Month: April 2019

In a country where the average personal non-mortgage debt is $20,000, it’s no surprise about one in four Canadians are feeling overwhelmed by how much they owe, according to a new survey.

According to BDO Canada’s first Affordability Index released this week, Canadians struggling the most with debt tend to be younger, earning less, and are dealing with the cost of raising a family while paying down a mortgage. One-fifth of Canadians (20 per cent) without kids say their debt is so overwhelming they don’t know what to do about it, compared to more than one-third of those with children (34 per cent).

Women are more likely to carry heavier debt loads than men (52 per cent vs. 42 per cent), and are more likely to find it challenging to save for retirement (73 per cent women vs 65 per cent men), save for a major purchase (74 per cent women vs 64 per cent men) and afford transportation costs (43 per cent women vs 36 per cent men).

Watch: Before reaching for a loan or credit card, consider an emergency fund. Story continues below.

BDO Canada President Doug Jones said the index shows how serious financial challenges are for many Canadians.

“This lack of affordability suggests that a significant group of Canadians take on debt to cover their spending and many find themselves feeling lost and overwhelmed by this debt,” Jones said in a release.

The survey also showed women and millennials (aged 18-34) are more unprepared for events like purchasing a home, dealing with unexpected costs, having children, or retirement.

Putting off milestones, not enough saved

Nearly one in five millennials (18 per cent) say they’re putting off having kids because of affordability.

More than half of non-homeowners (52 per cent) say they won’t be buying a house in the next five years, and another 23 per cent say it’s not likely in the cards.

And more than a third (37 per cent) of Gen X-ers (aged 34-54) say they don’t have enough saved for retirement and almost as many (33 per cent) say they have little or no retirement savings at all (compared to 65 per cent of Canadians overall).

Almost half (47 per cent) of millennials also have no retirement savings.

Jones said the situation paints a “bleak picture” of those in their prime being unprepared for retirement.

“What this can lead to is an increase in seniors who are unable to finance their final years and must rely on credit cards and other forms of debt to support their living expenses,” he said.

To stem their rising debts, more than half of Canadians (55 per cent) have cut back on spending on things like dining out or vacations. More than 4 in 10 (43 per cent) have reworked their budgets to cut expenses, and another 20 per cent have sold their possessions to pay back some of their debts.

The survey was conducted by Ipsos online among 2,000 Canadians aged 18 and over on Ipsos’ online panel for BDO Canada Limited from July 3-6, 2018. The poll is accurate to within +/- 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Also On HuffPost:

Transgender people, who identify as the opposite gender to the one they were born with, should no longer be considered mentally ill, according to a new UN categorization.

The World Health Organization issued a new catalogue Monday covering 55,000 diseases, injuries and causes of death, in which it discreetly recategorized transgenderism.

So-called “gender incongruence” is now listed under “conditions related to sexual health” instead of “mental, behavioural and neurodevelopmental disorders” in new catalogue, which still needs to be approved by UN member countries,

“We expect [the re-categorization] will reduce stigma,” Lale Say, the coordinator of WHO’s department of reproductive health and research, told AFP Tuesday.

WHO says gender incongruence is characterized as a “marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex.”

Several new chapters appear in the first update of WHO’s International Classification of Diseases catalogue since the 1990s, including the one on sexual health.

“We think it will reduce stigma so that it may help better social acceptance for these individuals,” Say said, adding that since the catalogue is used by doctors and insurers to determine coverage, the move away from a mental disorder could “even increase access to healthcare”.

The document, which member states will be asked to approve during the World Health Assembly in Geneva next May, will take effect from January 1, 2022 if it is adopted.

Several countries have already taken steps to reclassify transgenderism and take it off the list of mental disorders, including France and Denmark.

Say said she thought the text, which is the result of years of discussion among experts, would easily win approval, despite widespread lack of acceptance of transgender people in many parts of the world.

WHO’s latest catalogue also has a new chapter on traditional medicine, which previously went unmentioned, despite being used by millions of people around the world.

