific relationship between recent jobs loss and recent population decline hasn’t been much analyzed in the public sphere. But, in theory, a higher population does lead to more consumer spending, which sustains about two-thirds of Canadian GDP. Depopulation means less fewer consumers and may be another factor behind falling employment.

Top impact: fewer work and study permit holders

The number of people in Canada on study or work permit and without permanent residency fell by 495,029 from January 1, 2025 to January 1, 2026.

Unfortunately, Statistics Canada data doesn’t show data on people in Canada on permits before 2021. In spring 2022 the Government of Canada, at the urging of business organizations and premiers, announced increases to the number of both work and study permits. Permit holders began to increase Q3 2022, peaking Q4 2024.

Data Shows has emphasized many times that the massive increase in the cost of housing, which occurred from mid-2020 to Q1 2022, pre-dates the increase in permit holders. In fact, from Q3 2022 to Q4 2024, when the number of permit holders was increasing, the cost of housing was falling in major markets.

Purchase and rent prices continue to fall, now four years after the peak, with large employment consequences. Data Shows emphasises this point because pointing at immigrants has frequently been used to deflect from a terrible market failure that remains greatly under-explored.

Continued slower net immigration

In 2025, Canada’s population through immigration increased by 328,046, the lowest net immigration increase since the onset of the pandemic. Through the year, 65,706 more people with a permanent residency right in Canada left Canada than returned to it. And 393,753 people immigrated to Canada.

Net immigration peaked in 2024 at 419,202. While net emigration was almost unchanged between 2024 and 2025, immigration dropped by about 89,900.

In Q4 2025 the number of immigrants was 83,200, mid-pack to the numbers in the five years before the pandemic.

Natural population growth has come to a halt

Aside from the spike in deaths and a fall in births during the pandemic, in Q4 2025 for the fist time the number of deaths exceeded the number of births. It was a significant point but not a change from a long-term trend.

Still, Canada’s natural population increase in 2025 was 31,206 people. There were about 370,000 births and 340,000 deaths. Births are almost higher in Q3 while deaths are almost always higher in Q1, the pandemic period excepted.

Left East to West podcast — upcoming episodes

• Mon Mar 23 — Sussanne Skidmore, President, BC Federation of Labour

• Mon Mar 30 — special NDP convention coverage with detail and panel insight

• Mon Apr 6 — we’re taking a break — or maybe a special guest, we’ll see

• Mon Apr 13 — Claudia Chender, leader, Nova Scotia NDP

• Mon Apr 20 — Jen Pederson, foreign policy analyst

• Mon Apr 27 — Bea Bruske, President, Canadian Labour Congress

• Mon May 4 — Dave McGrane, historian of the CCF/NDP, professor, podcast host

Listen on podcast or watch on YouTube. If there’s someone you’d like to hear on Left East to West, email us at lefteasttowest@gmail.com.

Canada has lost 110,000 jobs over the past two months, 60,000 of them in Ontario, leaving our country weaker as it battles Donald Trump’s campaign of “economic force” against us.

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Canada’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 6.5 per cent in January to 6.7 per cent in February, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey, released Friday. And the higher unemployment rate comes despite the percentage of Canadians in the labour market dropping from 65.0 per cent to 64.9 per cent.

Excepting the pandemic recession period, Canada’s participation rate hasn’t been lower since December, 1997. Ontario’s participation rate is 0.3 points lower than the national rate, at 64.6 per cent, while its rising unemployment rate, now 7.6 per cent, is 0.9 points higher than the national rate. Ontario has the second-highest unemployment rate in Canada.

The Ford calamity, bringing down the country

The loss of jobs amid Trump’s attack on Canada underscores the importance of governments not making things worse and using every possible lever and tool to boost employment.

Based on the data, Ontario is the drag on the Canada’s economy, targeted by Trump’s tariffs and damned by Doug Ford’s incompetent and ideological premiership:

• Ford has condemned non-market housing as communism, but his market-only housing approach has left construction starts at historic lows and construction jobs 11,000 lower than a year ago

• his scheme to fund the education sector with foreign student money has collapsed like a house of cards, and the sector has lost 32,000 jobs in 12 months

• failing to fix the affordability crisis is keeping people out of shops, hotels and restaurants, with 34,000 jobs gone in accommodation and food service and 11,000 killed in retail shops in 12 months

• with the EV strategy he cobbled together with Trudeau falling apart and Trump’s tariffs biting, Ontario manufacturing is down 40,000 jobs in a year.

Every Canadian is paying the price of Ontario having no coherent economic plan. While Ontario’s economy sinks, Doug Ford’s focus has been on creating a series of deflections and diversions from the corruption scandals that point at him. Last week he announced new legislation to block freedom of information requests into his dealings.

Will Carney’s solutions work? Are they fast enough?

Left East to West podcast this week spoke with Guio Jacinto, economic and trade analyst for the United Steelworkers union, about companies in the steel, aluminum and forestry sectors scrambling to find new markets.

Their trade pivot will take time and it’s unclear if Carney’s economic prescription will work — or work in time.

The Carney government’s major projects strategy has not yet finalized its goals or attracted the capital needed to go ahead. The strategy is based on the idea federal policy can “crowd in” private capital, rebounding the economy.

