Live news: BCE to slash spending by $1 billion after CRTC ruling
Canada’s main stock index was down 150 points in early-afternoon trading with losses led by the energy sector as the price of oil dropped below US$80 per barrel.
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 0.76 per cent at 19,595.83.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.15 per cent 34,148.53. The S&P 500 index was up 0.22 per cent at 4,375.74, while the Nasdaq composite was up 0.78 per cent at 13,625.40.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.65 cents U.S. compared with 73.12 cents U.S. on Monday.
The December crude contract was down US$2.42 at US$78.40 per barrel and the December natural gas contract was down eight cents at US$3.18 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$16.10 at US$1,972.50 an ounce and the December copper contract was down four cents at US$3.68 a pound.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government says it expects 26,400 homes to be built on federal land over the next five years, its latest move to address a supply shortage that has sparked a public backlash against his leadership.
Public Services Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Canada Lands Co. — a public corporation that’s responsible for federal properties — will ramp up efforts to sell land to builders or allow its redevelopment for housing.
The government believes 5,300 of those units will be “affordable,” double the number enabled by Canada Lands over the past 30 years, Duclos said Tuesday in Ottawa.
“We need to go faster, and we are going faster,” he said.
Trudeau’s government has been grappling with an outcry over the soaring cost of housing. The benchmark home price has doubled in a decade to $753,900, while asking rents were up 11 per cent in September over the previous year, to an average of $2,149, according to Rentals.ca, an
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