It also includes a section on video gaming, recognizing gaming disorder as a pathological condition that can be addictive in the same way as cocaine.

On the River Thames, a boat made of plastic bottles sets out on an unusual fishing expedition. The students on board are from Canary Wharf College in London, England, and they aren’t in search of seafood; they’re collecting trash. When they’ve hooked enough, the young eco-crusaders will build another boat to catch and sort even more garbage for disposal.

Maybe they were inspired by Queen Elizabeth II, who has banned plastic straws and bottles from Buckingham Palace. Canadians could learn from our Commonwealth partners.

It’s true there’s nary a household here without a blue box. Unfortunately, we treat recycle bins like magician’s hats: drop in the plastic and hope it disappears. That consumer attitude has worked for most of us, until recently. China declared in January that it would no longer buy our recycling; the country has for decades purchased about 20 per cent of plastic waste collected by Canadian municipalities annually.

It means your takeout containers won’t be “disappearing” overseas anymore, as municipalities struggle to find new buyers to handle our recyclables. Now, plastic and paper are piling up on our doorstep.

We all tend to feel self-righteous when we recycle, but it’s supposed to be a last resort. Remember the other two Rs you were taught as a child? Reducing and reusing are the first and ideal steps to decreasing waste.

Start with your morning ritual. Disposable toothbrushes are a huge source of waste. Don’t give Mother Earth a cavity — switch to biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes and help reduce the more than 15,000 tonnes of plastic brushes trashed every year.

Don’t forget to put out the garbage before work. Instead of lining the kitchen bin with store-bought bags made of new plastic, re-use the old bags (we know every household has a drawer full). That’s just one of the many second lives for plastic bags. Use them to pack away fragile valuables, stuff pillows, or protect the fruit on your backyard apple tree from bugs.

Lunch rolls around and you head to the sandwich shop. You spot a new kind of soft drink in a chic black plastic bottle. Skip it! Coloured plastic other than clear, blue or green is much harder to recycle.

Your spouse reminds you to pick up groceries on the way home. Fortunately, you’ve got your trusty re-usable grocery bags. Just don’t fill them with more plastic. Does every fruit really need its own tiny bag? And, apps like “Bulk Finder” will search for stores in your area that sell in bulk.

Before dinner, it’s time for a spot of housekeeping. You can clean just about anything with basic natural ingredients like baking soda and vinegar. Find recipes online and skip the expensive cleaners in their plastic bottles.

Looking for an evening activity with the kids? Channel your inner MacGyver and find a creative project for the contents of your recycle bin: soda bottle solar lamps, gumball machines made of plastic cups or baskets made of woven drinking straws. If you hit on a really great idea, make a bunch and sell them to raise money for charity.

You don’t have to build a boat from bottles to make a difference. But you can creative in your own way; you might just earn a royal seal of approval.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of theWE movement,which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

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Something is happening in Canada these days that hasn’t happened in at least 45 years: The share of Canadians who own a home is shrinking.

This isn’t just an abstract problem for academics to pore over. Homeownership has become the primary way that Canada’s middle class accumulates wealth. If fewer people have access to it, that could have consequences for the material well-being of the whole country down the road.

According to an analysis of census data from Point2 Homes, 88 of Canada’s 100 largest cities saw their homeownership rate fall between the 2011 census and the 2016 census.

As Statistics Canada reported earlier, the percentage of households that own their own home fell to 67.8 per cent in the 2016 census, from 69 per cent in 2011. And there’s every reason to believe that trend has continued since.

The new analysis found that — with the exception of Halifax — the largest declines in homeownership took place in the cities that have seen the largest house price growth — Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria.

Only a few of Canada’s larger cities — Montreal and Saskatoon, notably — saw their homeownership rates rise in the most recent period.

The analysis points to the oil price crash of 2015 as a cause of this shrinking ownership rate.

