Excluding gasoline, the CPI rose 6.3% year over year in May, after a 5.8% increase in April. Price pressures continued to be broad-based, pinching the pocketbooks of Canadians and, in some cases affecting their ability to meet day-to-day expenses.

The acceleration in May was mainly due to higher gasoline prices, which rose 12.0% compared with April 2022 (-0.7%). Higher service prices, such as hotels and restaurants, also contributed to the increase. Food prices and shelter costs remained elevated in May as price growth was unchanged year-over-year.

Monthly, the CPI rose 1.4% in May, following a 0.6% increase in April. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, the CPI was up 1.1%, the fastest pace since the introduction of the series in 1992.

Wage data from the Labour Force Survey found that average hourly wages rose 3.9% year over year in May, meaning that, on average, prices rose faster than wages in the previous 12 months.

Energy prices rose 34.8% on a year-over-year basis in May, driven primarily by the most significant one-month price increase since January 2003. Compared with May 2021, consumers paid 48.0% more for gasoline in May, stemming from high crude oil prices, which also resulted in higher fuel prices (+95.1%).

Crude oil prices rose in May due to supply uncertainty amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as higher demand as travel continued to grow in response to eased COVID-19 restrictions.

Grocery prices remained elevated in May as prices for food purchased from stores rose 9.7%, matching the gain in April. With price increases across nearly all food products, Canadians reported food as the area in which they were most affected by rising prices. Supply chain disruptions and higher transportation and input costs continued to put upward pressure on prices.

In May, shelter costs rose 7.4% year over year, matching the increase in April. Year over year, homeowners’ replacement costs rose to a lesser extent in May (+11.1%) compared with April (+13.0%), as prices for new homes showed signs of cooling.

Although prices for mortgage interest costs continued to decrease on a year-over-year basis, prices fell less in May (-2.7%) compared with April (-4.4%), putting upward pressure on the headline CPI.

All central banks worldwide (except Japan) face much more than expected inflation. Today’s 7.7% inflation report for May increases the urgency for the Bank of Canada to quickly withdraw stimulus from an overheating economy for fear of price pressures becoming entrenched in inflation expectations and the economy. Tapping on the brakes isn’t good enough. As a result the Bank must expedite the return to a neutral level of interest rates, which likely means the top of the neutral range at 3% for the overnight rate. It currently stands at only 1.5%.

We expect a 75 basis point hike on July 13, bringing the policy rate up to 2.25%. Markets are currently predicting that rate to go to 3.5% by yearend. That might well be too high, but right now, the Bank needs to prove its inflation-fighting credibility, even if it drives the economy into recession. As a result, it will continue to slow the housing market, reversing some of the 50% increase in national home prices over the past three years.

According to Bloomberg News, Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers was asked today about the possibility of a ‘super-sized’ move. She said, “We’ve been clear all along the economy is in excess demand, inflation is too high, rates need to go up. We’ll get it there.” Suggesting the possibility of an even larger than 75 bp rate hike.

The 7.7% annual reading may not even represent the peak, given that gasoline prices have picked up further in June.

The full range of core inflation measures surged in May, suggesting that price pressures go well beyond food and energy. The chart above shows that the Bank of Canada has consistently underestimated inflation. So have other central banks. They are bringing out the big guns now, and the housing market will always take the biggest hit.

Today’s report raises the urgency for policymakers to withdraw stimulus from the economy quickly. Look for another 50 bp rate hike on June 1 and again in July. Markets are pricing in an overnight rate as high as 3% by the end of the year. It is currently at 1%.

In April, Canadian consumer prices rose 6.8% y/y, up slightly from March’s 6.7% pace despite a slowdown in the pace of gasoline inflation. The April inflation rise was driven mainly by food and shelter prices. Excluding gasoline, the CPI rose 5.8% in April, after a 5.5% gain in March. This was the fastest pace since the introduction of the all-items excluding gasoline special aggregate in 1999.

Since late February, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has boosted energy, commodity, and, most notably, food prices.

