Good morning. The federal party leaders are offering voters a choice between heavy investment and restraint as a counter to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. More on that below – including a dispatch from the cinematic town of Fort Macleod, Alta.
In the news
Information technology: Ottawa says it will work with Canadian cloud providers after industry pushback over a U.S. shortlist.
Retail: Hudson’s Bay Co. is preparing for more job cuts, and asking a court for new legal counsel for employees.
Development: Manitoba’s plan to connect remote communities to power grid is running into concern that industrial development could harm the region’s sensitive hunting and fishing grounds.
On our radar: Notable earnings this week include Tesla and West Fraser Timber on Tuesday; Rogers Communications on Wednesday; and Google parent Alphabet on Thursday.
In the know
Federal election: Counting the days – and the dollars
With economic uncertainty dominating the final stretch of the federal campaign, Liberal Leader Mark Carney is pitching a $130-billion plan to brace Canada against global volatility and trade shocks tied to Donald Trump’s return.
- The stakes: Carney is framing the moment as a national inflection point – calling for major capital investments in housing, defence and trade infrastructure, and promising to redirect internal government spending to fund it.
- The cost: The Liberal platform shelves the party’s earlier pledge to keep deficits under 1 per cent of GDP by 2026, opening Carney to criticism that he’s not the fiscally cautious centrist many expected.
- The contrast: Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has yet to release a full platform, is leaning into restraint. Yesterday, he pledged to cut $10-billion in annual spending on consultants – arguing it’s not just waste, but a driver of inflation. “This is how we axe the inflation tax,” he said.
- The big picture: U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs have imperilled Canada’s economic security, and his push to remake trade on American terms – while musing about Canada as the “51st state” – has turned sovereignty into a ballot-box issue with generational stakes.
The Empress is a focal point of the town's efforts to keep alive a key part of its history.Chris Wilson-Smith/The Globe and Mail
Postcard
Measured steps in Fort Macleod
Joanna Lyke has been running her embroidery and engraving business, Crazy Stitch, on Fort Macleod’s main street since 2013. Over time, she bought out other small operations in town and grew her team to a dozen people at peak.
In 2022, she opened a second shop down the street – a compact Western and workwear store stocked with rodeo shirts, kids’ Carhartt and the kind of gear people around here actually wear to work. The idea was simple: Sell what locals needed and use the extra revenue to keep the embroidery side flush with inventory.
But the store never found the same rhythm. It was smaller, newer and relied more on American suppliers. Prices crept up as the Canadian dollar slid, and getting stock across the border became more complicated. Some days, there just wasn’t enough foot traffic to justify having someone behind the counter. “If it’s slow over there, staff come here and can do more,” Lyke said. “It saves on wages.”
Lyke doesn’t need to wait for Friday’s retail sales report to know how consumer confidence is weighing on brick-and-mortar shops in smaller communities. She’s now closing the second storefront and shifting more sales online. Unlike her embroidery supplies – which are mostly Canadian and ship quickly, often with free delivery – much of the apparel sold at the second shop had to be imported and paid for in U.S. dollars, often well in advance. That left the business exposed to currency fluctuations and unpredictable shipping costs.
Access to full inventory was another issue. Carhartt, the U.S. workwear giant, paused new retail accounts during the pandemic and hasn’t reopened them since. “You can get a Carhartt account in this area,” Lyke said, “but it’s limited – certain colours, small markups. To get the full one with kids’ stuff, ladies’ sizes, you usually need a full retail store.”
Joanna Lyke is making moves to insulate her business and staff from an uncertain future.The Globe and Mail
This kind of pressure has only grown since Ottawa introduced a new system late last year to collect duties – a program that, so far, has added paperwork, delays and new costs for small importers. “It’s just one more thing,” Lyke said.
Fort Macleod is used to figuring things out. First established as a North-West Mounted Police post in the 1870s, it grew into an early agricultural and railway hub. That changed in 1912, when the Canadian Pacific Railway decided to move the divisional point and its jobs to nearby Lethbridge.
Today, just under 4,000 people live in the town, about two hours south of Calgary and just west of Lethbridge. Agriculture and construction remain key to its economy, but tourism is good for business: Its historic sites from those early days draw both history buffs and filmmakers. In recent years, Fort Macleod has appeared in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Brokeback Mountain and Interstellar.
The community is now rallying behind a campaign to restore the Empress Theatre, a 112-year-old cultural landmark. Like Lyke’s business, it’s less about starting over than adapting to what’s next.
Charted
We’d like to book a reservation
Canadians are saving by cancelling their trips to the U.S., and one of the big beneficiaries of the travel boycott appears to be restaurants at home. The number of reservations at restaurants north of the border has grown more than 20 per cent so far in April compared to last year, Jason Kirby writes – continuing a months-long trend of Canada leading many other countries in restaurant dining growth. (Germans weren’t feeling like leaving the house last month, evidently.)
Bookmarked
On our reading list
On the ocean: Fishermen celebrate Trump’s seafood order while conservation groups fear overfishing.
Online: From Lululemon to Birkenstocks, viral videos are urging shoppers to buy direct from China.
On track: Europe’s expanding high-speed rail networks offer lessons for Canada.
Morning update
Global markets were lower as anxiety over tariffs and criticism of the Federal Reserve by President Donald Trump shook investor confidence. Wall Street futures were in the red, while TSX futures followed sentiment lower.
Overseas, markets in European and Hong Kong were closed for a holiday. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 1.3 per cent lower.
The Canadian dollar traded at 72.40 U.S. cents.