While they might have helped in the summer of last year, interest rate hikes are now actually increasing inflation.

CCPA Senior Economist David Macdonald breaks down the numbers by creating a new methodology, which shows that corporate profits are eating up the vast majority of the extra inflation dollars, far outpacing increased labour costs or other expenses.

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The federal government just released its latest fiscal update. CCPA senior economist David Macdonald has the details.

They’ve been enjoying excess profits throughout the pandemic.

The cost of living has gone up but the minimum wage hasn’t kept pace.

The combination of rising interest rates and high private debt catapults Canada into the top third most dangerous economic periods since the Second World War. If the Bank of Canada hikes interest rates by 0.5% or more in September, we’d move into second place.

The brand of turbo-charged capitalism that we call “neoliberalism” arrived in North America on a rising tide of inflation.

It has been a long, long time since Canadians had to worry about high inflation

The Consumer Price Index (the major measure of inflation) rose 8.1 per cent in June compared to last year—the biggest jump in almost 40 years.

Inflation is coupled with wildfires and loss of infrastructure to create an affordability problem unlike anywhere else in Canada

There is no denying that inflation has become a major economic and political problem, reaching almost double digits in many industrialized countries. Canadians hear about it, and we certainly see it at the pumps and in the grocery stores, with many increasingly struggling to meet their weekly and monthly expenses. The fundamental question that we must ask now is what can our institutions do to bring inflation back down?

Canada is experiencing a permanent rental housing affordability crisis, which has only intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic began. At the same time, we’re seeing a greater consolidation of rental housing apartments by financial firms, accelerating the “financialization of rental housing,” a trend underway in Canada since the 1990s.

As we grapple with yet another wave of COVID, the parallel poverty crisis in Toronto has been exacerbated past its breaking point and will have enduring societal impacts.

History tells us that the Bank of Canada has a 0% success rate in fighting inflation by quickly raising interest rates. If a pilot told me that they’d only ever attempted a particular landing three times in the past 60 years with a 0% success rate, that’s not a plane I’d want to be on. Unfortunately, that looks likes the plane all Canadians are on now.