The Trudeau government’s spending splurges — less than Bank of Canada interest rate policies — were largely responsible for soaring inflation during the pandemic, a new report has concluded.

The report, conducted by two economists at the C.D. Howe Institute, points the finger at Ottawa’s unfunded spending spree that acted as “helicopter drops” of money for the private sector.

In 2020, the report says, 20.7 million Canadians out of an adult population of 30.3 million received income from one of the federal pandemic-related programs. In 2020, the programs are estimated to have cost $270 billion — about 12.5 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) — and have since grown to about $360 billion to date.

While the programs generally succeeded in providing relief to individuals and businesses, and buttressed the economy during a crisis, the think tank says injecting that much “nominal wealth” into an economy while unemployment has been relatively low led to an inflation burst and permanently higher prices.

“Whether this wealth takes the form of new money or new debt is largely irrelevant,” the report says.

Benjamin Tal, the deputy chief economist of CIBC World Markets, agreed that loose fiscal monetary policy contributed to the pandemic-era price hikes, but thinks the central bank’s low interest rates also played a role.

“There is no question about the fact that very accommodating fiscal and monetary policies were behind the acceleration in inflation,” Tal said.

According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), prices rose 11.4 per cent between January 2020 and December 2022. Although the pandemic started in China in December 2019 and the first case was reported in Canada on January 25, 2020, inflation didn’t spike for more than a year. In fact, prices were rising at relatively normal rates until May 2021, and didn’t peak until June 2022 when inflation hit 8.1 per cent, the highest rate in almost four decades.

But while the C.D. Howe economists, David Andolfatto and Fernando Martin, are critical of the spending, their assessment of the Bank of Canada’s policies at that time are more nuanced. They agree with the Bank of Canada’s own assessment that it can be faulted for not raising interest rates quickly enough to suppress inflation at that time. They also argued that it could be criticized for not doing a better job communicating how it intends to achieve its inflation targets. But they conclude that there was ultimately little the central bank could have done to curb the price spikes.

The paper acknowledges that the pandemic was a unique situation that included a series of inflationary and deflationary pressures.

Prices rose in part because the supply of some products tightened, for example, due to factories being closed or experiencing reduced hours. Transportation became more expensive due to shipping delays and congestion at many ports. There were also shortages of some raw materials, such as lumber and metals, which also contributed to inflation.

There was also increased demand for certain things, such as real estate, furniture, exercise equipment and home entertainment gadgets.

Some of that demand increase was due to consumers having more disposable incomes. Many were saving money from working from home and not being able to go out or travel, while others got wage increases or (especially those in health care) were working longer hours. Income from government supports added to the demand. The result of reduced supply and rising demand was increased costs.

Gasoline was among the products hit hardest by inflation, with a price increase of more than 50 per cent over that two-year period. Food and transportation jumped between 15 and 20 per cent, while appliances and rent increased by between 10 and 15 per cent.

Finance Canada, the federal department responsible for fiscal policy, was not immediately available for comment.

Since the pandemic ended, however, prices have not come back down for a number of reasons.

Katherine Judge, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said inflation remained a challenge after the pandemic because many consumers had pent-up demand and excess savings, while long-term changes such as more people working from home and the retirement of many baby boomers also played a role. In recent months, she added in an email, import tariffs imposed by Ottawa amid trade disputes have raised prices.

Statistics Canada reported earlier this week that

Canada’s inflation rate accelerated to 1.9 per cent in June

, up from 1.7 per cent the previous month.

National Post

stuck@postmedia.com

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A young Indian man, denied refugee status in Canada because his story of being framed for his friend’s murder was “strikingly similar” to five people who travelled here with him and nearly 200 others who employed the same immigration consultant, has won another chance at staying in Canada.

Parwinder Singh took the decision from Canada’s Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) to a federal court judge for review. The judge granted the review and sent Singh’s case back to another decision-maker at the division for re-evaluation.

