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#Ontario; #VirtualMission; #Japan, #SouthKorea; #AutomotiveManufacturing; #LeadingEdgeTechnology Toronto/Canadian-Media: Ontario government's mission to showcase the "Ontario Made" virtual mission to Japan and South Korea that advantage in both automotive manufacturing and leading-edge technology, was successfully completed today.  Vic Fideli. Image credit: Facebook page “The mission was a fantastic opportunity to connect with our friends and partners across Japan and South Korea and build upon our extensive track record of industrial collaboration and technology partnership,” said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade in a news release and added that Ontario being the economic engine of Canada, our ‘Team Ontario’ approach puts our has an opportunity for any company seeking to excel in North America as a leader in manufacturing, zero-emissions vehicles, and advanced technologies. A delegation of eight Ontario autotech companies showcased their technologies at the Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan (JSAE) conference to decision-makers from the global auto industry and to coordinate business-to-business meetings for the delegate companies, in addition to providing exhibitor space in the virtual Ontario pavilion and market intelligence. Keynote presentations were delivered by Minister Fedeli at two major events focussng on the global auto industry’s transition to zero-emissions: EV Trend Korea/Interbattery Exhibition 2021 and the Japan auto industry webinar organized by the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. Ontario’s Trade and Investment Offices in Seoul and Tokyo, respectively were responsible for Ontario's representation at these events. The Minister also met with executives in the automotive, artificial intelligence and technology sectors to highlight Ontario’s strengths as an innovation and growth partner and investment location at the heart of North American markets. Recently announced investments of almost $6 billion in Ontario assembly operations include $4 billion in transformative investments in electric vehicle production. “Ontario’s unique strengths as a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles and EV batteries, combined with the increased regional content requirements of NAFTA 2.0, make Ontario a value-added destination for automotive and technology investment. With our new Invest Ontario agency, the welcome mat is truly out for companies to quickly become fully integrated into one of the world’s most skilled and dynamic economies,” said Minister Fedeli in the news release.
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#CanadaDisabilityBenefits; #CarlaQualtrough Gatineau (Quebec)/Canadian-Media: A new ground-breaking legislation was introduced June 22 by Carla Qualtrough, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion to ensure establishment of a framework for a new Canada Disability Benefit to supplement, not replace, existing federal and provincial-territorial supports with a goal of lifting hundreds of thousands of persons with disabilities out of poverty leaving no one behind.  Carla Qualtrough. Image credit: Facebook page With the Govt of Canada's recent launch of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan, and in recognition of the leading role that provinces and territories play in providing supports and services to Canadians with disabilities Federal, Provincial and Territorial (FPT) Ministers responsible for Social Services and Disability intend to meet this summer for an initial discussion on the proposed new benefit. “When the pandemic struck, Canadians with disabilities were hit hard...financial insecurity and hardship. By proposing to create the new Canada Disability Benefit...help people to rebound and to fully participate in all aspects of our society and economy...Canadians with disabilities continue to be at the center of our country’s inclusive recovery,” said Carla Qualtrough in a news release June 22. #StatisticsCanada; #CanadaInflationRate; #BankOfCanada Ottawa/IBNS: Canada's inflation rate rose to 3.6 percent in May, the fastest pace in a decade, Statistics Canada said.  Image: Statistics Canada. Image credit: Twitter handle The current rise in the inflation rate of 3.6, said the economists was higher than their expected rate of 3.5 percent. In a news release Wednesday, Statistics Canada said that the cost of just about everything is rising at a much faster pace than usual, from shelter and vehicles to food, energy, and consumer goods. The Bank of Canada is already making ongoing adjustments to its asset purchase program and expects the inflation rate to be around three percent over the summer, but it would ease later this year, then returning toward the bank’s two-percent target. The increase in year-over-year price growth in May said Statistics Canada was caused by rising prices for housing and passenger vehicles. #AsianHeritageMonth; #StatisticsCanada; #employment; #CanadaAsianPopulations Ottawa/IBNS: Statistics Canada observes Asian Heritage Month by profiling the employment characteristics of the three largest Asian populations in