BANFF - Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says Canada’s trade dispute with the U.S. has been a wake-up call to diversify the province’s economy. Houston was responding late Wednesday to a potential Canada-U.S. trade deal from Banff, Alta., where he’s promoting energy projects at an industry conference. He said the dispute has taught the province it needs to develop more diverse trading partners for sectors like seafood and agriculture, though the U.S. market is still important. He said [Read more]

LACOMBE - Alberta's technology minister is set to hear from residents in the central region tonight on what they think of artificial intelligence data centres. Nate Glubish is scheduled to be in Lacombe for the first in a series of town halls. Glubish has spent years crafting an AI strategy and wooing investors to build enormous computing complexes — and the large power supplies they require — in the province. But data centre development has been met with fierce pushback from some [Read more]

OTTAWA - Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the federal government should give Canadians at least another 10 months of relief at the pumps.  The Liberals suspended the federal fuel excise tax in April in response to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and rising prices.  At the time, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the measure would stay in place until Labour Day.  The government says the move brings gas prices down by 10 cents a litre, and diesel by four cents a [Read more]

OTTAWA - Economists expect inflation edged higher in July as consumers were getting whiplash at the gasoline pumps. Statistics Canada is set to provide a look at the consumer price index for July on Monday. A Reuters poll of economists expects annual inflation rose a tenth of a point to 2.9 per cent last month. June's progress toward peace between the United States and Iran led to a pullback in global oil prices and inflation cooled accordingly. But the tentative ceasefire buckled in [Read more]

OTTAWA - Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales rose for a fifth straight month in June, helped by gains in the chemical and transportation equipment subsectors. The agency says manufacturing sales rose 0.1 per cent to $78.8 billion in June. The increase came as sales in the chemical subsector increased six per cent to $6.3 billion, while the transportation equipment subsector saw sales gain 2.8 per cent to $12.4 billion. In constant dollars, manufacturing sales rose 1.2 per cent in [Read more]

TORONTO - Canada’s main stock index climbed on Monday, helped by gains in the energy sector, while U.S. markets were negative. The S&P/TSX composite index was up 77.10 points at 36,458.33. Oil prices rose on uncertainty about when the Strait of Hormuz could reopen and get the global flow of crude going again. “That's really the main story of the market today: it's the oil price and how it feeds into inflation expectations and how it feeds into interest rates over the medium and longer [Read more]