“Although narrative similarities between claimants may reasonably ground a negative credibility inference, discrete or incidental similarities in sentence structure and vocabulary do not — in and of themselves — impugn a claimant’s credibility,” Justice Guy Régimbald wrote in a recent decision out of Ottawa.

“Asylum narratives are not exercises in creative writing, and a lack of prosaic originality should not be confused for falsehood, fraud, or the deliberate plagiarism of another person’s story. In this case, the RAD put form over substance in its analysis of Mr. Singh’s narrative. Its conclusion that the narrative was not genuine is therefore unreasonable.”

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While he was still in India, Singh “sought out the services” of an immigration consultant named Deepak Pawar, Régimbald wrote in his decision dated July 11.

Singh “maintains that the similarities between his basis of claim narrative and those of other claimants are not enough to impugn his credibility, and that what similarities do exist are more form than substance,” said the decision.

Lawyers representing Immigration Minister Lena Diab responded that “the RAD reasonably found Mr. Singh’s narrative to be fraudulent, insofar as his (basis of claim) was ‘strikingly similar’ to those of others, including individuals who travelled to Canada with him.”

Singh lived in the village of Basant Pura, in the Indian State of Haryana, said the decision.

“The events leading to his departure from India date back to the summer of 2019, when he was a sixteen-year-old boy attending secondary school.”

Singh testified that, on June 25, 2019, he was walking home from school with a group of friends “when they were suddenly accosted by another group of boys carrying knives,” said the decision. “A brawl breaks out and Mr. Singh flees, but the ensuing violence results in one of his friends being stabbed and killed. The group allegedly responsible for his death includes the nephew of a well-known politician.”

Three days later, Singh said local police visited his family home to investigate his friend’s death. “He is brought to the police station, where he is interrogated and provides a statement about the events of June 25, 2019.”

A week later, Singh said local police returned to his home and dragged him to the station, where he spied “the group of boys who had accosted him earlier, including the politician’s nephew,” according to the decision.

“The police force him into a small room, where they inform him that the other boys have all given statements accusing him of killing his friend. Mr. Singh is then beaten to the point of losing consciousness. The police keep him in custody for three days.”

Singh said his father rounded up “some influential people in the village” on July 3, 2019, to demand his son be released.

“The police agree to do so upon payment of a bribe. Before letting the boy go, the police take his signature and fingerprints and threaten him to stay quiet about what transpired. His father takes him to the nearest hospital for treatment.”

Nearly a week later, police called Singh and told him to report to the police station.

“He is afraid of being beaten again, but reports there with his father out of fear of further trouble with the authorities. They wait at the station for hours, being periodically insulted by the local officers, before being told to return there in two weeks’ time.”

Feeling that it was no longer safe to stay in India, Singh fled to New Delhi on July 12, 2019, where he met with Pawar, the immigration agent. “In the meantime, his father arranges the necessary funds and travel documents for Mr. Singh to travel to Canada, where he enters on Nov. 7, 2019, falsely claiming to be participating in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. He claims protection on the basis that he fears harm from the police and his deceased friend’s family.”

The immigration minister intervened in Singh’s case on Feb. 13, 2023, alleging his claim lacked credibility because his “narrative is strikingly similar to those of others, including individuals who travelled to Canada with him and, as such, is not genuine. In support of this allegation, they produce evidence to demonstrate that his narrative contains language, phrases and other similarities to five other claimants who travelled to Canada with the claimant from India, and nearly two hundred other (basis of claim) narratives disclosed by claimants from India. This evidence stems from a Canada Border Services Agency analysis of claims submitted with the assistance of Mr. Pawar, the immigration consultant who represented Mr. Singh.”

Singh amended the narrative that forms the basis of his claim for refugee protection on Feb. 23, 2023. “He now claims that he also fears persecution in India due to his active support of an independent Khalistan, a cause for which he has advocated since coming to Canada.”

Canada’s Refugee Protection Division granted that second claim “despite ‘credibility concerns about the incidents in India and the claimant’s motivation to come Canada,’” said the decision. “Overall, it finds that those concerns do not outweigh his testimony and corroborating evidence in support of his pro-Khalistan views and well-founded fear of persecution.”

