TOP STORY
A Toronto Hospital Is Not a National Construction Recovery
National building permits jumped 18.5% in June to $14.9 billion, the sort of number that gets a government press release written. Read the fine print. Nearly all of it came from the non-residential side (+$1.8 billion), and $1.5 billion of that was institutional — overwhelmingly Ontario (+$1.3 billion), and concentrated in a single newly approved medical institution in Toronto. Strip out one hospital and the story looks very different. Alberta was the West’s bright spot, leading the country in single-family permits (+$110.8 million) and adding $143.4 million in multi-unit. British Columbia went the other way, tempering the national single-family gain with a $30.8 million decline — and B.C.’s second-quarter multi-unit permits fell $386.2 million, the second-worst drop in Canada. Nationally, 80,000 units were authorized in the second quarter, down from 82,200 a year earlier. Permits are the leading edge of the work our members bid on 12 to 24 months out. In B.C., that pipeline is getting thinner, not thicker. Statistics Canada
THE NUMBERS — STATISTICS CANADA
Commercial and Institutional Energy Use, 2024 — Released today. Canada has 583,634 commercial and institutional buildings covering 1.1 billion square metres and burning 953.8 million gigajoules a year. Alberta posts the highest energy use intensity in the country at 1.32 GJ/m². Ottawa is explicitly using this survey to score its Deep Retrofit Accelerator — expect these numbers to resurface as the case for retrofit mandates. Statistics Canada
WORTH WATCHING
Six Days to the Tariff Deadline — On August 19, the U.S. applies 50% duties under Section 338 to roughly $28 billion of Canadian exports — cement, plywood, MDF, doors, mouldings and fencing components among them. Dominic LeBlanc met U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington this week for the third time in three weeks, with both sides trying to put the outline of a deal in front of the President before the clock runs out. TD Economics figures the tariffs, if they stick, take 0.3 to 0.6 percentage points off GDP growth over the next year. CBC News | TD Economics
The Data Landing Soon — Manufacturing and wholesale trade for June arrive tomorrow, the first clean look at whether trade-exposed sectors held up through the second quarter. Then July CPI on August 17, and investment in building construction for June on August 19 — the same day the tariffs are set to bite. Release schedule
Bank of Canada, September 2 — The policy rate has sat at 2.25% for six straight decisions. Scotiabank is the outlier calling for hikes before year-end; TD and BMO see no move through 2027. Contractors pricing 2027 work should plan on money staying exactly this expensive. Bank of Canada
IN BRIEF
Rates.ca / Leger — Nearly half of Canadians renewing mortgages now spend more than 50% of their budget on housing. Borrowing costs rose for 82% of those who renewed since January 2025. Among homeowners aged 18 to 34, 90% renewed higher and 56% say the mortgage eats 50 to 70 cents of every household dollar. The Bank of Canada expects this renewal wave to run into the second half of 2027 — money that will not be spent on renovations, moves or new homes.
Canadian Bankers Association — 14,061 bank mortgages were at least 90 days in arrears in May, the highest count in more than a decade. Context matters: the national arrears rate is still under 0.3%, so more than 99% of borrowers are current. CBA
EconoBot is on vacation next week.
No briefings August 18 or 20. We are back Tuesday, August 25.