“The collapse of oil prices and the country’s heavy reliance on exports to (China) pushed Canada into a recession. The ensuing economic deceleration affected wages, hence lowering people’s purchasing power,” Point2 Homes noted on its website.

But that alone can’t fully explain what’s happening. After all, Canada saw much worse recessions in earlier decades, and homeownership continued to grow all the same.

So what can explain it? One thing is the economic struggle facing millennials. Thirty-year-olds in Canada today are less likely to own a home than their parents were at the same age, with 50.2 per cent owning a home, compared to 55 per cent for their parents.

As youth push back homeownership, the ownership rate declines.

Home affordability deteriorating rapidly

If what’s happening is just a delay in homebuying, then over time we can expect ownership rates to stabilize and return to where they were. But there is something large standing in the way of that: Rapidly deteriorating home affordability.

The latest numbers from National Bank of Canada’s affordability index, released this week, show how much more difficult it has become to buy a home in Canada in just the past year.

In the 11 major cities surveyed for the index, the average monthly mortgage payment has jumped to nearly half (48.7 per cent) of the average income. That’s way above the long-run average of 39.6 per cent.

While prices have largely stopped growing in the hottest markets (Toronto and Vancouver), mortgage rates have been going up, more than offsetting any price cuts.

For Canada as a whole, housing affordability is at its worst levels since the early 1990s. Back then, the Bank of Canada pushed interest rates to astronomically high levels. That hurt the economy, but it dragged down house prices that had grown too high, bringing them back to affordable levels over time.

Today’s rise in mortgage rates is much milder, and it’s no certainty that it will trigger a price correction that would bring prices down to historical affordability levels.

Faced with these challenges, many younger people are simply giving up on ownership. A recent survey from real estate agency Re/Max found that nearly four in 10 Canadian members of Generation Z (18 to 24 years old) have no plans to buy a home.

In a country where homeownership is so crucial to wealth accumulation, and where social status is often closely linked to your place of residence, it’s a bad sign when so many young people say they are planning on being permanent renters. The need for policies to support affordable housing is becoming painfully, glaringly obvious.

Brian Mulroney, a pageboy at Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s nuptials last weekend, was the star of one of the funniest wedding photos.

And now we know exactly what caused the 7-year-old to make this excited face as he entered the chapel at Windsor Castle:

Brian’s father, Ben Mulroney (who is married to Markle’s best friend, Jessica) explained his son’s memorable expression on the Canadian show “Your Morning” on Tuesday.

“I asked him, and he said he’d never heard a trumpet before,” Mulroney said. “I think when he walked in, he saw all the people there, and the flowers, none of that was there during the rehearsal.”

Sounds like quite the shock!

Mulroney said all of the kids in the ceremony, including Brian’s twin brother John and his 4-year-old daughter, Ivy, who was a bridesmaid, had a great time.

“There had been so much talk about getting it right with the rehearsals and these kids are so young,” he said. “There was a lot of worry that this wouldn’t get done right, but they’re having so much fun with it. And that, to me, was the thing that gave me the most pride was that we didn’t put so much pressure on them that this wasn’t joyful for them. It was pretty darn joyful.”

And all in all, Brian and John did a great job as page boys, waving to royal fans and carrying Markle’s gorgeous veil.

John, Brian, Ivy and the rest of the crew of kids also kept their cool while posing for official wedding portraits. The photographer who took the pictures recently revealed that kids in the photos were bribed with candy to look at the camera.

“I could hear the kids started crying in the background and there was some chaos,” Alexi Lubomirski, who took the official wedding and engagement photos, told People. “And then I heard this magic word behind me that was Smarties, which is obviously an English candy, much like M&Ms, and they were being bribed with one Smartie here and one Smartie there.”

He added: “So as soon as the kids came onto the set, I immediately just shouted out, ‘Who likes Smarties?’ and then everybody hands up, smiles, even some of the adults I think put their hands up.”

