Global News published this video item, entitled “”Our social cohesion is suffering”: Rising inflation, interest rates costing personal connections” – below is their description.
The Bank of Canada has hiked its benchmark interest rate to 4.5 per cent, the highest it’s been since 2007. This is the eighth increase since March 2022.
Raising the key interest rate makes borrowing more expensive and forces Canadians to put more money towards paying down debt, which is significant for those with variable-rate mortgages.
Anne Gaviola explains how the rising cost of living has affected the social cohesion of Canadians, and how the central bank is hinting at pausing rate hikes.
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. It extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world’s second-largest country by total area.
Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world’s longest bi-national land border. Canada’s capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Various Indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. The Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British Parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government.
As a highly developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks.
In economics, inflation refers to a general progressive increase in prices of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduction in the purchasing power of money.