Lawyers for the immigration minister appealed that decision and won.

“They reiterate that Mr. Singh’s narrative is fraudulent and that his claim should be accordingly rejected,” said the decision.

“The RAD agrees with the minister. Its analysis relies mainly on alleged similarities between Mr. Singh’s narrative and that of NS, an individual who travelled to Canada from India on the same flight, and who was also represented by Mr. Pawar. The RAD notes twenty-one similar passages between their respective narratives, concluding that the two (basis of claims) are likely duplicates of each other, and therefore fraudulent.”

The Refugee Appeal Division saw Singh’s claim that he was “engaging in pro-Khalistan activity” as “yet another fraudulent refugee claim,” said the decision.

It ruled Singh is neither a convention refugee nor a protected person, and set aside the Refugee Protection Division’s decision.

The Refugee Appeal Division based “its credibility finding on a list of similarities between Mr. Singh’s narrative and that of NS,” Régimbald said.

“It is entitled to do so: ‘courts have found that it is not unreasonable to draw a negative inference as to credibility from unwarranted similarities between a refugee claimant’s narrative and the narratives of other unrelated claimants.’”

“However, not all similarities are unwarranted. Valid reasons may explain the similarities, and in the presence of such reasons, it may be inappropriate to find that the similarities cast doubt on the claimant’s credibility.”

Régimbald said “there is no evidence on file demonstrating that Mr. Pawar uses a template for his client’s (basis of claim) narratives,” and neither the Refugee Protection Division nor the Refugee Appeal Division “seem to have considered that possibility.”

The RAD “fundamentally misapprehend some of the evidence before it and exhibit clear logical fallacies that render its decision unreasonable,” Régimbald said.

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Half of the requests for preauthorized complex dental work have reportedly been denied by Canada’s dental care plan.

Just over 50 per cent of requests for such dental work between November 2024 and June 2025 have been rejected, said Health Canada, per

CBC News

and

Daily Hive

. While 5.2 million people have been approved for coverage under the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), only about half  — 2.2 million people — have received care, according to the federal agency.

The CDCP, which launched in 2023, is intended to make dental care more affordable for eligible Canadians.

Any resident with an adjusted family net income below $90,000 a year and who does not have access to dental insurance can apply. It is administered by a contracted third-party, insurance provider Sun Life.

Complex dental work

can include procedures like putting in crowns or partial dentures, root canals, specialist examinations and other kinds of oral surgery. These services require preauthorization. The approval process is different than private insurance plans, per Health Canada. “T

he CDCP coverage criteria are more stringent,” it says online.

Supporting documentation is required to prove the work is medically necessary before it can be covered.

“There’s been a lot of confusion for dentists who send in what we would normally send in to a private plan, and it comes back rejected,” Vancouver dentist and president of the Canadian Dental Association Dr. Bruce Ward

told CBC News

. “It’s a much, much, much higher rejection rate than private plans.”

Ward still commended the plan, calling it “very good.” He added that despite its “growing pains” it was still remarkable and noted the influx of people who would have otherwise gone without oral health care because they couldn’t afford it.

Meanwhile, spokesperson for Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada Mark Johnson told Daily Hive that incomplete submissions made up a large part of the preauthorized requests that had been denied between November 2024 and June. The rejection rate went from 52 per cent to 38 per cent when the incomplete submissions were excluded.

“Common reasons for denial (were) incomplete submission, the patient’s needs not meeting the clinical criteria for coverage, the request being a duplicate submission that was already approved previously, or the service requested not being eligible under the plan,” Johnson said in a statement to the publication.

There was also a backlog causing preauthorization delays due to technical issues and a high volume of submissions. However, as of July 11, Johnson said 80 per cent of preauthorization requests are now being processed within seven days.

A new wave of applicants applied to the CDCP when it

expanded in June

. More than a million people signed up and 94,980 received care, according to Health Canada, CBC News reported.

