The Decibel

A big part of the federal budget rests on the assumption that its measures will spur the private sector to invest in Canada…a lot. It’s projecting a half-trillion worth of investment. But at a time when Canada is suffering from sluggish productivity and the impact of U.S. tariffs, how realistic is it to expect businesses to invest? James Bradshaw covers institutional investing for The Globe and Ma...

Parents are increasingly relying on elaborate calendar systems to keep track of their families’ activities – from a shared calendar or paper planner to high-end devices that can create a calendar for you by scraping data from your emails. Some parents say it helps them better involve their teen children in scheduling their lives; for others, they feel themselves becoming beholden to their calendar...

For more than a decade, Canada’s condo boom was on . Investors, at home and abroad, drove the craze over reselling preconstruction units. Rents skyrocketed, all while the condos themselves shrank in size. Today, the bubble has burst and the housing crisis continues. New condo sales in markets like Toronto and Hamilton are at 35-year lows and prices are driving potential homebuyers out of the city...

On Tuesday, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tabled the first federal budget from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government. It had long been advertised as a fiscal plan that would make difficult decisions to put Canada’s economy on the right track. The Globe sent more than a dozen journalists to Ottawa to study the details and assess how transformative this budget actually is . We break...

Today, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is set to deliver the first budget under Prime Minister Mark Carney. Early announcements have signalled sweeping cuts to the public sector . There’s no guarantee that the budget will pass, given Carney is presiding over a minority government. The NDP has said they wouldn’t rule out abstaining from the budget vote ; for his part, Carney has said h...

North Atlantic right whales are nearing extinction , with fewer than 400 left in the world. We know what is killing them: getting hit by shipping boats , entangled in fishing lines and the impacts of climate change — which is changing the location of their food sources . But now, researchers think that human-made noise in the ocean may be having an effect too. Jenn Thornhill Verma is an environmen...

On Sunday, most Canadians gain an hour of sleep as the clocks get turned back to standard time . But while most of us have gotten used to the bi-annual time change, our bodies have not. And with a growing number of experts saying the practice messes with our sleep – should Canadians stop messing with the clock? Today, psychology professor Joseph De Koninck is here. He studies sleep at the Universi...

Last weekend, Quebec passed new legislation that would impose a new contract on doctors, who have been in negotiations with the provincial government since March, 2023. Known as Bill 2, it sets out targets that Quebec doctors must meet in order to achieve the government’s health care goals, including access to primary care for all Quebeckers by January, 2027. The catch? If doctors don’t meet these...

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump ended trade talks with Canada and threatened to hike tariffs on Canadian imports by another 10 per cent because of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s anti-tariff ad . Now, Trump says he doesn’t plan to meet with Carney “for a long time”, as both leaders head to Asia for trade summits and turn their attention to repairing trade relations with China . The Globe’s ch...

‘Til death do us part – that’s the promise couples make to each other when they tie the knot. But what happens in the event of a divorce? Disentangling a marriage can carry a big financial burden if the division of property, pets and assets are in the mix. Once derided as unromantic, the pre-nuptial agreement is now gaining popularity among young Canadians planning to get married. Mariya Postelnya...

As Canadians, we’ve spent a lot of time over the past year talking about what it means to be Canadian and how to support our country. For some people, that looks like checking labels at the grocery store or limiting travel to the United States . But as the Globe’s film and deputy arts editor Barry Hertz argues, now is also the moment to bolster Canadian culture. And we’re squandering it . So today...

The Toronto Blue Jays are headed to the World Series for the first time in over 30 years. It’s the third time in franchise history that Canada’s team is playing for the championship. But this monumental moment isn’t just for the diehard Jays fans – everyone can get in on the fun. So today, we bring you The Decibel’s bandwagoner’s guide to not feeling totally lost as the Jays try to make history. P...

The prices of gold and silver have been climbing quickly this fall, with both precious metals setting a new high for per-ounce price. Why is this happening? Columnist and reporter Tim Kiladze explains how central banks, Trump and even AI factor into it. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@globeandmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information...

Last week, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre made comments about the RCMP being “despicable” on a YouTube show, accusing them of “covering up” for former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This sparked backlash from opposition parties as well as Conservatives, and earlier this week, Poilievre walked those comments back , explaining that he meant to direct his comments towards the former RCMP commis...

On Thursday, Ottawa announced incoming legislation to reform the bail system . It comes after months of pressure both in Parliament and across the country, as a surge of Canadians say they feel crime is worsening, and that the bail system is too lenient. But with overall crime down, will making our bail system stricter really make Canadians safer? The Globe’s justice reporter, David Ebner , joins...

There has been a lot of talk about Canadian sovereignty ever since the election of Donald Trump. And that sovereignty talk extends to the digital realm too. Last month, nearly 70 public figures and experts sent a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney demanding he take sovereignty in the digital space more seriously. The government is currently working on that , with plans to build a sovereign cloud...

This week, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand is visiting China as part of an effort to improve relations amid a trade war between Canada and China. It began last year, when Ottawa imposed a 100-per-cent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles. China responded by launching an anti-dumping probe into Canada’s canola imports , and later issued its own 100-per-cent tariff on Canadian canola oil ,...

The ceasefire in Gaza that U.S. President Donald Trump helped broker has been in place since Friday. But already, both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the agreement. Tensions flared over a slower-than-expected return of deceased hostages , and Hamas has, so far, refused to disarm and cede power in Gaza . Despite the disagreements, humanitarian aid trucks began entering Gaza o...

Canada’s agriculture industry is big business, contributing $32-billion to Canada’s GDP in 2024 and employing an estimated 223,000 people. What garners less attention is how heavily dependent the agriculture industry is on migrant labourers, with about 80,000 workers in the sector . The job is often gruelling and typically pays around minimum wage, but that money tends to go a lot farther in the w...

A legal battle is underway over the notwithstanding clause, which allows governments to override “[certain] rights of Canadians” that are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s a tool provincial governments have invoked often in recent years. But the federal government is bringing the dispute to the Supreme Court, asking it to consider new limits on the clause . Divisions over that...

Geoffrey Hinton, “the godfather of AI”, pioneered much of the network research that would become the backbone of modern AI. But it’s in the last several years that he has reached mainstream renown. Since 2023, Hinton has been on a campaign to convince governments, corporations and citizens that artificial intelligence – his life’s work – could be what spells the end of human civilization. Machines...

A new pipeline pitch is stirring up an old fight. On Oct. 1, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced the province would be drawing up a proposal for a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast by May. In the last week, B.C. Premier David Eby has voiced criticisms of the project and opposed Smith’s coinciding efforts to repeal laws affecting access to the coast. In recent days, the disagreement has escal...

Five years ago, hundreds of Canadian companies publicly pledged to address anti-Black racism. They signed the BlackNorth Initiative , which has since become the most high-profile DEI effort in corporate Canada. Many of the commitments came with a 2025 deadline. The Globe and Mail surveyed the signatories to find out how they’ve fared. Vanmala Subramaniam is the Future of Work reporter for The Glob...

Five months after his first appearance in the Oval Office , Prime Minister Mark Carney made his second trip down to Washington . And while he said little during the 30-minute press conference, talks between the countries carried on throughout the day and into the night. Doug Saunders , The Globe’s international affairs columnist, assesses Carney’s second performance at the White House and explains...

On October 7, 2023, members of Hamas launched attacks in Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 people hostage. Israel responded by launching a war in the Gaza Strip, with the aim of eliminating Hamas. Since then, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, and much of Gaza has been destroyed . Two years later, reverberations of that initial attack and the ongoing war continue . T...