“My question isn’t necessarily whether or not crowding-in is real,” Jacinto told Left East to West. “My concern really is whether what the government has done so far is enough, whether we need more, and whether the medium through which they’ve done it is sufficient.”

Jacinto also expressed worry the impact of Carney’s massive “military Keynesianism” spending could be dampened because Canada lacks industries that can scale-up quickly enough. Already, Canada’s plans to replace its two heavy icebreaker coast guard ships has been delayed due to limited ship-building capacity. Significant parts of the project are being done in Finland.

And there is space open for a stronger value-adding strategy, in which a government “seeks to maximize the forward linkages beyond raw material extraction” to create jobs and industries in processing and manufacturing.

“We’ve actually quite lost quite a bit in the last decade in that space and gone backwards,” says Jacinto.

Full Left East to West podcast

Listen to our full interview with Guio Jacinto on podcast or watch on YouTube.

Over 90 million barrels of crude were produced in Alberta in December, the highest monthly total ever, according to data released by Statistics Canada on Monday.

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Alberta’s crude production is up 49 per cent since 2016.

The new record was due to an increase in crude bitumen production, which reached 72.9 million barrels in December. Production of heavy crude and light/medium crude was near historic levels, but not peak.

Pumping much more, earning much less

Despite record production, the Alberta UCP’s annual budget last week unveiled an expected $4.1 billion deficit for 2025/26 and a $9.4 billion deficit in 2026/27.

Royalty income is falling, driving a drop in total revenue and big deficits. Next year, non-renewable resource royalties are expected to fall again, down 41 per cent, or $8.8 billion, from last fiscal year. Total revenue will fall nine percent cent, $7.9 billion, despite some large UCP tax increases.

UCP budget documents show non-renewable royalties were $22.0 billion in 2024/25 and are projected to be $13.2 billion for 2026/27. Total revenue is expected to fall from $82.5 billion in 2024/25 to $74.6 billion in 2026/27.

Of course, oil supply shocks and global instability caused by Trump’s Iran War may revive oil prices, benefiting the Alberta treasury, and creating a windfall for owners of secure oil supplies in a global seller’s market. However, it would also cause a new round of price inflation Canadians will pay for.

UCP hard pivots to new reasons to blame Ottawa

In previous years, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith claimed Ottawa was damaging Alberta’s economy by not accepting enough immigration and killing oil production.

Smith has now done a hard pivot, claiming Ottawa has damaged Alberta’s economy by accepting too many immigrants while skirting her earlier oil production claims, which are clearly contradicted by data.

Smith’s immigration claims were also refuted by data and met widespread criticism and accusations of deploying racism as a political tool. While Smith claimed Alberta’s population was growing “out-of-control” it increased just 1.0 per cent in 2025/26. The UCP budget forecast 1.1 per cent population growth in 2026. In years before 2025/26, Alberta had surplus budgets.

Capital investment holds at post-boom levels

Capital investment (in current, non-inflation-adjusted dollars) in oil and gas, which tends to predict employment, also rose from Q3 to Q4 2025. But it remained marginally below Q3 2024 and well below levels of a decade ago.

The $10.7 billion in capital investment in Q4 2015 would be worth $13.9 in current dollars, according to the Bank of Canada inflation tool, about $2.2 less than was invested in Q4 2025.

Left East to West, with Shannon Phillips

Shannon Phillips, former Alberta NDP minister, joins Nikki and me to discuss dark money, Trump’s interference and where the NDP needs to win to defeat Smith’s UCP.

Listen on podcast or watch on YouTube.

Doug Ford’s campaign promise was an Ontario “open for business,” and with usual Ford flare, he posted those words on a highway sign in Niagara Falls to impress US travellers.

But election promises and highway signs don’t seem to be getting the job done.

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The number of active Ontario businesses fell 1.0 per cent from November 2024 to November 2025, the month of Statistics Canada’s most recent data, released February 24. Ontario’s businesses are closing faster than in any province except Newfoundland and Labrador.

After a tsunami of closings during the COVID recession, businesses reopened rapidly. But in Ontario, that recovery peaked in March 2024. Since then there has been a net loss of about 5,000 businesses in Ontario. The province has also struggled with above-average unemployment and weak consumer demand.

While Trump’s attack on Canada hurt Ontario’s economy in 2025, the downturn in active businesses and upturn in unemployment both started many months before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration.

Ontario’s poor economic management will weaken provincial revenues and increase deficits, jeopardizing the public investments that keep growth rolling.

Despite the poor outcomes — or perhaps because of it — the Ford PC are flooding media with advertising telling voters that, from jobs to healthcare, everything is terrific in Ontario.

BC’s economic success, a story untold

Meanwhile in British Columbia, after the COVID recession hit, more net business openings brought the province to a new high in active businesses in November. The province has had the strongest performance in business growth over the past year.

BC has had Canada’s fastest economic growth since 2017, when the BC Liberals were defeated and the BC NDP elected. It also now has the highest average wage in Canada, having climbed to the top spot from third in 2017. That positive news is of course tempered by the continued problem of housing affordability, especially in Vancouver, and a lower pace of growth in 2024 that only somewhat recovered in 2025.

