Tav's Headline News Reviews - Weekly Roundup June 13th - Episode #155

Welcome to Tav's Headline News Reviews! 

Stay updated on the Canadian economy and the latest news affecting your daily life. Get a concise breakdown of today's top stories.

This broadcast covers five essential updates from June 13th, 2026. We examine the current status of Canadian oil exports and what they mean for the market. Additionally, we provide the latest on the Detroit-Windsor bridge delay, offering clarity on how this infrastructure setback impacts cross-border travel and trade.

Beyond economic news, we look ahead to Canada's upcoming World Cup match. Whether you are following the sports headlines or tracking shifts in the Canadian economy, this summary ensures you are informed on the topics that matter most. We break down the facts so you can quickly grasp the situation regarding the Detroit-Windsor bridge and other key developments.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Thanks for joining us on Saturday, June the thirteenth, twenty twenty six. This is the weekly roundup, and here are the five stories that we're going to be covering and talking about today. Canada's been waiting decades for this moment to host a World Cup, a home World Cup match, a national spotlight, and a chance to prove that Canada belongs among soccer's biggest names. And that all happened yesterday on Friday. Story number two is the Gordy Howe bridge opening has been delayed. One of the most important border crossings in North America has been hit with political speed bumps. Story number three is Prime Minister Kearney's $1 billion grocery plan for Canada. Canadians are still getting crushed at the grocery store, and now Prime Minister Kearney is putting more than $1 billion on the table to take on Canada's food giants. Here's a story that the media is not covering. Number four, Canadian oil supplied shock. A supply crunch in Western Canadian oil is now being felled south of the border. It's exposing just how dependent the United States is on Canadian oil. Finally, story number five is Canada's recession fears grow. Canada's economy is flashing warning signs, and I talked about that last week. The Bank of Canada is holding its rates, and millions of Canadians are wondering, are we already in a recession? So Canada started its World Cup campaign yesterday in Toronto in Bimo Field against Bosnia. They ended in a 1-1 draw. It was a basically a tense moment right at the end. This is Canada's first match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Canada is co-hosting with the United States at Mexico, and we know now that the United States won their opening match, and Mexico won their opening match, and we tied. Canada is still chasing the first men's World Cup win. So we haven't won a game in a World Cup. We didn't win one in Qatar, and we didn't win one in 1986, and we didn't win one yesterday. So one of the goals that the Canadian team has is to win a game. And then the second goal would be to get out of its group. So, you know, the good news is we didn't lose. We did have the advantage on the game. We basically were constantly attacking, um, but we just couldn't get the ball in the net. And then this is what happened.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Play through too much.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

So story number two is this bridge that seems to be going nowhere, and that's the Gordiao International Bridge down in Windsor. It was supposed to open yesterday, but now it's been delayed. The opening of the new Detroit-Windsor Gordihau International Bridge was delayed due to grievances that the United States had with the bridge. We don't know what those are, but this bridge seems to be you know, on and on and on. It's never opening. It's ready to open. It's built, it's ready to go, and we can be making a lot of money, but there seems to be an issue with the United States regarding this bridge. Uh, Prime Minister Mark Carney said uh agreed to the delay after the United States requested the delay. Apparently, the United States has some issues with this bridge. The bridge is it is a major Canada-U.S. trade project uh paid for the bridge to build the bridge at $4.7 billion, and it's expected to ease pressure on the existing ambassador bridge, which is the other bridge that's owned by a family which is also an American family, which contributes a lot of money to the Republican Party, specifically President Trump. And they've been trying to do everything they can to stop this bridge from opening. They have some grievances, some issues. The United States government has some grievances and issues. I just think that this is just another item that President Trump wants to put on the table to in Kuzma on the Kuzma negotiations. Um, there's the issue with the tolls that are going to be collected. Apparently, candidates to collect 100% of those tolls until the bridge is paid off. Well, that could be decades before it gets paid off, and that may be an issue. And the other issue is the only other bridge down from this one is the ambassador bridge, which is solely owned by this family. And why a family owns a bridge that crosses an international border, I have no idea why that's going on. And maybe when this bridge opens up, we can appropriate that bridge or that portion of the bridge that comes into Canada and bring that nonsense to an end. But they're trying to hold up the bridge as well. So here's two comments from the prime minister. The first one is when they announced the bridge was going to open yesterday, and then right after that, you'll get another comment from the pres the prime minister in front of the press when he announces that it's going to be delayed. I mean, I didn't think at all it was ever going to open, to tell you the truth. I thought that Prime Minister Carney may have gotten ahead of the game and uh President Trump just closed that door and now the bridge is not opening. So let's hear these two comments from the Prime Minister. But I don't think we're days away from opening it, weeks away from opening it, months away from I think it's going to be a long time before this bridge opens up, at least until the Kuzma agreement um is finally settled. This bridge is going to open anytime soon. So let's listen to the Prime Minister on both his comments.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