Vice-president of the Canadian Dental Assistants Association Natalie Marsh, who is a dental assistant in North Sydney, N.S., told CBC that the plan was “wonderful” but it did put a strain on some providers.

“You’re seeing people who haven’t seen a dentist in a long time. So they’re coming in with a lot of work to be done,” she said.

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GATINEAU, Que.

— Prime Minister Mark Carney entered a high-stakes meeting with First Nations leaders Thursday, touting his government’s new law to fast-track major infrastructure projects as having “Indigenous economic growth” at its heart, saying he believes consensus can be reached on how to move forward.

Whether Carney’s pitch lands with the more than 200 chiefs and other First Nations leaders who attended the gathering remains to be seen, given the vocal pushback the law, known as Bill C-5, has received over concerns about its impact on First Nations’ territories and the legal obligation the government has to consult communities.

“I don’t think … that a lot of people are happy right now in terms of the way that the government has gone about ramming through legislation without respecting the current … protections within the environment, the current protections on our water,” said

Southern Chiefs’ Organization Grand Chief Jerry Daniels.

Chiefs who attended the gathering came armed with concerns and questions about the government’s new law, which ushers in a new process for approving major infrastructure projects from ports to pipelines. It aims to bring down the federal approval process necessary for projects to receive the green light to two years, down from the current five.

Introducing and passing what Carney coined as his “One Canadian Economy” bill fulfilled a campaign promise he made during the spring federal election, where he pledged to remove all federal internal trade barriers by Canada Day and get more large infrastructure projects off the ground to bolster Canada’s economy against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Even before it was introduced, the Assembly of First Nations, the main advocacy organization representing more than 600 First Nations across the country, voiced concerns about the lack of involvement of Indigenous-rights holders in developing the bill, which it said directly impacts communities that have a constitutional right to be consulted before projects get approved.

Carney, who announced he would meet with chiefs in response to their concerns, has promised that the government would properly consult, as it decides on which projects would be deemed as benefiting the “national interest.” Those that Carney’s cabinet deems to be would be added to a list and qualify for the faster approvals process, to be coordinated through a yet-to-be-established major projects office.

Before Thursday’s meeting got underway, Carney told reporters they are not yet at the stage of picking projects, but at the beginning stages of hearing from First Nations leaders about how best to proceed.

“Today is about the how, not the what,” the prime minister said, who added that he planned to focus on listening.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak has acknowledged she has heard a diversity of opinion from chiefs about the law, with some in support of having more major resource projects built, while others stand opposed.

Asked whether he believed consensus was achievable, Carney said, “Yes, I do.”

“That’s the purpose of having a discussion, because this is the first step of a process.”

Carney is set to meet at a later date with Inuit and Metis leaders.

He used his opening remarks on Thursday to highlight how he sees the powers ushered in through the new law as opening the door for more economic opportunities for First Nations, saying that a “new chapter” could be written in the relationship between the federal government and communities.

“One of the points is that the economic value of these projects will be shared with First Nations as partners. You will help build the prosperity of your communities for generations to come.”

“In many respects, this is the first federal legislation to put Indigenous economic growth at its core. We now have the opportunity to realize it.”

Indigenous participation is one of the criteria Carney has pledged the government will use in determining what projects would be considered in the national interest.

The planning for Thursday’s meeting was done by the Privy Council Office, the arm of the government that supports the Prime Minister’s Office.

The agenda for the day included panels on the issue of “meaningful consultation” as well as a discussion around the Indigenous advisory council that the government has committed to appoint.

Besides Carney, senior ministers speaking at the closed-door event included Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty.

Some chiefs expressed frustration at only receiving the agenda late Tuesday, given that leaders had been invited to briefings about the legislation from senior government officials.

Paper copies of a slide presentation prepared by the Privy Council Office, which were available to Thursday’s attendees, showed the government had heard there was “inadequate time to consult” about the new bill and the “importance of respecting Indigenous rights,” as well as the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The media itself was not permitted to cover the discussions and was instructed to leave the building by departmental staff following the prime minister’s opening remarks.

