A limit on foreign steel imports, Canada's slowed population growth and DHL suspends operations: Business and investing stories for the week of June 22
Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here's your weekly digest of The Globe's most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies and more.
Canada plans to adjust countertariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum imports on July 21 to new levels that will depend on how trade talks are going, Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday. This is the first major trade announcement from Mr. Carney's government since this week's G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta, where his office said he and U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed to work toward a comprehensive trade and security deal within 30 days.
Ottawa also announced that it will attempt to limit steel imports from countries that don't have free-trade agreements with Canada to 2024 levels. As Niall McGee reports, that includes China, India, Taiwan, Turkey and Russia – and they have been accused of selling the metal at an artificially low price to gain market share (a practice known as dumping). If this group of countries exceeds 2024 steel shipment volumes, a 50-per-cent tariff will apply. But Algoma Steel Group Inc. chief executive Michael Garcia says the federal government's quotas still fall far short of what is needed during the vicious trade war.
Canada Post said it has reached a contract deal with its second-largest union after 18 months of negotiations. The agreement with Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association covers about 8,500 employees, who mostly manage post offices in rural Canada, and includes an 11 per cent wage increase over the next three years. Canada Post still hasn't reached a deal with the primary union representing about 55,000 postal workers, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Given the impasse, the federal government intervened last week to force unionized Canada Post workers to vote directly on the latest offers from the postal service, though no date has been set.
Meanwhile, DHL Express suspended operations across Canada on Friday after a heated labour dispute and the implementation of a new federal law that bans the use of replacement workers during strikes.
The U.S. trade war is affecting Canada much worse than Mexico, especially looking at data about commercial trucks and overall trade flow. According to new data on border traffic released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the number of commercial trucks entering the U.S. from Canada fell 10.5 per cent in May from the year before.
By comparison, the number of U.S.-bound trucks from Mexico declined by a more modest 2.8 per cent last month. A similar pattern has played out in trade flows. In April, U.S. imports from Canada fell 14.4 per cent from the same month in 2024, compared with a 2.7-per-cent decline in imports from Mexico. Jason Kirby takes a closer look at the numbers in this week's Decoder series.
Canada's population barely grew in the first quarter of this year as tighter immigration policies slowed the number of new arrivals, according to data from Statistics Canada. Between Jan. 1 and April 1, 2025, the overall population grew by just 20,107 people to roughly 41.55 million, Vanmala Subramaniam reports. By comparison, the population jumped by an average of 217,000 people a quarter from 2021 to 2024 – raising widespread concerns about access to housing and health care and forcing the federal government to implement new restrictions on migration, particularly for temporary residents.
The Statscan data also showed that the number of temporary residents fell for a second consecutive quarter. As of April 1, there were 61,111 fewer temporary residents in Canada, compared with the start of the year. The largest decrease in temporary residents came from those holding study permits. There were about 53,000 fewer international student visa holders in the first quarter of this year, compared with the previous quarter.
A Bay Street veteran and financial commentator is speaking out after finding himself at the centre of an alleged online 'pump and dump' scam that used his identity to defraud some investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. David Rosenberg, an economist and founder of Rosenberg Research, said ads appearing on Facebook and Instagram as early as March have promoted a fake investment program falsely listing him as its administrator. Since then, he's heard from several individuals who lost money to the scheme, a sum Mr. Rosenberg said he believes exceeds $1-million, though the total amount is unknown. Mariya Postelnyak shares his story.