Though BC has had some bright economic news in a country mostly muddling through, it is something the BC NDP apparently insists on not talking about, preferring to message to British Columbians that not everyone is feeling it.

A fear of being counter-attacked on behalf of those “not feeling it” seems to haunt the Eby government, causing them to downplaying the successes they’ve had.

But a government that doesn’t talk about its own successes doesn’t stop its opposition from talking about its failures — and all governments have them.

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Most Canadians, if they repeatedly lie at work, get fired. But Danielle Smith has increasingly made lying her strategy for job survival.

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The UCP’s budget is coming Thursday. Across the country, provincial deficits are rising, and Alberta may only be the exception by being worse.

Adding to the impacts felt in other provinces, Alberta budgets heavily depend on oil royalty revenue, which Smith dramatically over-calculated.

But rather than accept that unemployment, UCP mismanagement and bad royalty calculations are driving deficits, Danielle Smith has concocted a fact-free story of blame she knows her UCP will repeat for her.

It’s not the Alberta premier who’s responsible for Alberta’s budget mess, it’s Ottawa and immigrants, says the Alberta premier.

Smith took to television last week to spin her story, which was based on three main claims, all untrue. First, she said her UCP has “generously” funded health care and schools. Second, that schools and healthcare must be cuts because of immigrants. Third, blame Justin Trudeau because of his “out-of-control” immigration levels.

Let’s look at the facts on each of her claims.

UCP never generous with schools or healthcare

First, her UCP has never “generously” funded schools and health care. The Canadian Institute for Health Information projects that in 2025, Alberta spent less, per person, on healthcare than most provinces. Contrary to her story of UCP generosity, healthcare investment per person is below the national average.

And even Danielle Smith’s defenders at the Fraser Institute say Alberta’s investment in schools is lowest in Canada. The UCP has always been a cuts government.

Alberta population will grow about 1.0% in 2025/26

Second, Alberta’s population growth in budget year 2025/26 will actually be very low, not “out-of-control.”

Alberta’s population increased by just 11,525 people, or 0.2 per cent, between July 1, 2025 and October 1, 2025, the most recent population estimates by Statistics Canada. Assuming a similar population increase for the remainder of the budget year, Alberta’s population growth during the 2025/26 budget year will be a very low 1.0 per cent.

It is simply impossible that 1.0 per cent population growth caused the UCP’s big deficits in 2025/26 and the bigger deficit likely in 2026/27.

When Alberta’s rate of population growth was higher, at 4.7 per cent in budget 2023/24 and 3.1 per cent in budget 2024/25, the province ran surpluses.

And not only has population growth gone ultra-low, adding just 83,796 people from October 1, 2024 to October 1. 2025, immigration is just a part of that. Of that population growth, 24,656 people were added because births exceeded deaths, according to Statistics Canada.

Smith’s immigrant-blaming story is pure nonsense.

Smith demanded more immigration from Trudeau

Finally, not only did Smith support Trudeau’s increase in immigration from mid-2022 until late 2024, she threatened and demanded higher immigration.

In her fall 2023 Thone Speech, Dannielle Smith aimed to double Alberta’s population by 2050, and she talked about Red Deer becoming a million-person city — it currently has 100,000 residents.

Just 23 months ago, in March 2024 Smith complained Ottawa was not bringing enough immigrants, “limiting” Alberta’s economy. She wrote a letter to Justin Trudeau demanding he triple immigration under the province’s nominee program.

Increasingly radical UCP

But with her UCP moving in increasingly radical directions, Smith’s advantage is the UCP will loudly repeat her three-part fiction.

They will do it because blaming Ottawa furthers their separatism agenda. They will do it because blaming immigrants furthers a racist agenda. And most of all, they will do it because it distracts from their own mismanagement of the Alberta advantage.

Smith’s chief of staff in her Calgary office echoed Smith’s falsehoods, claiming Alberta was undergoing “explosive, unmanageable population growth.” Bruce MacAllister asked why Alberta would “import” people from “failed systems when our Judeo-Christian heritage and principles have worked so well here.”

Smith, MacAllister and the increasingly radical UCP are the last people who should be judging the principles of anyone — or what has worked well. These terrible people have wasted Alberta’s potential. They failed to diversify the provincial economy. And now they try to distract from their failure by setting decent, hard-working people against each other.

NEW EPOSIDE — Left East to West

Our interview with economist Iglika Ivanova of BC Policy Solutions on making the right public investments to spur growth, environmental damage and food prices. Plus, Nikki and I touch on the a new Manitoba probe into predatory grocery pricing and the political aftermath of a snowstorm in Nova Scotia.

Watch on YouTube or listen on podcast.

A pattern is emerging of the Carney government playing shell games to distract from cuts.

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First with housing, now on transit, independent groups have discovered Carney’s 2025 budget merged funds, renamed them, cut them, then boasted about “generational investments.”

But perhaps just not this generation.

The Canadian Federation of Municipalities has recently confirmed a political shell game was used to cover a $5 billion transit cut.

The news comes as transit use struggled in 2025 after a strong rebound after the COVID response, according to Statistics Canada data released on February 16. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver account for the bulk of transit use. Montreal data was available in this week’s data release.