Having the gathering in the first place was pitched by Woodhouse Nepinak, who used her opening address to the chiefs gathered to highlight ongoing challenges First Nations face when it comes to a lack of adequate infrastructure in communities, from housing to clean drinking water, as well as past legal challenges Ottawa has faced when it has not properly consulted Indigenous communities.

She highlighted in her speech, a copy of which was circulated to media, that it was “not clear” to First Nations what the government was intending when it came to speeding up the building of major infrastructure projects and that “until an appropriate process is established with First Nations rights holders and founded in free, prior and informed consent, the Crown’s legal obligations can not be met.”

Woodhouse Nepinak told reporters afterwards she wants Carney to make solid commitments, including to stage another gathering with chiefs next year.

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In less than two weeks this month, a Quebec border crossing saw more than 1,500 asylum applicants coming from the United States, an unusual surge considering overall asylum claims are down by 50 per cent across Canada.

St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, a crossing located on Quebec’s Highway 15, south of Montreal, saw 1,505 asylum applicants between Canada Day and July 13. In June, 1,593 applied for asylum in Canada over the course of the whole month.

It represents a significant increase over 2024, when in the first two weeks of July, just 322 people tried to claim asylum in Canada. Many of the claimants are Haitians, fleeing insecurity at home and precarious legality in the United States, and seeking asylum in a French-speaking territory.

It’s not the first time that the Quebec border crossing has seen a major spike in claimants.

In April, 2,733 people applied for asylum in Canada at that border crossing. It’s an official border crossing that is near the infamous Roxham Road border crossing that is an irregular point of entry to Canada.

Here’s what to know about the border crossing and why there has been a surge in asylum seekers.

How many people have applied for asylum in Canada overall?

Between January and July 2025, there have been

19,730 asylum applications processed in Canada from people arriving at all ports of entry. This is a significant drop since 2024. By this time last year, the Canada Border Services Agency had processed 39,085 asylum applications.

How many have been sent back to the United States?

Of that total, 2,169 have been returned to the United States for being ineligible to enter Canada; 1,531 of those were people who made their asylum claims at official ports of entry, while the other 638 were irregular border crossers.

Both Canada and the United States are signatories to the Safe Third Country Agreement. It means, basically, that a refugee claimant must make a refugee claim in the first country they arrive in, and if they show up at the Canadian border after entering the U.S., unless they meet an exception to the rules, they can be sent back to America.

What are the exceptions?

There are four exceptions, said Pia Zambelli, chairperson of the refugee committee at the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association. The first is

family ties to Canada

.

“This is the main exception,” said Zambelli.

The second is an exception for unaccompanied minors. The other two are exceptions for those with certain documentation, such as a valid study permit in Canada. The last one is a public interest exception, for those who may, for example, face the death penalty if returned to the United States.

What nationalities are arriving?

Haitians are the nationality making the most asylum claims in Canada at land border crossings. Many of them are crossing at the St-Bernard-de-Lacolle crossing, Zambelli said, because of its proximity to Montreal, a French-speaking city.

“There’s a huge Haitian community in Montreal,” Zambelli said.

Venezuelans make up the second-largest proportion of those seeking asylum in Canada at land border crossings.

Americans made up the third-largest proportion of those seeking asylum at land-border crossings.

Why are Haitians coming to Canada?

The government has more or less collapsed in Haiti and there is rampant gang violence in the failed state. This means that thousands of people are fleeing, if they can. Many ended up in the United States but have faced persecution under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

Under former president Joe Biden, the U.S. government granted temporary legal status in the country to some 500,000 Haitians, the Montreal Gazette reported. Many of those people had been in the country since 2010, when Haiti was devastated by an earthquake.

However, in June the Trump administration moved to revoke that protection, meaning that hundreds of thousands of people could be at risk of being sent back to a failed state. T

he Department of Homeland Security announced it was terminating the t
emporary protected status for Haitians as of Sept. 2. However, a federal judge ruled this month that the Trump administration could not move up the expiration of their status, which was extended to Feb. 3, 2026 under former president Joe Biden.

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