Toronto home sales claw back some recent declines in April
TORONTO, May 6 - Greater Toronto Area home sales rose in April from March but were down sharply from April last year, as homebuyers weighed trade tensions between Canada and the United States, Toronto Regional Real Estate Board data showed on Tuesday.
Seasonally adjusted sales were up 1.8% on a month-over-month basis at 4,267 units, marking a modest recovery after declines of 4.2% in March and 24.3% in February.
The average selling price fell 0.7% to C$1,065,687 ($771,007.81). It was the fifth month in the last six of falling prices.
On a year-over-year basis, sales declined 23.3% and the average selling price was down 4.1%.
"Following the recent federal election, many households across the GTA are closely monitoring the evolution of our trade relationship with the United States," TRREB President Elechia Barry-Sproule said in a statement.
"If this relationship moves in a positive direction, we could see an uptick in transactions driven by improved consumer confidence and a market that is both more affordable and better supplied."
The Greater Toronto Area includes Toronto, Canada's most populous city, and four surrounding regional municipalities.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose Liberal Party won last week's general election, is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday. Canada sends about 75% of its exports to the U.S., including steel, aluminum and autos, which have been hit with hefty U.S. tariffs.
Seasonally adjusted new listings fell 0.7% in April from March to 15,214 units. On a year-over-year basis, new listings climbed 8.1%.
($1 = 1.3822 Canadian dollars)
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
G7 leaders meet in Canada hoping to avoid Trump clash
BANFF, Alberta, June 15 (Reuters) - Group of Seven leaders gather in the Canadian Rockies starting on Sunday amid growing splits with the United States over foreign policy and trade, with host Canada striving to avoid clashes with President Donald Trump. While Prime Minister Mark Carney says his priorities are strengthening peace and security, building critical mineral supply chains and creating jobs, issues such as U.S. tariffs and the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine are expected to feature heavily. U.S. ally Israel launched a barrage of strikes across Iran on Thursday, a blow to Trump's diplomatic efforts to prevent such an attack. The summit will take place in the mountain resort of Kananaskis, some 90 km (56 miles) west of Calgary. The last time Canada played host, in 2018, Trump left the summit before denouncing then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "very dishonest and weak" and instructing the U.S. delegation to withdraw its approval of the final communique. "This will be a successful meeting if Donald Trump doesn't have an eruption that disrupts the entire gathering. Anything above and beyond that is gravy," said University of Ottawa international affairs professor Roland Paris, who was foreign policy adviser to Trudeau. Trump has often mused about annexing Canada and arrives at a time when Carney is threatening reprisals if Washington does not lift tariffs on steel and aluminum. "The best-case scenario ... is that there's no real blow-ups coming out of the back end," said Josh Lipsky, the chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council think tank and a former White House and State Department official. Carney's office declined to comment on how the Israeli strikes would affect the summit. Diplomats said Canada has ditched the idea of a traditional comprehensive joint communique and would issue chair summaries instead, in hopes of containing a disaster and maintaining engagement with the U.S. A senior Canadian official told reporters Ottawa wanted to focus on actions the seven members - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States - could take together. Canadian Senator Peter Boehm, a veteran former diplomat who acted as Trudeau's personal representative to the 2018 summit, said he had been told the summit would last longer than usual to give time for bilateral meetings with the U.S. president. Expected guests for parts of the Sunday to Tuesday event include leaders from Ukraine, Mexico, India, Australia, South Africa, South Korea and Brazil, who all have reasons to want to talk to Trump. "Many will want to talk to President Trump about their own particular interests and concerns," Boehm said by phone. A senior U.S. official said on Friday working discussions would cover trade and the global economy, critical minerals, migrant and drug smuggling, wildfires, international security, artificial intelligence and energy security. "The president is eager to pursue his goals in all of these areas including making America's trade relationships fair and reciprocal," the official said. The visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the Oval Office in February descended into acrimony and has served as a warning for other world leaders about the delicate dance they face in negotiating with Trump. But diplomats say the frustration of dealing with the Trump administration has made some keener to assert themselves. Canada has long been one of Ukraine's most vocal supporters. Trump came to power promising to end the war with Russia within 24 hours but diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have stalled. One Ukrainian official involved in preparations for the summit said hope had faded for a strong statement in support of Ukraine. Instead, success for Kyiv would merely constitute an amicable meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy. A European official said the G7 summit and the NATO summit in The Hague later in June provided an opportunity to underscore to Trump the need to press ahead with a sanctions bill put together by U.S. senators alongside a new European package to pressure Russia into a ceasefire and broader talks. Trump's first international summit will offer some early clues on whether Trump is interested in working with allies to solve common problems, said Max Bergmann, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'The big overarching question here is, basically, is the United States still committed to formats like the G7? That is going to be the big test,' Bergmann said. French President Emmanuel Macron has said he has a good, but frank relationship with Trump despite differences on subjects such as Ukraine or climate change. Macron said on Friday that a United Nations conference co-hosted between France and Saudi Arabia scheduled after the G7 to work towards a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians has been postponed.