Separate transit fund protected from competition

With Toronto Mayor Oliva Chow beside him, in July 2024 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the $30 billion, 10 year Canada Public Transit Fund. Trudeau pledged the Transit Fund would deliver “predictable, long-term transit funding” exclusively to municipal transit systems, like Toronto’s TTC.

The Transit Fund was to provide capital investments to fix transit maintenance problems. And because the money was exclusive to transit, it was protected from competition from cities or provinces, who also want federal capital money for their priorities, like roads or schools.

Passenger on Toronto’s TTC will be painfully aware it is struggling with many problems, and a lot stems from historic under-investment in capital upgrades. For example, trains are limited from running faster because of old track and signals.

The Transit Fund was to start flowing capital in 2026-27. But then came the switch.

Repackaged fund covers transit cut

In the lead-up to last November’s budget, the Carney Liberals hyped a new $51 billion Build Communities Strong Fund to make “generational investments” in roads, bridges, sewers, hospitals and schools, a mix of municipal and provincial priorities.

The promotion made it sound like $51 billion in new funding was coming. But it wasn’t.

When budget 2025 was released, the promised “predictable, long term” $30 billion Transit Fund was nowhere to be found. In December the Carney government eventually confirmed to the FCM that the Transit Fund had been cancelled and its money transferred into the new Build Canada Strong Fund.

That story never hit mainstream news, which focused on bigger top-line stories, until this month. Data Shows reported on it in December.

But the transit capital money wasn’t just repackaged. In late January the FCM confirmed the amount for transit within BCSF was now $25 billion, not $30 billion.

And mayors are worried the amount for transit could get smaller still. The Transit Fund was exclusive for transit systems. But BCSF is open to municipalities and provinces, raising concern that placating premiers will come at the expense of transit.

Fund repackaging also covered housing cut

This isn’t the first time the Carney Liberals’ investment boasts have turned out to be cuts.

The Carney Liberals pledged to “double the pace” of housing construction with their new Build Canada Homes program.

But in December, the Parliamentary Budget Office reported BCH would spur less housing construction than the programs it replaced and the BCH’s investment would be 56 per cent lower than existing programs by 2029/30.

Data Shows also reported on those PBO findings in December.

New episode from Left East to West

This week Left East to West focuses on rebuilding the building trades in BC.

The BC Liberals gutted the trades training and certification system and this week Nikki and I interview Brynn Bourke, Executive Director of the BC Building Fund, to talk about rebuilding the building trades. We also touch on the Defence Industry Bank and the Ontario Liberals’ continuing problem filling their leadership.

Watch on YouTube or listen on podcast.

December is always a strong month for Canadian travel to international destinations as the snow starts to fly and the holiday season unites families across boarders.

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But for those with family in the United States, it may have been a year for them to come north, as Trump’s domestic chaos and violence, his new and invasive border rules and his threats against Canada each month get worse.

And while Canadians escaping the cold may have enjoyed temperatures in Florida or Arizona in the past, Mexico and the Caribbean have the quaint charm of not being ruled by madman.

Passengers traveling within Canada also increase

In December 2025, just 41 per cent of passengers screened for international travel were heading to the United States, the lowest percentage since at least 2019.

Screenings for USA travel was down 161,000 passengers from December 2024. For trips to other international locations, screenings were up 133,000. And screenings for travel inside Canada was also stronger, up 57,000 from December 2024.

Compared to December 2023, domestic screenings were up 267,000 and other international passengers were up 195,000. But passengers to the USA were down by 74,000.

Canadian tourism strong despite fewer US visitors

Previous GDP data has shown strength in the Canadian tourism industry. But that strength is happening despite a decline in incoming travelers, a sign that Canadians discovering their own country is helping offset Trump’s tariffs and threats. Canadians spending their money in Canada on Canadian products made by Canadian workers appears to be making a difference.

The latest data on travel to Canada by residents of other countries, from November, shows about 92,000 fewer people travelling into Canada than November 2024. Travel from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas excluding the USA were all up. Travel from the USA was down 131,000.

In the peak July tourism month, 102,000 fewer US residents visited Canada in 2025 than 2024, but 93,000 more residents of other states visited.

Visits from European states were up by 46,000 people, with visits from UK, France, Italy and Belgium up about 10 per cent from July 2024. Visits from residents of Asian states increased by 26,000 with 19 per cent more visitors from Japan, 28 per cent more from South Korea, and 31 per cent more from China.

Canadians’ air travel to the USA didn’t just drop to a lower level with the election of Donald Trump and his declaration of economic war on Canada. It continues to decline most months as Trump’s threat rises and the USA’s internal situation grows more chaotic and unsafe.

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The largest drop yet came in November, according to passenger screening data from Statistics Canada released last week. November Passengers screened at Canada’s eight largest airports for travel to the USA were down 13.5 per cent from November 2024.

At Canada’s eight largest airports, comparing November 2025 to November 2024, there were

• 159,577 (13.5%) fewer passengers screened for travel to the USA

• 119,363 (9.6%) more screened for travel to the rest of the world

• 42,720 (2.2%) more screened for domestic travel.

Overall, Canadians travelled more in November 2025 than November 2024. But many are breaking old travel habits and choosing somewhere other than the USA.