Canada: South Asian, Chinese, and Filipino Canadians aged 15 to 69 during the three months ending in April 2021. Image. Statistics Canada. Image credit: Twitter handle Labour Force Survey (LFS) of the South Asian population reveal that South Asian men are more likely to employed than South Asian women and during the COVID-19 pandemic and that during the three months ending in April 2021, 40.3 percent of South Asian men were likely to work from home as compared to approximately 33.4 percent of South Asian women. Average hourly earnings for Chinese Canadian men ($33.89) and women ($29.77), were shown to be higher than for other visible minority groups and were similar to the earnings for non-visible minorities in the three months ending in April 2021. This is owing to the fact of their being employed in professional, scientific and technical services industries with relatively high average wages ($36.68 per hour), and finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing with ($35.38 per hour). The Employment Equity Act defines visible minorities as "persons, other than Aboriginal Peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour," reports Statistics Canada. Filipino Canadians were shown to have among the highest employment rates nationally and 71.2 percent of Filipino Canadians aged 55 to 69 were employed in April compared with 49.8 percent non-visible minorities in the same age group. Flipino women have among the highest employment rates of all groups, with many working on the health care sector's front line during the pandemic. #CanadaTaxPayers; #CanadaTaxProfessionals, #TaxFilingDeadline Ottawa/Canadian-Media: Canadian taxpayers as well as tax professionals are facing struggle to meet April 30 a tax filing deadline during one of the most complex tax seasons in the middle of a global pandemic and widespread lockdowns.  Image credit: Facebook Page The federal government's refusal to extend the deadline of filing taxes as it did last year to May 31 and to suspend late payment penalties until September, has left the taxpayers and the tax professionals struggling to meet the dead ling in the midst of the pandemic.
Taxpayers who received benefits and made less than $75,000, said the government, won't have to pay what's owed until April 30, 2022, and added that file late, they will face the normal penalty of 5 percent of the balance owing, plus an additional 1 percent for each month after. Most vulnerable taxpayers who can least afford to pay penalties are the ones to suffer most from the Government's decision not to extend the deadline, warned the tax professionals. #Canada, #CanadaJobIncrease, #StatisticsCanada, #Covid19Pandemic; #BankOfCanada Ottawa/Canadian-Media: The addition of 259,000 jobs in Feb resulted in Canada's biggest job increase since September 2020, Statistics Canada said on Friday. Statistics Canada. Image credit: Twitter handle The unemployment rate also shrunk down to the lowest rate, since the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, from 9.4 percent to 8.2 percent and exceeded the analysts' expectations of 75,000 added jobs and an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent, said Statistics Canada. According to Statistics Canada's Canadian Labor Force Survey, the labor market during February saw 12 months of unprecedented changes from the COVID-19 pandemic. Both part-time and full-time work increased, while the number of self-employed workers remained constant. February's numbers were strongly influenced by the easing of pandemic restrictions, said Statistics Canada in such provinces as Quebec, Alberta, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as parts of Ontario with gains being concentrated retail, accommodation and food services in Ontario and Quebec and in jobs that pay $17.50 an hour or less. The employment rate among Indigenous women also decreased down 6.8 percentage points year-over-year and was unchanged for Indigenous men. While the federal government said it will use jobs as a gauge for planned stimulus measures to be unveiled in a spring budget, analysts saw through job gain closing of excess capacity faster than the Bank of Canada's expectations. But the main concern of the Bank of Canada is about the high number of people still out of work because of the pandemic. #CanadaEconomy; #StatisticsCanada; #RBC; #Covid19Pandemic Ottawa/Canadian-Media: Canada's economy as of the end of January had 858,000 fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic, Statistics Canada reported. Statistics Canada. Image credit: Twitter handle But those losses are uneven across the Board as women, who made up a majority of the workforce in hard-hit sectors like hospitality, retail, and food suffered most. A new analysis by RBC published Thursday said that nearly 100,000 working-age Canadian women have completely left the workforce since the pandemic started, which means they aren't even trying to get a job anymore in contrast to more than 10 times smaller for men work. "The longer these women are out of the labor force, the greater the risk of skills erosion, which could potentially hamper their ability to get rehired or to transition to different roles as the economy evolves," the RBC report says, CBC News reported.  