According to the Conference Board, the Canadian economy is now projected to grow by a lacklustre 1.4 per cent in 2016, down from the 1.6 per cent growth predicted by the think tank in a forecast earlier this year.
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Fort McMurray’s fire-ravaged housing market could see a resurgence as returning homeowners snap up empty rental units and the community undergoes largest home building boom in decades, Canada’s federal housing agency predicted.
A giant fireball is visible as a wildfire rips through the forest by Highway 63 south of Fort McMurray, Alta on May 7, 2016.
Picture of Fort McMurray wildfires taken from International Space StationUnemployment claims and beneficiaries surged in Canada’s main oil-producing province in May, reaching record levels after wildfires knocked out 1 million barrels per day of crude production.
The board says weaker global economic growth prospects – factors that hurt Canada’s trade sector – are also dampening the country’s outlook.
The lack of traction on the business investment front is worrisome, said Justin Smith, policy director for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. The rebuilding effort could do much to reverse the sagging fortunes of Fort McMurray’s housing market, which had suffered from the drop in oil prices that began in late 2014. People from the area, which includes Fort McMurray, represented almost one-third of Alberta’s total increase of 12.1 per cent.
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A total of 77,810 out-of-work people in Alberta received Employment Insurance benefits in May, an increase of 12.1 percent from the previous month and the highest in the history of the data since 1997.