Mexico’s Ministry of Tourism reported an increase of nearly 200,000 Canadian visits from January to September 2025 compared to the same period a year earlier, an 11.8 per cent increase.

Outside of the COVID travel restriction period, the USA share of Canadians’ foreign travel hasn’t been lower since at least 2019. November travel to the USA ranged from 49 to 51 per cent after COVID and until Trump. In November, 2025 it was 43 per cent of all foreign travel.

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The rate of death from opioids, stimulants and other drugs fell for the sixth consecutive quarter up to June, 2025, though the previous rapid pace of decline has recently slowed, according to data collected by provinces and released by Health Canada in December.

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Lives lost to opioids from April to June, 2025, were down 32 per cent from the crisis peak. Stimulant deaths were down 62 per cent from peak. Methamphetamine and cocaine were the major causes of stimulant deaths.

Lives taken by opioids and stimulants in Q2 2025 were:

• down 6% from the previous quarter, Q1 2025

• down 39% from same quarter last year, Q2 2024

• down 44% from the crisis peak, Q4 2023.

Still, opioids killed 1,384 people in Canada from April 1 to June 30 last year. Stimulants killed at least 552 people, though data from Alberta, PEI and Quebec were not reported.

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672 fewer lives lost to opioids than in peak crisis quarter

Opioid deaths were down in four of eight provinces with data, but even in those where deaths increased in Q2, the numbers remain well below the peaks of 2023 and 2024. Q2 data for PEI and Newfoundland and Labrador was suppressed, indicating fewer than five deaths.

The largest increase in lost lives was in British Columbia, where opioid deaths increased nine per cent from Q1. But opioid deaths in BC remain down 20 per cent from their peak in Q2 2024.

At its Canada-wide peak in Q4 2021, opioids killed 2,056 people, about 23 every day. In the latest quarter lives lost to opioids were down 32 per cent from peak. But that is still 15 people every day.

Stimulant deaths down 62% from crisis peak

Stimulant deaths have fallen even more dramatically, taking 914 fewer lives, or 62 per cent fewer, than at peak. Deaths in Ontario have fallen 49 per cent from peak. The biggest drop has been in British Columbia where deaths have fallen by 88 per cent from its peak.

Men in their 30s have the highest rate of drug death

Men are killed by opioids at a rate double that of women, a longstanding pattern. But the age of those dying has shifted.

In 2017, 20 per cent of those killed were in their 20s, but that group accounted for 14 per cent of those killed in the first half of 2025. Those over 60 and those in their 40s are a growing proportion of deaths. However, in absolute numbers, deaths have plunged among all age groups.

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Canada’s gross domestic product fell by 0.3 per cent in October and the data released by Statistics Canada on Tuesday had some tell-tale signs of the United States president’s attack on Canada.

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All data in this report is adjusted for seasonal and inflation. GDP values are annualized; per cent changes are not.

October’s 0.3 per cent decline wiped out September’s 0.2 per cent GDP gain. In six of the ten months of 2025 now reported, GDP fell. October GDP was $1.3 billion less than January.

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The Trump administration has put tariffs on U.S. imports of lumber, steel, aluminum and assembled vehicles. Though the sectoral tariffs are global, the effect is a more intense attack on working Canadian because of higher trade volumes in those sectors compared to other countries.

In October, sawmills production fell $382 million from September. Iron and steel dropped $54 million. Aluminum fell $53 million. Auto assembly dropped $80 million In October, all four manufacturing sectors were below January’s levels.

However, as the charts also show, key sectors were already facing challenges before Trump and not all the economic damage has been externally inflicted.

Over many years, and under various parties in Ottawa and provincial capitals, Canadian economic growth has been weak.

The weight of the winter 2022 housing sector collapse continues to crush residential construction jobs, with the sector down $212 million between September and October. The sector is down $7.7 billion since its peak in March 2022, when higher interest rates ended soaring housing prices.

The declines and resulting unemployment together with high prices pushed down on retail sales and retail workers. The sector fell $791 million in October and is now $1.3 billion below its December 2024 peak. This signal of weak household spending echoes detailed quarterly data released last month showing household consumer demand falling.

Trades workers have recently been at the centre of a lot of politics in Canada, but in most of Canada that attention hasn’t translated into wages that keep up with prices, according to two datasets released by Statistics Canada on Monday.

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The data is also a reminder that while high-level aggregate data may show wages have caught up with the dramatic price hikes of 2022, it’s not true for all workers and certainly not in all neighbourhoods of the country.

Aggregate data can hide key facts. After all, when Elon Musk steps into a room everyone in it is a billionaire, on average.

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Except in Vancouver, labourer wages lose to inflation

Across five major Canadian cities, the wage of a unionized construction labourer only kept up with prices in Vancouver.

The results are from the Construction Union Wage Rates tables and Consumer Price Index tables, both released by Statistics Canada on Monday.

Construction labourers’ pay packets fell significantly behind price hikes in Halifax, Calgary and Toronto, according to the data. In Halifax, over the past fives years, labourer wages rose just 7.0 per cent while prices went up 22.1 per cent, the data shows.

Among five trades in five cities, 20 of 25 groups fell behind

And the losses weren’t just for labourers. In the constructor sector from November 2020 to November 2025, the wages of plumbers, electricians, sheet metal workers and carpenters also mostly fell behind price increases in their city, the data shows.