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Hudson's Bay landlords don't want Ruby Liu to move in, but retailer still has a shot
Social Sharing A group of Hudson's Bay's landlords don't want to transfer more than two dozen leases to B.C. billionaire Weihong (Ruby) Liu, but the department store still has a chance to get its way. The Bay, which filed for creditor protection in March, ran a process over the last several months to find buyers for leases belonging to it and Saks Canada. It agreed to sell up to 28 spaces to Liu. Three leases were transferred to her without any hiccups because they're in B.C. malls she owns, but another 25 are at properties held by a who's who of Canadian commercial real estate firms. Landlords for 23 of those sites oppose the transfer. Several have said in court they've been "very troubled" with their interactions with Liu and have had "no productive discussions, no meaningful disclosure." Liu insists if the court hands her the leases, landlords will warm to her and her plan to open a new department store in their properties. While the disagreement could serve as a roadblock to the Bay closing on its agreement with Liu, lawyers not involved in the case say the retailer has another route it can take to get a deal done. That route lies in changes to the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) — Canada's main insolvency law — made in 2009, said Jeff Lee, a Saskatoon-based partner at MLT Aikins LLP. The changes laid out three criteria courts must consider when asked to assign leases to a new tenant. WATCH | Who is Ruby Liu? Who is Hudson's Bay benefactor and billionaire Ruby Liu? 3 days ago Duration 6:16 Ruby Liu, a billionaire with a big vision, now has legal permission to take over the leases of three former Hudson's Bay department stores located at three malls already under her ownership. For more on the new Bay benefactor, we're joined by retail analyst Carl Boutet. The first is whether or not the sale has the support of the monitor, a court-appointed, independent third party which helps guide businesses through creditor protection. In the Bay's case, the monitor is Alvarez & Marsal. It has yet to reveal whether it supports the Liu deal and did not respond to requests for comment. "Before any court application is brought forward, typically the company will test that out with them," Lee said. "They're not going to just sort of fly in blind and hope for the best." The second aspect for the court to mull is whether the proposed new tenant is suitable. Lee said that's determined by looking at whether they can perform the duties of the tenant and pay rent. Liu, who made her money in Chinese real estate, appears to have deep pockets but her experience comes from being a landlord rather than a tenant. The final aspect the court will consider is whether a transfer of a lease to Liu is "appropriate." Lee said people should think of it as asking this question: "Is what's proposed for this post-assignment lease relationship what people signed up for, or are they seeking to rewrite the lease or change the playing field so radically that it's not appropriate?" WATCH | What went wrong for Hudson's Bay: What went wrong with Hudson's Bay? 3 months ago Duration 5:49 That's where much of the tension could lie in the Bay case. "You can't go into CCAA as a tenant and then force your landlords to renegotiate their leases as a result," said Peter Tolensky, a Vancouver-based partner at Lawson Lundell LLP. The Canadian Press obtained a document last week that Liu's lawyer sent landlords outlining her plans. It says she will take on the leases on an "as is, where is" basis but doesn't mention the dining, entertainment, children's and fitness experiences she's told media she'd like to include in her department stores. It's unclear whether the leases allow for uses other than a Bay-like department store. Some lenders owed more than $100M A court faced with a request to reassign leases will weigh this context and think about whether "the landlord's world is being turned upside down by having this new tenant," said Geoffrey Dabbs, a B.C.-based founding partner at Gehlen Dabbs Cash. "The more it's a minor inconvenience for the landlord, the more likely the judge will order it," he said. While the Bay hasn't said whether it will seek an assignment, it's likely because any company in creditor protection has a duty to show the court it's doing its best to pay back companies and people it owes money to, Dabbs said. The Bay has a 26-page list of creditors, with some lenders owed more than $100 million each. Liquidation sales and a deal to sell the Bay trademarks to Canadian Tire for $30 million have put a dent in what's owed but selling leases to Liu would also help. Anyone who made an offer for leases had to make a deposit of 10 per cent of their estimated purchase price. Court documents show Liu made a deposit of $9.4 million, in addition to $6 million for the three approved leases, which would equate to a purchase price of $100 million for 28 leases. When a deal like this is reached, Dabbs said a company typically seeks landlord consent because commercial leases tend to have provisions stopping anyone from transferring a lease without a property owner agreeing. It's not uncommon for landlords to object because any leases that can't be sold and aren't assigned get turned back over to property owners who can choose how to fill them and under what terms. These are anchor leases, Tolensky noted. "So they're probably very favourable to the Bay or to the tenant in a lot of respects," Tolensky said, alluding to the fact that anchor tenants are often given attractive rents or terms. Thus, it's more advantageous for landlords to get their properties back, said Monica Beffa, founder of an Oakville, Ont., law firm. If they do, they can then charge higher rents, develop them for entirely new uses such as residential units or break them up into smaller parcels that can be rented by a wide array of tenants. If they don't and a court assigns the leases to Liu, landlords will likely be watching her closely to ensure she doesn't violate any terms of the agreement. Dabbs said: "The landlord may be cranky, if the tenant breaches, but put it this way, they don't want to rely on that.
