Liberal Leader Carney says Winnipeg's NFI Group may be exempt from Canada's counter-tariffs
Liberal Leader Mark Carney says Canada may exempt Winnipeg's NFI Group from Canadian counter-tariffs on U.S. materials to allow the bus manufacturer to remain competitive on both sides of the border.
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Choose your own adviser
Opinion A common downside about being a Canadian consumer is a lack of choice. Be it cell phones, cable and internet or even banking, it can feel the fight for our dollars is performative, opposed to being a matter of survival of the fittest among providers of goods and services. Surprisingly, that's less so when it comes to our investments. FREEPIK We have tens of thousands of advisers, more than a dozen robo-advisers and a similar amount of do-it-yourself (DIY) online discount brokerages to choose from. So much choice can be a challenge unto itself. Fortunately, if you are trying to pick an investment lane or just curious about what's out there beyond your own adviser, you can lean on a few annual studies to provide clarity. Among them is the J.D. Power Canada Investor Satisfaction Study, which rates full service brokerages — investment advisers — and discount brokerages, online trading platforms catering to do-it-yourself (DIY) investors. Among its notable findings is, 'contrary to popular belief, younger investors are even more interested in advice than older ones,' says Kapil Vora, senior director of wealth intelligence at J.D. Power. (Which makes sense given younger adults just starting out generally have less knowledge about investments.) Of course, the most notable facet of the study are the offerings that ranked first this year: National Bank Financial for full service brokerages; Wealthsimple Trade for the discount brokerages. National Bank comes out ahead because it's not too small. It's the sixth Big Bank, after all, with all the benefits, such as a wide shelf of products and services. Yet it's also not so big clients feel like numbers, Vora adds. Wealthsimple is prized by its users for innovation. It was among the first robo-advisers in Canada — offering automated portfolios of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to suit investors' risk appetite and goals, all in a mobile app format. Then, Wealthsimple Trade launched in 2019 — a DIY platform that brought the widely successful no-commission trade trend in the U.S. to Canada. The platform is also a leader in making investing feel seamlessly easy. That said, most discount brokerages are pretty good at that, Vora says. 'You don't need a lot of money; you just need an app' is the credo of Wealthsimple and many other online trading platforms, including Questrade — which also now offers no-commission trading, he adds. Questrade ranks first among discount brokerages in another annual study. published a report earlier this year, evaluating online brokerages based on metrics such as desktop quality, mobile app functionality, fees and overall service. Questrade would have scored even higher, says Natasha Macmillan, business director of everyday banking at But the discount brokerage announced no-commission trading about a month after the Ratehub study was published. The Big Banks did well, too, in the report, with TD Direct Investing ranking best among them. 'It scored well because TD has a lot of learn-to-invest videos and in-depth analysis information,' Macmillan notes. As for robo-advisers, another study, this one by MoneySense, ranked Questwealth Portfolios (offered by Questrade) as the leader in the Canadian market. Notably, all studies found no full-service brokerage, online discount brokerage or robo-adviser is a terrible choice. All have strengths and weaknesses, and if you have a good investment strategy that is diversified, low-cost and well-suited to your goals, you are likely to make out OK, no matter your choice. Still, a few basic rules can help find the right fit. First off, do you want to invest on your own? If not, a full service brokerage — an adviser-guided experience — is a better match, says Marko Bilandzija, spokesperson for Manitoba Financial Services Agency. 'A financial adviser is a great fit for … people who don't have time or the interest to manage their investments.' Discount brokerages are for individuals with an interest in investing. 'You don't need to be an expert, but you have to be willing to do research,' Bilandzija says. Not everyone wants to do that, he adds. That said, you can always test drive the DIY experience. Many online brokerages offer practice accounts. The investment performance data is real, but the capital invested is not. Online resources also offer help in making a choice. That includes the Ontario Securities Commission's 'We recommend using the investor personality quiz because it helps you understand just what kind of investor you are,' says Theresa Ebden, vice-president of the OSC investor office in Toronto. Of course, whenever choosing an adviser or brokerage, make sure the individual and organization are registered with regulators. This is easy to do; just web search 'Check before you invest' or 'Are they registered?' Both take you to the Canadian Securities Administrators search database where you can find all licensed/registered brokerages and investment advisers in Canada. Wednesdays A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom. Not all advisers — like fee-only financial planners — may show up in searches, 'so if you're unsure, contact your local securities commission,' Ebden says. What's important above all else when making a decision is not to rush, she adds. 'Even though our world emphasizes speed, with investing, it's often best to slow things down.' Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist joelschles@