Among the five selected trades in the five major cities, a total of 25 groups, only carpenters in Calgary and labourers, plumbers, sheet metal workers and electricians in Vancouver kept ahead of inflation.

In all five cities, plumbers topped the wage scale, with electricians or sheet metal workers usually running next. But, excepting workers in Vancouver, these workers also lost ground to prices.

In an era when politicians love to announce “historic investments” in infrastructure, in many places the big numbers are making small impact for the people who do the work.

Building permits approved in October anticipated the highest number of Ontario housing units so far this year. But then, 2025 has been terrible, as shown by Statistic Canada data released Friday.

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The number of units anticipated in permits issued in the first ten months was the lowest in 2025 for five years, down 29 per cent from the 2021 peak.

But the 9,749 units anticipated by Ontario’s October permits was a big bounce up from just 6,618 units in September. And it was the best October since 2021.

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October’s bump wasn’t from likely homeownership housing, such as houses or condos. And it wasn’t from non-profit or co-op rental construction, since the Ontario Ford government opposes any approach not exclusively dependent on private capital.

The data shows October’s bump was all driven by corporate rental properties.

Big shift to corporate rental construction from condos

Single-unit construction, typically for owner-occupants, accounted for just 1,228 units in October, down from the pace of 2,000 to 3,000 new units per month before mid-2022.

And condominium construction, the other owner-occupied option, has utterly collapsed. From peaks of more than 4,000 units a month in 2020 and 2021, permits for condo apartments fell to just six — six! — in October 2025. Condo row houses, previously a few hundred each month, fell to 31.

The condo collapse has been caused by a financing model significantly dependent on small investor landlords.

A 2024 StatsCan report found 65 per cent of Toronto’s small condos were investor-owned.

Smaller investors use mortgage financing backed by expected rental income for pre-construction condo purchases. Condo builders then cycle their pre-construction sales revenue into their next condo project.

Or so the theory goes. In practice, falling rents and rising finance costs have crushed the spread on condo investment, freezing the pre-construction sales revenue and halting future condo projects. There has been little talk of reforms to promote condo occupant-ownership and avoid dependance on small investors.

Finance driving out homeownership

With condo construction nearing zero, in October, corporate investors rushed in to fill the vacuum.

Of the 9,749 housing units approved in October, 7,261, or 75 per cent, were for corporate apartment rental construction, a record month. Possibly it is an outlier. But the general trend toward rental corporate ownership has clear for several years.

Corporate apartment finance commonly comes from asset management companies, which raise money globally from pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and extreme wealth individuals. The capital is bundled into specialized investment funds that pay returns from rents and capital gains on building resale.

The biggest asset managers in residential rental apartments are BlackStone, whose billionaire CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is a past chair of Donald Trump’s economic advisory council, and Brookfield Asset Management, the company formerly headed by Mark Carney, now Canada’s prime minister. The industry does not lack for political clout.

What the finance system will build is what consumers get to choose from. And this shift in Ontario’s residential construction shows homeownership is poised to fall further as less owner-occupy housing is built.

The Carney government’s rightward lean has the Liberals gaining support among past Conservative voters but losing voters to the NDP, according to our analysis of public polls released in November.

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Compared to the April 28 general election, the average of results from November’s publicly-released poll show the top moves are:

• Conservatives down 3.8 points to 37.5 per cent support

• NDP up 2.7 to 9.0 per cent

• Liberals down 1.8 to 42.0

• BQ up 0.4 to 6.7 per cent.

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NDP gains from Liberals, Conservatives lose to everyone

Unfortunately, not many pollsters help us understand where these gains and losses are coming from or going to. Angus Reid’s November 17 poll is the only survey that provides cross-tabs of current vote intention against past vote, showing shifts between the parties, from previous non-voters or into the undecided column.

A further step determines the net gains between choices. For example, since the last election, while 21 respondents moved from the NDP to the Liberals, 72 switched from the Liberals to NDP, a net gain of 51 for the NDP.

Net score below can be summarized as:

• NDP made large net gains from Liberals and smaller net gains from Conservatives

• Liberals made net gains from Conservatives but lost to NDP, BQ and others

• BQ gained from Conservatives and Liberals

• Conservative lost to all of the above, including others (assume PPC) and undecided.

An NDP focus on Conservatives to unlock Liberal strategic voting?

Carney’s rightward orientation and move to absorb Conservative support has given the NDP some space for a rebound, but the strategic conditions the NDP faces are not substantially changed. The challenge isn’t so much to gain Liberal support as to hold it.

Though Conservative support is bleeding, at 37.5 per cent they remain a threat. Given that Poilievre seems uninclined to change his polarizing style, the Liberals’ ability to demand strategic voting, regardless of their rightward repositioning, remains intact.

But the Liberal focus on gaining Conservative support opens an interesting possibility for the NDP: to also court past Conservatives, but a different demographic than the more affluent voters the Liberals are poaching. The most obvious group for the NDP to pursue would be the blue collar Conservatives Poilievre has worked hard to gain.

A successful class-based attack on Poilievre would not only make direct gains at Conservative expense but also, in pushing down their support, unlock NDP voters from Liberal strategic voting.

