3 days Ago
Good morning. The Bank of Canada is holding interest rates steady – pausing a year-long easing cycle as it weighs how to support the economy without stoking new risks. Today, from Cranbrook, B.
C., we look at how a ripple of that pressure is surfacing in the growing role small businesses are playing in reshaping rural Canada. Economy: S&P Global has downgraded Quebec’s credit rating , potentially raising the province’s borrowing costs as a trade battle with the United States starts biting its public finances and economic growth.
Interprovincial trade: The Ontario government is introducing legislation to knock down trade barriers between provinces. Activism: Parkland Corp. chief executive officer Bob Espey will retire as part of the Canadian fuel distributor’s attempt to defuse an activist campaign launched by its largest investor.
Trump order fast-tracks U.S. review of Enbridge pipeline At a glance: The U.
S. Army Corps of Engineers is expediting its permit review for Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel project under the Great Lakes, invoking a national energy emergency declared by President Donald Trump. The big picture: The decision adds new momentum to Enbridge’s efforts to replace the aging pipeline, which carries oil and gas to Sarnia, Ont.
, and supplies a major share of Michigan’s propane and refinery inputs. Environmental groups and local businesses warn the fast-track undermines oversight and risks a major spill. Stacey Brensrud, head of the Cranbrook Chamber of Commerce, at an all-candidates' debate earlier this week.
Chris Wilson-Smith/The Globe and Mail Stacey Brensrud didn’t need a rate decision or a federal election debate to know how the backbone of Canada’s economy is already shifting gears. She sees it every day in Cranbrook, B.C.
, where small businesses serve as anchors of local jobs, services, and identity. Nationally, firms like these make up nearly 98 per cent of all employer businesses and employ almost half of Canada’s private-sector workforce. In smaller communities, said Brensrud, executive director of the Cranbrook Chamber of Commerce, they are the economy.
The picturesque city of 20,000 was built on resource industries – forestry, rail, and mining – and remains a major contributor to provincial GDP through the export of steelmaking coal. With those roots in slow retreat, its economy has broadened. Small businesses and tourism now play a growing role, and on clear days, the view from downtown stretches to the snow-capped Steeples Range – a reminder that more than its natural-resource legacy draws people here.
On the sidelines of a federal all-candidates debate this week at the city’s 600-seat theatre, Brensrud laid out the forces bearing down on the local businesses she works with: inflation, rising wages, freight costs, shifting regulations, and a rewired global trading order. Those tensions are playing out in different ways, and to varying degrees of success, across the community. “The businesses that are making it work are innovative, nimble and tenacious,” she said.
“But they’re being stretched.” “There’s just a lot more being asked of them than there used to be,” she said. In Cranbrook and across rural Canada, the pressures facing small businesses now extend far beyond the bottom line.
As costs rise and new families arrive from larger cities, local employers are being asked to shoulder more – even as the systems around them feel less responsive. Employers who once focused on expanding their operations are now handling side tasks: helping new hires find housing, navigating immigration paperwork, supporting community integration. “A restaurateur who used to focus on product and service might now be doing all three,” Brensrud said.
“That all costs time and money. And it contributes to burnout.” The view from the Baker Hotel along Main Street in downtown Cranbrook, B.
C. Chris Wilson-Smith/The Globe and Mail The strain isn’t just financial. Across businesses she works with – in construction, agriculture, tourism and beyond — there’s also a growing sense of frustration – a feeling that what matters to small-town residents rarely makes it into national debates.
Policies on housing, energy, or climate often miss the mark, she said, because they overlook the realities of life in smaller communities. “It’s a tough sell to tell someone who lives in minus-40 weather to buy a battery-powered vehicle when the charging infrastructure doesn’t exist.” That disconnect, Brensrud said, risks calcifying into something harder to reverse.
“When people start to feel like they can’t affect what’s happening in their own communities – when they stop believing it matters – that’s when something has to change.” That strain is also being felt at the Baker Hotel, where owner Greg Eaton is keeping an eye on the check-in desk – and the news. His costs – from wages to utilities to furnishings – have climbed steadily.
While American tourists are still coming, he’s watching the political dangers build. “If mills start closing nearby, that’s going to hurt our local economy,” he said. Still, he’s hopeful.
“We’ve had to pivot before,” he said. Business was humming after he bought the property in 2018. The pandemic hit, but he was able to keep the lights on by turning to month-long rentals.
“We’ll adapt again. But you’ve got to stay nimble.” Cranbrook, like many smaller centres, is also absorbing a new wave of residents – families priced out of larger cities, drawn by the lifestyle and relative affordability.
It’s a hopeful shift, Brensrud said, but one that’s adding strain to the civic fabric. Many of the programs that give small towns their character – from ski clubs to arts councils – rely on local non-profits and volunteer boards to stay afloat. “People who relocate for the mountain lifestyle don’t necessarily want to sit in board meetings” for non-profits, she said.
“They moved here to ski, to hike, to be with their families. So we need to give them a reason to contribute to their new communities.” For Brensrud, the challenge isn’t just who’s moving to town – it’s the cultural residue that still shapes how small-town life is imagined.
“The eighties model of working at the mill and buying a house for $40,000 is gone,” she said. “People are adapting, but it’s a big mental shift. And there’s still this expectation that small towns will function the way they always have.
” At the Cranbrook History Centre this week, the chamber hosted a seminar in best practices for non-profit board members. Chris Wilson-Smith/The Globe and Mail The morning after the debate, Brensrud was at the Cranbrook History Centre hosting a seminar for volunteer board members of local non-profits – the kinds of organizations that, increasingly, are being called on to fill the gaps. “These programs – like ski clubs or arts councils – are a big part of why people choose to live in a place,” she said.
“But they’re usually run by volunteers. And when those organizations are strong, it helps with everything from work force attraction to retention. It’s all connected.
” The communities that are figuring it out are the ones willing to get creative, she said. And to keep going, even when the answers aren’t clear. Canada shed a net 33,000 jobs in March, the worst month for the labour market in three years, as the threat of U.
S. tariffs weighed on business confidence and slowed hiring. Unemployment is among our economics team’s 10 themes to watch heading into the final days of the election.
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Global markets were mixed in cautious trading after U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell added a note of caution about the growth outlook.
Wall Street futures diverged with the Dow point lower, while TSX futures were in positive territory. Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.53 per cent in morning trading.
Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 0.69 per cent, Germany’s DAX gave back 0.68 per cent and France’s CAC 40 retreated 0.
84 per cent. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 1.35 per cent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 1.
61 per cent. The Canadian dollar traded at 72.00 U.
S. cents..
