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Credit-rating agency, Moody's, slams Canada's banks
Moody's
has threatened to downgrade six of Canada's major banks. The credit
rating agency has expressed concern with ballooning consumer debt in
Canada as well as the spike in house prices in recent years.
Joshua
Blakeney, Press TV, Calgary
Economic
outlook not so rosy, Flaherty told
30
October, 2012
Finance
Minister Jim Flaherty is being told the Canadian economy will perform
significantly lower next year than was forecast in his federal budget
in March.
Private-sector
analysts informed Flaherty at a meeting Monday that they see economic
growth of 2 per cent in 2013, well below the 2.4 per cent prediction
indicated in the 2012 budget.
For
2014, however, the economists see the economy bouncing back to 2.5
per cent growth, slightly higher than the 2.4 per cent forecast in
the budget.
Recession’s
legacy has food-bank usage soaring in Canada
30
October, 2012
A
record number of Canadians visited a food bank this year, an
indication the recession’s legacy continues to bite.
More
than 882,000 people used a food bank this March, a 2.4-per-cent
increase from last year. Demand is now 31-per-cent higher than before
the recession, a study to be released Tuesday says.
Food
banks were never supposed to be a permanent part of Canada’s
landscape. They sprang up during tough economic times in the early
1980s as a temporary way to alleviate hunger. Thirty years later,
more than three quarters of a million Canadians are using food banks
each month.
This
year’s elevated numbers show “the recession is still affecting
us, while low-paying jobs and inadequate social programs continue to
challenge a lot of Canadians,” said Katharine Schmidt, executive
director of Food Banks Canada, which is releasing its 16th annual
tally.
Need
has broadened in the past four years to “those who we might least
expect visit a food bank,” from employed people to homeowners and
two-parent families, the report said.
Nearly
a fifth of employed Canadians are working poor, earning less than
$17,000 a year, reflecting a shift in the economy towards
lower-paying services jobs, Ms. Schmidt noted.
The
statistics show nearly 93,000 people are first-time clients of a food
bank.
Cashama
Charlery is one of them. She arrived in Canada last December from St.
Lucia with her now seven-month-old son, hoping he would have a
brighter future here. She holds a college degree in hospitality from
her home country and has two years’ experience as a customer
services rep for the cellphone company, Digicel.
The
only work she’s found since, however, is erratic shifts at a frozen
food manufacturer that pay $8-an-hour (below minimum wage) with no
benefits. After paying for a babysitter and medical bills, she has no
money left.
“People
don’t see this struggle, they don’t know how hard people are
trying to make it here,” said Ms. Charlery, 22, who gets diapers,
baby food and basic staples from a food bank in north Toronto. “I’m
very ambitious and I know I can make it. ... I just want to have a
chance to show how I can work and give back to this country.”
Demand
varies by province. Newfoundland and Labrador is the only place to
see lower rates of food-bank usage in both the past year, and the
last four years – a reflection of that province’s vastly improved
labour market.
Elsewhere,
Manitoba saw the biggest jump in food-bank clients in the past year.
Usage also rose in Ontario, British Columbia and the other three
Atlantic provinces.
Food
inflation is putting particular pressure on people in the North. One
Iqaluit food bank saw an 18-per-cent jump in the past year, with
reports of $12 milk and $29 cheese spread. Soaring food prices
prompted protests in the region earlier this year.
The
paper recommends boosting access to affordable housing, creating a
new model for food security in the North (where it says food
insecurity has become a “dire” public-health emergency) and
revamping social assistance programs to support self-sufficiency.
The
increased demand may seem at odds with Canada’s modest economic
growth in recent years. But it’s typical to see food bank and
welfare rates rise two to three years after a recession, says John
Stapleton, an independent consultant in Toronto.
“It’s
counter-intuitive, because people think, ‘Oh, well, if the
recession’s over, everybody’s fine.’ It just doesn’t work
that way.”
Rather,
it takes time for the recession to hit home, which might begin with a
job loss, and spiral as severance runs out, support ebbs from family
and friends and savings dry up. “You don’t immediately go into
poverty after a recession starts.”
Social
researchers tend to scrutinize food bank numbers as a proxy for how
low-income people in Canada are faring. Unlike the United States,
Canada doesn’t produce statistics on national welfare rates or the
number of people whose jobless benefits end without landing work,
while information on incomes is published with a two-year lag.
The
annual release is based on counting the number of people who get
groceries and meals over the month of March. It is not independently
verified, though its numbers typically tend to move in tandem with
the unemployment rate.
Poll:
Canadians overspending, rely on luck
UPI,
30
October, 2012
The
majority of Canadian consumers are overspending each month and some
are counting on luck with a lottery or inheritance, a survey Tuesday
indicated.
The
survey for Credit Canada Debt Solutions and Capital One Canada of 822
consumers in September found one-third of respondents pinned their
hopes on future financial security on winning a lottery jackpot or
inheriting a large sum.
Canada
has dozens of government-operated lotteries that pay lump sums,
tax-free and the weekly news of winners has apparently skewed
financial planning for some, Credit Canada Debt Solutions Chief
Executive Officer Laurie Campbell said
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