And if nothing else, a more class-forward approach would align the federal NDP with its labour allies and provincial NDP sections, almost all of which face the challenge of gaining with blue collar Conservatives if they are to win or hold government.

Headlines of 54,000 jobs added in November had Prime Minister Mark Carney celebrating last Friday’s jobs report. But even the shallowest dive below the headline quickly shows why union leaders weren’t joining his cheery mood.

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After Carney called the report “great news for Canadians” the role of buzz killer fell to Unifor president Lana Payne, who pointed out the report found 9,400 full-time jobs were cut in November.

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Longshore and Warehouse Union president Rob Ashton raised concerns about workers being pushed into “side hustles” amid full time jobs losses.

26,000 workers abandon job market

And Friday’s jobs report very clearly shows part-time jobs cycling up as full time work falls, not a trend to be cheered.

StatsCan shows full-time workers fell by 9,400, tumbling from 17,237,500 in October to 17,228,100 in November. Part-time jobs increased by 63,000, rising from 3,844,400 in October to 3,907,400 in November.

All numbers cited are seasonally-adjusted.

November was the second consecutive month of full-time job losses. In October, 18,000 full-time jobs were cut.

Labour market participation also fell in November as 26,000 workers gave up on the job market.

Ontario leads decline in full-time jobs and participation

The biggest drop in participation was in Ontario, where 19,900 workers abandoned the labour market, 77 per cent of the national decline.

Ontario full-time jobs fell by 6,900 positions, 74 per cent of the national loss. The number of Ontario part-time jobs increased by 13,000 only 21 per cent of the national increase.

At 78.7 per cent, Ontario now has Canada’s third lowest participation rate among people aged 15 and 64. Only Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador were lower. Quebec continues to have the highest labour market participation rate in Canada at 81.4 per cent.

Retail and manufacturing cut jobs, construction gains

Job trends in major industries again show Ontario is driving the troubling results.

Ontario retail stores cut 29,400 jobs in November, while shops in the rest of Canada increased staff by 600. Ontario manufacturing cut 7,400 jobs last month but only 1,900 in the rest of the country. Nationally, construction employment increased by 4,500 jobs but only 1,700 in Ontario.

Canadian workers faces a range of economic risks, and one is being lulled into complacency by politicians who want to celebrate victories that haven’t been won.

Worker complacency could cause unions to pull back when they need to lean in.

Carney seems intent on spending a lot of money on companies. The question is whether the focus is on workers. Alarm bells are ringing after Algoma Steel cut 1,000 jobs just days after hundreds of millions in subsidies were given. Carney excluded the union from that deal.

This is moment when workers need government to hear there should be “no talk about us without us,” ensuring their unions can put workers at the central focus of government decisions.

Making Ontario open for business was the promise, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

While more businesses are opening than closing in the rest of Canada, Ontario business closings are significantly outpacing business openings, according to Statistics Canada data released Tuesday.

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From February 2024 to the most recent data, August 2025, there has been a net 3,519 businesses closures in Ontario. For Canada excepting Ontario, there was a net 2,777 businesses openings during the same period.

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Statistics Canada categorizes a business as “continuing” if it operated in the month surveyed and the month previous. The data presented is all seasonally adjusted.

Closures hit construction, retailing, northern businesses

There have been significant business closings in Ontario’s large construction and retailing sectors, which both started downturns in February 2024. Since then, a net 1,388 construction businesses and a net 887 retailing business have shut their doors.

While it’s much smaller than retailing or construction, the forestry, fishing and hunting sector has shrunk very dramatically, losing a net 13 per percent of the businesses it had in September 2022. The industry is concentrated in central and northern Ontario, unlike construction and retailing, which is spread across the province.

The closure of Ontario businesses in retailing and construction echoes employment, sales and building permit data for Ontario, all of which have recently pointed down for the sectors.

More businesses opening in accommodation and food, arts, tourism

But the news for Ontario is not all negative.

Business openings in the accommodations and food services sector and the arts, entertainment and recreation sector are up. Those sectors might have been expected to move down with the retail sector’s decline, and consumers squeezed by the province’s continuing affordability problems. But they haven’t.

Business openings in those two sectors have significantly outpaced business closings for most of the past three years, though with some pullback in late 2024 and early 2025.

The data from Statistics Canada isn’t highly granular, but the timing of trends may suggest a boost in Canadian stay-home tourism is encouraging more businesses openings in these sectors, which have more tourism exposure.

In February 2025, all three sectors began a rebound from a 2024 downward trend, since adding a net 965 new businesses.

February was also when the United States president started his campaign of “economic force” against Canada, causing many Canadians to forego vacations in the United States and explore their own country, culture and hospitality. The data isn’t conclusive, but it’s a hypothesis to explore and perhaps an economic opportunity deserving more attention.

Heather McPherson narrowly leads Rob Ashton as the NDP leadership candidate most likely to excite potential NDP voters, though Ashton leads McPherson among those who may sign-up as an NDP member to vote, according to Pollara survey released Wednesday.

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Those with high awareness of Avi Lewis are more likely to hold higher positive feelings about him than Ashton or McPherson receive from those with high awareness of them, the poll found.