RBC. Image credit: Twitter handle Even when some parts of the economy are reopening, Dawn Desjardins, one of the authors of the RBC report said that understaffing due to the way the businesses work may lead to the permanent disappearance of some jobs. Besides different industries being hit unevenly, the job losses are worse for members of certain demographic groups, like mothers, visible minorities, young people, and new immigrants are all being disproportionately impacted, the RBC reported. Almost a year since that initial lockdown, a sizeable number of Canadian women are at risk of their skills atrophying, Desjardins finds, CBC News reported. "There could be changes underway that are more structural in nature, that are going to be more long-lasting," she said. She says economists even have a name for it — they call it the scarring effect. She says some of the skills you have diminish when you're not using them. "The longer you're out, the harder it is sometimes to get back into those networks— to hear this place is happening or these are the jobs that are in demand," Desjardins said, CBC News reported. #AirTravelersToCanada; #NewQuarantineRules; #Covid19Tests Canada/Canadian-Media: New travel measures for travelers entering Canada would be effective from today including in advance booking of government-approved quarantine hotels, taking a COVID-19 test after landing in Canada, and spend up to three days of their 14-day quarantine period in a designated hotel to await their test results, media reports said.  Air travelers to Canada. Image credit: Facebook Page of @travelGoC Air travelers to Canada would not be charged for their post-arrival COVID-19 test, said Public Health Agency of Canada. With no option to book online, all travelers need to call a dedicated phone line to reserve a room for three nights. Travelers with negative test results can leave immediately and finish the rest of their 14-day quarantine at home. People who test positive will be required to finish their quarantine at a designated government facility. "Our government has been extremely clear that very few exemptions will be consented to, and they're really related to essential travelers," Patty Hajdu, Federal Minister of Health said on Friday during a news conference. #Ontario; #Toronto; #Peel; #NorthBayParrySound; #StayAtHomeOrderExtended Toronto/Canadian-Media: At a news conference Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that listening to the advise of the local health officials, stay-at-home order and all existing public health and workplace safety measures are being extended in Toronto, Peel and North Bay-Parry Sound until at least March 8 citing COVID-19 rates that "still remain too high" and concerns over variants of the virus.  Doug Ford. Image credit: Twitter handle "I know we're all tired. I know we have all sacrificed so much. But there is hope on the horizon," he said. On Thursday Ford said that the province may grant the request made by Toronto and Peel, which logged 376 and 264 more cases of COVID-19 in today's update from the Ministry of Health. York Region reported another 108 cases. "Our government's number one priority is the safety of all individuals and families, and that's why we are taking a gradual, cautious approach to returning regions to the Framework," said Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott in a statement. "These are difficult but necessary decisions, in order to protect against COVID-19 variants and maintain the progress we have all made together. Until vaccines are widely available, we continue to urge all Ontarians to follow public health advice and measures, and stay home, stay safe, and save lives." #Canada, #CanadaJobLoss, #CanadaSmallBusiness; #CanadaEconomy; #CFIB Toronto/Canadian-Media: Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) said in a report that one-sixth of Canadian small businesses impacted by the COVID-19-related restrictions are considering to close for good, potentially putting 2.4 million jobs at risk.  Great depression in Canada's economy. Image credit: Wikipedia “One in six (181,000) Canadian small business owners are seriously contemplating permanently closing, putting more than 2.4 million jobs at risk (20 per cent of private sector jobs),” the report said on Thursday. Calling Canada’s COVID-19 response a “mess”, CFIB President and CEO Dan Kelly has is questioning the effectiveness of lockdown measures in place across much of the country which could potentially impact as few as 71,000 or as much as 222,000 businesses to close permanently by the end pandemic Thursday’s estimates are in addition to the 58,000 businesses that closed up shop in 2020, the report added. Canada’s economic recovery is expected to be further complicated due to resurgent coronavirus pandemic. Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said on Wednesday that he expects the country’s economy to contract by 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2021 and warning of steeper declines if restrictive measures are extended or strengthened. |
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