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Moving from throne speech to results
Opinion The usual 'speech from the drone' became a true speech from the throne this past week. Gone were the long, lofty flights of rhetoric and open-ended ambition that peppered Liberal throne speeches of the past. This one, like its progenitor, Prime Minister Mark Carney, was more sober and serious, with a speech shorn of the ornamental ellipses favoured by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. It was delivered as well from a real Canadian throne, made from Canadian black walnut and donated English walnut from a forest behind Windsor Castle. And it was read by King Charles, the only person in the Senate chamber that day who can honestly lay claim to the phrase, 'to the throne, born.' Pageantry aside, there was little new in the actual speech that had not been telegraphed by Carney in the days following his election. That's no bad thing. Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press King Charles delivers the speech from the throne in the Senate in Ottawa on May 27. In fact, it was all contained in the single two-page mandate letter (shorter than this column!) he wrote to his cabinet colleagues the week before. It contained seven priorities that the whole government would focus on, beginning with 'establishing a new economic and security relationship with the United States,' 'building one Canadian economy,' and 'bringing down costs for Canadians' leading the list. These became the first three sections of the throne speech. For now, the new prime minister is sticking to the electoral winning knitting from the campaign that won his party an unprecedented fourth term. Ambition was not absent though in the throne speech. But it was the ambition of fortitude and resilience in the face of external economic threats that Carney put before Canadians, not the ambition of hope and dreams propagated by his predecessor. 'We must be clear-eyed', the King intoned on the prime minister's behalf, 'the world is a more dangerous and uncertain place than at any point since the Second World War.' The new prime minister is engaged in a radical act of political revisionism. The very next day in the House of Commons, he labelled his team as 'Canada's new government,' a phrase not actively heard in Ottawa since Stephen Harper branded itself as such in 2006. No one should be surprised. That is simply the latest apotheosis of a branded makeover of the Liberal government he has embarked upon. The symbolism of the King coming to Canada to read the throne speech, its stylistic shift in tone and tenor, and a tight, focused agenda as its content, all reinforce the impression and momentum of what are deliberate 'points of departure.' To chart a new course, to set a new agenda, or strike in a new direction, all requires a starting point. A point of departure, you might say. Carney's magic so far is to ignore what came before and concentrate attention on what's to come. Shakespeare wrote 'what's past is prologue' in The Tempest. For Carney, it isn't even past. It's as if it never was. This is a political juggling feat of no mean skill. Our new prime minister defied political gravity and political convention by showing he is a politician of better-than-average skills. So, it might just work. What Carney has most going for him is that the country wants it to work. Fatigued from past Liberal virtue-signalling, wary of Donald Trump's America, and more than a little attracted to the Conservative policy offerings of the campaign, the prime minister has real running room to set his new points of departure. Tuesdays A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world. Setting and achieving are two very different things. Ten years of overpromising and underdelivering by Justin Trudeau makes for a skeptical electorate. Still, they suspended enough of that skepticism to give him a chance. Carney's real challenge isn't what he's saying or how he's saying it. It is whether the federal government as an institution can be corralled and focused to do his bidding. A public story making the rounds in Ottawa is that the new prime minister sent a deputy minister packing from an inadequate briefing session, telling him to return when he knew his file. Truth be told, our federal bureaucracy is not fit for Carney's purpose. He wants to move fast to get things done. Save for the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic experience, this is not standard operating procedure for official Ottawa. It needs to be more nimble, more horizontal in thinking and acting across government, less consumed by process, and relentless in focusing on delivery and results. Canada's operating environment outside Ottawa hasn't changed. The same political barriers to action remain, from premiers to Indigenous leaders and communities, to advocacy groups, to industry, to … the list goes on. Mr. Carney does not control that. What he does control is the operating environment inside Ottawa. Changing Ottawa from the inside out will be seen as the single most important reason for whether throne speech poetry gets translated into governing prose. Now that would be a true point of departure. David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Renewed marketing, product development keys to improved pork sales: report