The sweet deal certainly led to great photos:

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At the stroke of midnight Wednesday, provincial pot retailers opened for business online. But news of possible strike at Canada’s largest deliverer of parcels has thrown a wrench into the ordering machinery.

Weed regimes vary across provinces. Some have allowed private retailers, while others have only allowed government-run stores, but all provinces have direct control of online sales of recreational marijuana, with the exception of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Earlier: What you need to know about a possible Canada Post strike. Story continues below.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers— which represents about 50,000 Canada Post employees — announced Tuesday it could begin rotating job action starting this coming Monday. The extent of the strike, including how many workers would actually walk off the job, will be determined over the next few days.

Canada Post has been delivering medical cannabis since 2013, and in some provinces such as Ontario, holds the only contract to deliver recreational weed.

Union president Mike Pacelek said CUPW has been pushing for 3.5 per cent annual wage increases but has been met with offers of increases below inflation. He said health and safety concerns also haven’t been addressed.

Jon Hamilton, Canada Post’s general communications manager, told Global News that service will continue in the event of a strike.

“There might be slight delays, but at this point, our focus is on negotiating and getting a deal,” he said.

Several provinces have said they are looking at third-party services like Purolator, but are still expecting delivery delays in the event of a strike, according to The Globe and Mail.

So there you have it — your weed will still be delivered in the event of a strike, it just might take a bit longer to get there.

With files from The Canadian Press

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We love weddings! Who doesn’t? As a matter of fact, if we could get married to our husbands three more times, we would.

Wedding season is just getting started and this may be the biggest kick off yet, as love is in the air for our neighbours from across the pond as they prepare to celebrate Prince Harry’s union with actress Meghan Markle. Although we were a little upset that our invitations got lost in the mail, we’re still going to celebrate like the Brits do! And of course, because we’re losing one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, that’s got to include some cocktails.

Presenting Scones and Sips; the only recipes you’ll need to witness the “Wedding of the Century.” We’ve got some of our favourite wake-you-up Cinnamon Coffee Scones and sweet-yet-tart Lemon Scones, as well as some of our most celebratory cocktails, including a refreshing Champagne Punch and our Perfect Pimms Cocktail. Pair ’em up and enjoy!

The Scones

Cinnamon Coffee Scone

In many ways, these Cinnamon Coffee Scones are the perfect baked good, as they’re delicious and easy to make. While the thought of baking scones conjures up British perfectionism, these are in fact the most forgiving pastry, ideal for both beginner bakers and a steaming cup of tea.

Lemon Glazed Scone

Moist and delicious, these Lemon Glazed Scones deliver terrific tartness perfect for breakfast, brunch or a teatime snack.

Toffee Scones

Watch as we show you how to make this easy recipe for Toffee Scones.

Chocolate Chip Scone

Sweet and flaky, these Chocolate Chip Scones are bang-on, slathered in creamy butter, strawberry jam and, dare we say, a dollop of clotted cream.

The Sips

Cream of Early Grey Martini

Pass the scones because we’re livening up teatime with our scrumptious Cream of Earl Grey Martini. Guaranteed to be your cup of tea, this martini recipe takes a splash of the classic English tea and shakes it up with gin, lemon and sugar. How’s that for a perfect cuppa?

Perfect Pimms Cocktail

Take a trip across the pond with a glass of this fruity and fantastic Pimms Cocktail!

Champagne Punch

Looking for sunshine in a pitcher? Well, you’ve got it with this incredibly easy Champagne Punch recipe, a citrusy combo of orange, lemon and lime juice, along with sparkling champagne. Every pour is summer in a glass!

Orange Rose Champagne Cocktails

What happens when rosé meets champagne? This deliciously fantastic Orange Rosé Champagne cocktail, a refreshing combination of Rosé Champagne, triple sec, orange bitters and juicy berries.

Bonus

We played “Recipe Match Makers” so you won’t have to (and trust us, we’re pretty darn good at it)! Read up on The Best: Scones & Sips for the Royal Wedding and see which of these recipes are made for each other!