Manitoba signs agreements with 4 provinces to improve trade and labour mobility

6 days ago

The Manitoba government has signed agreements with four other Canadian provinces to loosen trade barriers and increase labour mobility from coast to coast.
Premier Wab Kinew said the province has signed four separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Saskatchewan, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island during the Council of the Federation meeting in Huntsville, Ont.
The agreements outline a shared commitment to remove internal trade barriers between Manitoba and each province, while ensuring workers' credentials are recognized across the provinces to increase job mobility.
They also include a promise to expand direct-to-consumer alcohol sales from Manitoba producers in each of the four provinces.
"It feels good as a Canadian to see that the leaders from all regions and at the highest level are working together. It feels good as a premier to know that we're walking in lockstep with our colleagues," Kinew said during a virtual press conference Tuesday.
Manitoba also signed a separate memorandum of understanding with Saskatchewan and Arctic Gateway Group to expand Arctic trade via the Port of Churchill.
Kinew told reporters that he also had a productive meeting with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, where they discussed shared economic priorities.
"We're definitely all on the same page in terms of definitely wanting to build up Canada and build up our economy," he said, calling the meetings in Huntsville "Team Canada's huddle" before the Aug. 1 deadline to reach a trade deal with the U.S.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government "will not accept a bad deal" and is working toward a trade agreement that's "in the best interest of Canadians."
Kinew told CBC's David Cochrane on Power and Politics Tuesday afternoon that Canadians should remain patient as provincial and federal leaders work to build local economies and try to secure a deal with an often-volatile trading partner to the south.
"Given the way the Trump administration has continuously moved the goalposts, has continuously put different issues on the table, taking them off, I think we should maybe just let go of the Aug. 1 deadline as a fixation. And the fixation that we should have is a good deal," he said.
On Tuesday, the premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario also signed memorandums of understanding to build new pipelines, railroads and energy infrastructure to move oil, gas and critical minerals between the provinces. Manitoba did not sign the agreement.
Kinew said Manitoba's major infrastructure projects must first have a consensus from Indigenous stakeholders before putting shovels in the ground.
The Council of the Federation meeting continues in Huntsville on Wednesday.

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Wall Street is coasting ahead of a week packed with potential flashpoints

Globe and Mail

18 minutes ago

Globe and Mail

Wall Street is coasting ahead of a week packed with potential flashpoints

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting on Monday after the United States agreed to tax cars and other products coming from the European Union at a 15% rate, lower than President Donald Trump had earlier threatened. Many details are still to be worked out, though, and Wall Street is heading into a week full of potential flashpoints that could shake markets. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% in late trading after setting an all-time high every day last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 136 points, or 0.3%, with a little less than an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher, coming off its own record. Tesla added 3.7% after its CEO, Elon Musk, said it signed a deal with Samsung Electronics that could be worth more than $16.5 billion to provide chips for the electric-vehicle company. Samsung's stock in South Korea jumped 6.8%. Other companies in the chip and artificial-intelligence industries were strong, continuing their run from last week after Alphabet said it was increasing its spending on AI chips and other investments to $85 billion this year. Chip company Advanced Micro Devices rose 3.7%, and server-maker Super Micro Computer climbed 8.6%. They helped offset a 9% drop for Revvity. The company in the life sciences and diagnostics businesses reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected, but its forecast for full year profit disappointed analysts. Companies are broadly under pressure to deliver solid growth in profits following big jumps in their stock prices the last few months. Much of the gain was due to hopes that Trump would walk back some of his stiff proposed tariffs, and critics say the broad U.S. stock market looks expensive unless companies produce bigger profits. More fireworks may be ahead this week. 'This is about as busy as a week can get in the markets,' according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley. Hundreds of U.S. companies are lined up to report how much profit they made during the spring, with nearly a third of all the businesses in the S&P 500 index scheduled to deliver updates. That includes market heavyweights Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Those companies have grown so huge that their stock movements can almost dictate what the overall S&P 500 index does. Microsoft alone is worth roughly $3.8 trillion. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates. Trump has been angrily calling for the Fed to cut interest rates, a move that could give the economy a boost. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell insists that he wants more data about how Trump's tariffs are affecting the economy and inflation before the Fed makes its next move. Lower interest rates can fuel inflation, and the economy only recently came out of its scarring run where inflation briefly topped 9%. The widespread expectation on Wall Street is that Fed officials will wait until September to resume cutting interest rates, though a couple of Trump's appointees could dissent in the vote. The Fed has been on hold with interest rates this year since cutting them several times at the end of 2024. This week will also feature several potentially market-moving updates about the economy. On Tuesday will come reports on how confident U.S. consumers are feeling and how many jobs openings U.S. employers were advertising. Wednesday will show the first estimate of how quickly the U.S. economy grew during the spring, and economists expect to see a slowdown from the first three months of the year. On Thursday, the latest measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use will arrive. A modest reading could give the Fed more leeway to cut interest rates in the short term, while a hotter-than-expected figure could make it more cautious. And Friday will bring an update on how many more workers U.S. employers hired during June than they fired. Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market ahead of all that action. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.41% from 4.40% late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, rose to 3.93% from 3.91%. In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following the announcement of the trade deal's framework. Chinese stocks rose as officials from the world's second-largest economy prepared to meet with a U.S. delegation in Sweden for trade talks. Stocks climbed 0.7% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Shanghai. Indexes were mixed across the rest of Asia, where Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% for one of the world's bigger losses.