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The polling results suggest McPherson’s challenge is to convert her stronger support among potential NDP voters into memberships support, Ashton needs the resources and tactical skill to realize his greater membership sign-up potential, and Lewis needs to break out from his core group to a wider audience.

McPherson and Ashton most likely to excite, McPherson leads on comfort

While the NDP had a punishing seat result in this spring’s election, 46 per cent of the 2,702 voters surveyed were open to voting NDP.

From what these potential NDP votes know about the candidates and after watching the three candidates’ launch videos, 14 per cent reported feeling excited about McPherson as leader, 13 per cent are excited about Ashton, and eight per cent reported excitement with Lewis.

Pollara also asked about comfort with each as a potential leader. The survey found 71 per cent of potential NDP voters are either comfortable or excited about McPherson, 62 per cent are comfortable or excited about Ashton, and 59 per cent are comfortable or excited about Lewis.

According to cross tab details provided to Data Shows by Pollara, excitement with both McPherson and Lewis is higher among white collar workers, those between 35 and 49 years old, and voters with a university degree.

Excitement with Ashton is higher with blue collar workers, those between 18 and 34, and voters with a trade or high school education.

Excitement with Ashton and Lewis is higher among those with an income under $50,000 while excitement for McPherson is strongest among those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year.

Among voters open to voting NDP but currently planning to vote Conservative, Ashton is exciting to 26 per cent while McPherson and Lewis are exciting to 13 per cent. Among those open to the NDP currently planning a Liberal vote, McPherson is exciting to 15 per cent, Ashton to 11 per cent and Lewis to nine per cent.

Ashton campaign has largest sign-up potential

Though Ashton trails McPherson on excitement and comfort among potential NDP voters, he is the most exciting candidate to those who report they would definitely or likely join the NDP to vote in the upcoming leadership selection.

Among those who would definitely or likely join the NDP to participate in the vote, 27 per cent are excited by Ashton, 25 per cent are excited by McPherson and 17 per cent find Lewis exciting.

Lewis holds highest positive rating among those with highest awareness of him

Pollara also probed degrees of awareness of each candidate, asking if voters knew nothing about them, have heard their name “in passing,” know who they are, or “know a few things about them.”

At 64 per cent, positive feelings for Lewis among those most familiar with him are higher than for the other candidates among the voters most familiar with them.

McPherson receives positive reviews from 62 per cent of those most familiar with her while Ashton is viewed positively with 61 per cent most familiar with him. Among those most familiar with each, Lewis and Ashton are viewed negatively by 19 per cent while McPherson receives a 20 per cent negative.

Differences over preferred approach for NDP

Potential NDP voters and potential NDP members were both evenly divided on the question of whether the NDP’s purpose is to win elections or push for big change.

But the two groups have quite different takes on whether the NDP’s approach should be characterized as “practical, affordable solutions” or “bold, progressive change.”

Among the NDP’s potential voters, 60 per cent favour the “practical” option, while only 24 per cent prefer the “bold” approach. But among those likely to join the NDP the gap narrows significantly, with 50 per cent favouring practical and 48 per cent preferring bold.

It’s now been 41 months since Ontario’s Ford PC government pledged to meet housing targets requiring a pace of 12,500 housing starts per month. And data released Tuesday by CMHC shows in October, as in the previous 40 months, the actual number of starts was nowhere close to meeting the promise.

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In October, only 3,567 housing units started construction in Ontario, just 28.5 per cent of the monthly target. It was the second-worst result since the promise was made.

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The collapse of residential construction under the Ford PCs, and their refusal to spur starts by tapping non-profit or co-op development, has killed construction sector jobs and business revenues. Ontario’s construction sector now employs 42,000 fewer workers than two years ago, seasonally adjusted, according to StatCan’s most recent Labour Force Survey.

The benchmark composite selling price of housing in Canadian cities was mixed in October, with prices in areas heavily affected by the 2022 bubble mostly continuing to deflate.

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Mississauga, where the benchmark composite price is down $354,300 from the spring 2022 peak of $1,332,800, was the exception with prices turning up $6,400 in October following a price increase of $6,800 in September.

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Prices down over 25% in several major Ontario cities

But price declines continued in Toronto, Hamilton/Burlington, London, Niagara, Ottawa, Vancouver and Victoria. The average price in Hamilton/Niagara is now down 29.7 per cent from peak, according to the CREA data.

In contrast, Quebec and Atlantic Canada was mostly isolated from the price bubble contagion and prices are near or at price peak.

Dates of price peaks across Canada

Prices in Toronto, Hamilton/Burlington and London peaked in February 2022, the month before the Bank of Canada began raising interest rates as food prices and general inflation began to soar. Housing prices in other markets began to fall in the following months, but the tumble was far less dramatic in some centres and many have rebounded to new peak prices in 2025.

From 2021 to 2023, the rate on a five year fixed term mortgage increased from 1.39 to 5.49 per cent, according to Ratehub.ca. That change boosted the monthly cost of a $500,000 mortgage with 25 year amortization from $1,973 to $3,049, disqualifying millions of housing-seekers and killing market demand.

There have been persistent attempts redirect blame onto immigration, but the Canada’s increase in immigration rates started in fall 2022 and peaked in 2023, well after the price peak had popped.