Opinion Canadian pork producers are likely to chew slowly as they digest a report released this week by one of the largest agricultural creditors in the U.S. While the paper by CoBank focuses on U.S. pork production and consumption trends, the North American hog and pork industries are highly integrated. Whatever happens in this report's wake, if anything, will spill across the border to influence the Canadian sector. Nearly one-quarter of the pigs born in Canada are sent to the U.S. for feeding and slaughter. Sixty per cent of those live hog exports are weanlings sent to U.S. feeding operations. Canada also exported US$1.7 billion in pork products to the U.S. in 2024, while importing US$850 million back. JOHN LOCHER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Pigs eat from a trough at the Las Vegas Livestock farming operation in Nevada CoBank says the U.S. industry's continued reliance on export sales to places like Mexico, China, South Korea and Canada for nearly a quarter of its production is becoming too risky because of 'new trade policies' creating more volatility in global trade. Even without U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs in the mix, trade with China has fallen sharply since record sales in 2020. That country's domestic production rebounded faster than expected following a devastating outbreak of African swine fever in 2018. Sales to China in 2024 were less than a quarter of the kilograms sold five years ago. Bacon has achieved a cult-like following and sausage products have gained appeal, which has doubled the market prices for the pork bellies and trimmings used to make them. However, the 'muscle cuts,' such as pork loins and hams, are often discounted because they aren't as convenient and consumers often don't know how to cook them. 'Sluggish exports could mean more pork loins in domestic markets, and U.S. consumers have difficulty cooking 'the perfect pork chop,'' the report says. Exports of so-called 'variety meats,' such as livers, hearts, kidneys, tongues, stomachs, snouts, ears, feet and tails, were worth $1.3 billion in 2024, but they aren't popular menu items in North America. 'Any trade barriers in place for countries that purchase variety meats could cause implications for the U.S. pork sector because those products have extremely limited demand in the U.S.,' CoBank says. The industry has launched campaigns focused on convincing consumers they need more pork on their forks, something the Canadian sector has been working on, too. Even though Canadian pork consumption is much lower, at about 16 kg per capita, recent marketing efforts have achieved increases of just under 15 per cent. CoBank warns increasing U.S. consumption, which has remained static at about 22 kg per capita since the 1970s, will be challenging because the parts of the animal the industry currently exports are such a hard to sell to American consumers. 'If the U.S. consumer is to reimagine pork, the pork industry may need to make drastic changes, including recalibrating the genetic hog makeup and showcasing different cuts at retail and through food service.' CoBank cites Kansas State University research that names taste as the primary driver for protein purchases. When it comes to animal protein, the flavour is in the fat. Weekday Evenings Today's must-read stories and a roundup of the day's headlines, delivered every evening. That's a problem for a sector that heeded the low-fat messaging of yesteryear and shifted genetic focus in selecting breeding stock towards lean carcass weights, rapid growth and feeding efficiency. CoBank says the industry needs to rethink that strategy if it wants to convince consumers to eat more pork. It also must put more effort into marketing and new product development focused on eating quality and convenience. 'The lean hog formulation that was adopted by the broad bulk of U.S. producers more than two decades ago has largely influenced the pork that U.S. consumers are offered today,' the report says. 'This has left something to be desired when comparing pork chops to beef steaks, often with an overcooked chop delivering a bad experience.' CoBank is signalling a shift in market direction that has obvious implications for the Canadian sector. When it's time to make a change, the consolidated and vertically integrated industry will be able to pivot relatively quickly. However, with all the moving parts to this equation, now is not the time. Laura Rance is executive editor, production content lead for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@ Laura RanceColumnist Laura Rance is editorial director at Farm Business Communications. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