It's positive news. Um, obviously the bridge will be open uh uh the end of the week, and uh, you know, a symbol is symbol, but also a fact of uh cooperations between uh between our countries. Uh great for uh Canadians going across the border. What insurance did you have on the bridge opening? Uh everyone's uh working hard to uh make sure the bridge is open as soon as possible. Uh there's no big drama. If it takes a little longer, it'll take a little longer, but uh this will benefit Canadians, Americans, uh, business uh tourists, uh residents uh for decades and decades to come.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

So story number three is Prime Minister Kearney announced that he was putting in one billion dollars into the food sector as a plan to ease grocery prices. The federal government is putting one billion dollars towards boosting competition in the Canadian food sector. What's interesting about this story that may not be reported, and I had to dig to find out, is that I was astonished to find out that there's five companies in Canada that control 75% of the groceries market in Canada, which to me is very concerning that you know it's easiest to monopolize that. So five companies that have that much power is just I think that that needs to be liquefied or somehow regulated or something has to happen there because that's it's too consolidated into just five kinds. No wonder prices are going up. You know, prices were going up when we when COVID was around, and when COVID ended, um prices didn't go down, they kept going up, and now they're using the excuse of Iran war, they're using the excuse of the tariff war, so all kinds of excuses, but the prices of food and everything else, by the way, keep going up. You know, food inflation in the month of April was at 3.8%. I know I go to the grocery store, you go to the grocery store, and prices keep going up. So if this is a plan to somehow improve supply management, maybe ahead of the Kuzma agreement, maybe we might have to give a portion up of supply management, then maybe this is the plan that Prime Minister Carney wants to implement to try to see if he can ease the control of the groceries uh market in Canada. And it includes, you know, uh food hubs, food terminals, more food terminals. I heard that there's going to be more uh greenhouses to grow vegetables and and products year-round instead of only when the weather is good. It's gonna be year-round. So that will help farmers for sure. It will improve, it should improve uh the supply. And if you improve the supply, there's more supply, prices should come down. Why don't I believe that? That's the problem because I haven't seen it, not seen it for years. Prices keep going up. So let's look at the uh announcement video that uh Minister Carney announced and giving the reasons why he's putting this plan into play.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

The core is to move from reliance to resilience, because a country that can't feed itself or fuel itself or defend itself isn't truly sovereign. It's vulnerable to global shocks, it's vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, vulnerable to terrorists. So to protect our sovereignty and truly take control of our future, we have to take control of our food. We start from a position of strength. One in nine Canadians wake up every day and go to work in this country because of our strong agri-food sector. One in nine. We're one of the world's largest exporters of agri-food products. Our farmers, our ranchers, our producers are selling more than a hundred billion dollars every year.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

