Busy day? Here are five stories popular with Globe readers to help you catch up.
Loonie hits lowest point in more than a decade
The Canadian dollar dropped to levels not seen in more than a decade as the price of oil and gold both came under pressure.
Earlier today, the loonie dropped 0.47 of a cent, hitting 76.76 cents US. That’s the lowest level since September, 2004.
The dollar has been on a downward slide since last summer, when the price of oil started to weaken.
Funds for Tory riding in Toronto not on Ontario’s wish list
The Conservative government has awarded $18.4-million to a project in a Conservative MP’s Toronto-area riding – again bypassing Ontario’s wish list of nearly 115 infrastructure projects.
As Jane Taber reports, this announcement marks the second time in a month that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has made a federal funding announcement in the Toronto area without involving the province, which only found out about the funding a day earlier.
Ontario is shaping up to be a key battleground in the upcoming fall election, and may even be a swing province that determines its outcome.
Ottawa to run $1-billion deficit based on revised economic forecast: budget office
The Bank of Canada’s latest economic forecast puts the federal government on track to run a deficit in 2015-16, casting doubt on Ottawa’s promise to balance the election-year books, says a new analysis by the parliamentary budget office.
The government estimated a $1.4-billion surplus this year, which is an election year. But the budget office projects the government producing a $1-billion shortfall instead.
The calculations are based on the downgraded projections that the central bank released last week, months after the Harper government released its surplus-heavy budget this past April.
As oil prices plummet, Calgary's vacant office space soars
Energy companies already grappling with the sharp drop in crude prices are confronting a new problem: finding tenants to lease a glut of unused office space.
As Jeff Lewis reports, falling oil prices have led to record levels of unleased space in Calgary’s downtown market. Energy companies are looking to lease a record 2.6 million square feet of office space, amounting to 52 per cent of downtown vacancies as of June 30, according to Colliers International.
“It tells you that energy companies are contracting, that they’re looking at their cost footprint and that they’re looking at space as a part of that equation,” said Joe Binfet, a managing director and broker at Colliers in Calgary.
“They basically have more space than they need.”
No one, fellow parents included, wants to listen to your child scream through brunch
Bringing children to a restaurant shouldn’t be a nightmare, for parents or other diners. But, as Dave McGinn writes, it often is.
One recent outburst in a Maine restaurant has ignited a debate over the right way to manage wailing children in public.
“I slammed my hands on the counter and I said, ‘This needs to stop,’ meaning her screaming,” restaurant owner Darla Neugebauer told WCSH-TV. “And I pointed at her, and she looked at me and she stopped. And her parents said, ‘Are you screaming at a child?’ Yes I am. And she shut up.”
The response on social media was starkly divided between Neugebauer’s attackers and defenders. Ultimately, as McGinn writes, if you can’t pacify a child in less than two minutes, you need to take that kid outside.