Real estate firm Colliers International says about one in five commercial tenants surveyed requested April rent relief as the COVID-19 shutdown hit business activity. The company says that 21 per cent of the 7,100 retail, industrial, and office tenants in its managed portfolio across Canada requested relief, and close to half of that share indicated they could not afford to make their rent payment.
B.C. teachers have voted to approve a new, three-year collective agreement with the provincial government. The deal with the B.C. Public School Employers' Association includes general wage increases of two per cent every year along with a mediated process on how to better support negotiations in the future.
Finance Minister Carole James says thousands of people applied for British Columbia's $1,000 tax-free emergency benefit in the first minutes of the program going online today.
Vancouver police are reporting an increase in anti-Asian, hate-motivated incidents in recent weeks. The department makes the announcement as it seeks public help to identify a man seen scrawling graffiti on several large windows at the Chinese Cultural Centre on April 2.
Canada has officially entered a recession due to the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the C.D. Howe Institute's Business Cycle Council declared Friday.
Tiff Macklem, a former second-in-command at the Bank of Canada, is returning to the central bank to take over the top job at a moment that he says cries out for bold, unprecedented responses to the economic crisis fuelled by COVID-19.