Rob Palm | Whistler, Squamish & Pemberton Real Estate Expert

a headline to ignore; the focus is on core

Posted on Jun 25, 2025

Today’s release of Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from Statistics Canada revealed no change in headline inflation in May versus April, at 1.7%. The removal of the consumer carbon tax in April has pulled the overall rate of inflation lower in each of the past two months—as it will until next April owing to the fact that inflation is calculated on a...

US inflation holds for now

Posted on Jun 23, 2025

It’s a consensus view among economists and analysts that import tariffs raise prices for consumers. That assessment is informed not just by theory but by recent history.

In early 2022, as demand surged for goods like furniture, food, and other household staples, it ran into a wall of pandemic-related closures at ports and warehouses. With a limited...

the unwinding of canada's population boom has begun

Posted on Jun 20, 2025

Canada’s three-year trend of robust population growth came to a near halt in Q1 2025. Data from Statistics Canada shows that the country added just 20,100 net new people in the first three months of this year, the third-fewest of any quarter in comparable data back to 1972 (that’s 212 quarters). Only Q4 2014 saw a smaller increase (+15,700), while...

canada's labour market is splitting along tariff lines

Posted on Jun 06, 2025

The latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) showed little change in Canada’s labour market in May with a modest gain of 8,800 jobs and a 0.1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate to 7.0%—its highest level since September 2016 when excluding the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. However, a deeper look at the data illustrates a notable divergenc...

reading the federal reserve tea leaves

Posted on Jun 06, 2025

We’re now nearly halfway through 2025, and each of this year’s meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has concluded with the federal funds rate being held where it is. The latest session on May 6 marked the third straight meeting without a rate change, with markets widely expecting the Fed to maintain this stance at its next meeting...

the bank holds its ground

Posted on Jun 04, 2025

This morning, the Bank of Canada held its trend-setting policy interest rate at 2.75%, its lowest level since August 2022. This was the second consecutive policy rate announcement in which the Bank elected to maintain the rate after seven consecutive cuts beginning in June of last year.

The Bank’s rationale for keeping its policy rate at its current...

Get in touch