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
G7 has been Trump-proofed to avoid trouble – here's how
The Canadian organisers of the G7 summit are taking no chances with Donald Trump this week, ditching the usual joint communiqué, padding the event with extra guests and reducing the amount of time when the world leaders sit around the same table. It is the latest example of how global institutions are adapting to the return of an unpredictable and combative figure. A diplomat in Washington DC, who has seen the schedule, said it included fewer plenary sessions of the full group and more one-on-one meetings 'There's a lot more of that than at other summits,' he said, 'which would make sense if you are worried about one person causing trouble.' The last time Mr Trump attended a G7 summit in Canada he stormed off early, ripping up a joint communiqué and leaving a trail of withering tweets behind him. His blanket use of trade tariffs has already set nerves on edge, according to Matthew P Goodman, who was deputy to the US G7 Sherpa during the Obama administration, one of the figures doing the heavy lifting on negotiations. 'Those two issues hang over this upcoming summit, and are going to make it very challenging for the host, Mark Carney, to manage this,' he said. Canadian diplomats were buoyed by their new prime minister's performance at the White House recently, when he avoided the sort or tongue lashing delivered to some other world leaders. But organisers are leaving nothing to chance. World leaders are due to begin arriving on Sunday. They will fly into the international airport in Calgary from where they will helicopter to the picturesque setting of Kananaskis, deep in the Canadian Rockies. Organisers have padded the number of attendees by inviting leaders from India, Brazil, Ukraine, Australia and Saudi Arabia (although Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman reportedly will not be attending). Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, is coming. He knows better than most how Mr Trump can undo the best laid plans after being ambushed last month in the Oval Office and accused of allowing a 'white genocide' to unfold. Mark Rutte, Nato secretary general, and António Guterres, the UN secretary general, are expected to attend. There will also be a session on fentanyl smuggling, a cause particularly close to Mr Trump's heart. The result is more breakaway bilateral meetings and fewer chances for Mr Trump to clog up the agenda. Mr Goodman said: 'Any host of these forums, if they're smart, will minimise the time around the table. You need a certain amount of that, but you want to allow for a lot of time on the margins for bilateral conversations and meetings' In 2018, Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister at the time, presided over a G7 summit where Mr Trump abruptly pulled the US out of a previously agreed communiqué, before blasting his host as 'dishonest and weak'. He flew out of Canada early, apparently upset at the way Mr Trudeau had talked about Canadian tariffs on US exports. It meant weeks of careful negotiations on easing trade tensions between the US and the European Union went up in smoke. This time Mr Carney is preparing to issue a chairman's statement, according to The Toronto Star, avoiding the need for all the parties to agree on a joint position on awkward issues such as Ukraine or Israel's strikes on Iran. 'Our hope is that Mr Trump will join us in getting tougher on Russia and push through new sanctions,' said a senior diplomat from a G7 nation. 'But he could equally say, no, let's give them another two weeks and then there is no chance for agreement.' That makes it almost impossible to make progress on a joint text ahead of the summit, he added. 'The problem is that no one knows what's on Trump's mind,' he said. 'Negotiating in the absence of that is not easy.' The G7 summit is not the only high-stakes diplomacy this month. Nato leaders will assemble in The Hague next week, where defence spending will be top of the agenda. Summit organisers there are preparing a one-page communiqué, The Telegraph revealed on Friday, designed to suit Mr Trump's attention span. It will be almost entirely focused on one of the president's pet issues and the historic decision to more than double spending on defence by leaders to meet new capability targets for deterring a Russian invasion. Mr Trump stormed out of his last Nato summit in the UK in 2019, abandoning plans for a press conference, after Mr Trudeau was caught on video apparently mocking the American president. He was talking to Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, discussing how Mr Trump liked to use photo opportunities to talk to the press.
Economist
3 hours ago
- Economist
Correction: Canada minerals story
On June 11th we published a story on Canadian trade talks titled 'Carney's colossal Canada-US pact'. We withdrew the story shortly after publication because we were not satisfied with the sourcing.