You can look at the screen. I read Reuters article, which is up on the screen, but you don't have the bottom portion to read the details of the story. Uh, but they're reporting that there was uh power outages that affected the energy oil sands operations, cutting about 10% of its output. But why this story is important is because, you know, we hear President Trump saying he doesn't need anything from Canada. Well, apparently 98% of our oil goes to the United States, I guess because we can't get it out into the rest of the world, because we can't build pipelines. But there is a disruption in oil supply down into the United States, not because of President Trump, just we can't, it seems like we have some issues out west in getting that oil out to down that pipe into the United States. And let's not forget the Transmountain oil pipeline, which I've said in the past, it is running at full capacity. While demand for oil is very strong, but we can't get the oil out to the market. But apparently, this is a big issue down in the states that they can't get our oil, and they told us they don't need our oil. Well, apparently they do. Finally, story number five is Canada's economy is weak, according to the Bank of Canada. Now, this whole week, uh Prime Minister Carney, the Liberal government, the opposition, they've been fighting over this quote unquote whether we're in a recession or not. I don't really care what if they think we're in a recession or not. I can tell you that, you know, we feel it as Canadians when we go to the store. Um, the Bank of Canada held its interest rate at uh 2.25% on June 10th. Um the governor of the Bank of Canada declared that we're not, clearly, he declared during a press conference, which I'm going to play for you now, that we're not in a recession. And this comes after data showed two straight quarters of negative growth. But he says that we're the economy is weak and flat. And I talked about this last week describing it as a technical recession, not so not a full recession, but I guess it's right on the border of becoming or classified as a recession, and that's why he's sort of watching uh what he says. And he uh and if you listen to the the uh press conference that I'm gonna play for you now, he he's predicting uh when the data comes in for the second quarter that we're gonna rebound, we won't be anywhere near that uh of the recession. So he's feeling pretty confident unless something goes sideways on the trade talks with the United States. Uh he also says that he's balancing weak growth against inflation uh risk, especially uh from energy prices and trade uncertainty. So if the energy prices start going up rapidly and the trade talks go sideways, then you can expect the Bank of Canada to increase interest rates. So let's take a look at this press conference that um where he describes the state of the Canadian economy.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Good morning, governors. Thank you for taking your questions. Um I appreciate the details of uh analysis of the Q1 GDP figures there. Uh we've had conversations the past ten days I do have to ask, do you believe Canada's in a recession right now?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Uh look, the you know the short answer to that question is you know, based on the data we've seen today to date, uh the economy is weak, but it is not clearly in recession. So let me just uh unpack that a bit for you. Um, if you look at how the economy has evolved over the last year, GDP rough GDP is roughly flat over the last 12 months. If you look at the labor market, it's up a little bit over the last 12 months, but potentially flat over the last six months. As I mentioned, uh there's been a lot of volatility quarter to month to month, quarter to quarter. But when you look through the bumps, I mean the economy hasn't really grown in the last year, but it hasn't shrunk either. So you know economists typically define a recession as a significant broad-based decline in economic activity that lasts for more than one quarter. And if you look at the data we've got, um, as I said, based on the data we've got, based on that definition, the economy is it's weak, but it's not it's not clearly in recession.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

If you look at the final comments on these five stories, is that on one hand, Canada is stepping up to this uh historical moment on the global stage with the World Cup, and hopefully our team can win and get out of the group and do the best they can, and we're very proud of them. On the other hand, the country's dealing Canada with serious pressures, as it was outlined in these five stories. Number one is the the delay in the the bridge. I have no idea why this is being delayed. It's there, it's built, it's ready to go, let's use it. High grocery prices. Well, that's been going on since COVID. I don't think that's gonna change. We might get some relief, but I think those prices are gonna still keep going up, and so is everything else. I think it's just the times we're in now, and people are using any excuse to uh to increase prices, and they have been since COVID. Oil disruption, supply disruption. Well, we need to we need to build pipes and we need to get it to other countries other than just the United States. And um, I think a lot of people in Canada, a lot of Canadians are feeling some anxiety over the economy. We don't know which way it's gonna drop right now. We're flat, we're not down, we're not up, and the talk of recession is not good. Uh, and let's hope we don't go into a recession and we uh turn things around in the second quarter. Uh, the biggest question that remains in my mind now is whether Canada can uh these challenges that I've outlined around and whether the problems of the warning signs or warning alerts of a recession can be overturned and we don't go into a recession. Let me know your comments and thoughts on any one of these five stories. I will reply. Please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any one of my episodes. Please hit the bell icon. It helps the channel. Thanks for watching. Be safe, and we'll see you on the next one.