The Canadian economy’s strength has added to inflation pressure. The unemployment rate is at a record low. Average hourly wages rose 3.3% y/y last month. With prices rising faster than wages, Canadian families are experiencing reduced purchasing power.

In April, Canadians paid 9.7% more for food purchased from stores compared with April 2021. This rise, which exceeded 5% for the fifth month in a row, was the most significant increase since September 1981.

In April, shelter costs rose 7.4% y/y, the fastest pace since June 1983, following a 6.8% increase in March. Higher prices for energy sources used to heat homes, such as natural gas (+22.2%) and fuel oil and other fuels (+64.4%), contributed to the rise.

Reflecting the dynamic Canadian housing market, homeowners’ replacement cost (+13.0%) is related to the price of new homes and other owned accommodation expenses (+17.2%), which include commissions on the sale of real estate; both rose sharply in April.

The mortgage interest cost Index (+0.2%) increased on a m/m basis for the first time since April 2020.

Rent prices increased in April (+4.5%) compared with the same month in 2021. The rent hike was mostly driven by price increases in Canada’s most populous provinces: Ontario (+5.3%), Quebec (+4.3%) and British Columbia (+6.4%).

While monthly, Inflation slowed in April (0.6%) compared to March (1.4%), the surge in gasoline price in May portends continued high Inflation in next month’s CPI report.

Bloomberg News reported this morning that “The inflation surge has made the Bank of Canada a target of criticism, with some politicians accusing Macklem of moving too slowly. Immediately after the inflation data was published, Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre released a statement reiterating he plans to fire Macklem should he ever win power.”

The pressure is on for more rate hikes. Central banks all over the world are under similar pressure. Central bank tightening will slow demand, as we have seen already in the Canadian housing data for March and April. It does not address the supply disruptions that are the root cause of much of the inflation pressure.

The measures announced in today’s budget to increase housing construction, though welcome, are underwhelming. The Feds can control the construction of lower-cost housing through CMHC. Still, most home building is under the auspices of the municipal governments, where the red tape, zoning restrictions and delays abound. The federal government increased funds to help local governments address these issues, but NIMBY thinking still prevents increased housing density in many neighbourhoods.

The headline policy announcement for a two-year ban on foreign residential property purchases may sound reasonable. Still, according to Phil Soper, chief executive of Royal LePage, “It will have a negligible impact on home prices. We know from the pandemic period, when home prices escalated with virtually no foreign money, that our problem is made-in-Canada.”

According to the Financial Post, Soper added that measures like the tax-free savings account for young Canadians would be encouraged to help them achieve their dreams of homeownership in a typical real estate market. However, in a low-supply environment with pandemic-fueled price gains, these measures would only add more demand without addressing the supply issue. Only a few first-time buyers would be able to take advantage of it.

The Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights that would end blind bidding and assures the right to a home inspection and transparent historical sales prices on title searches is also long overdue.

The First-Time Home Buyer Incentive has been extended to March 2025. This program has been a bust. Buyers do not want to share the equity in their homes with CMHC. The Feds are taking another kick at the can, “exploring options to make the program more flexible and responsive to the needs of first-time homebuyers, including single-led households.” To date, the limits on the program have made them useless in high-priced markets such as the GTA and the GVA.

Nothing the federal government has done in today’s budget will make much of a difference in the housing market. What does make a difference is the spike in interest rates that is already in train. Fixed mortgage rates are up to around 4%, and variable mortgage rates have begun their ascent. There is still a record gap between the two, but the Bank of Canada will likely hike the policy rate by 50 bps next week. The Bank will probably hike interest rates at every meeting for the remainder of the year and continue into the first half of next year.

It is also noteworthy what Budget 2022 did not do. It did not address REITs or investment activity by domestic non-flipping purchasers. Some were expecting a rise in minimum downpayment on investor purchases or restrictions on using HELOCs for their funding.

Budget 2022 did not raise the cap of $1 million on insurable mortgages. It did not reinstate 30-year amortization, a favourite of the NDP. And, it did not follow the BC provincial government in allowing a “cooling-off” period after a bid has been accepted, technically giving would-be buyers more time to secure financing.

New Listings Finally Show Some Life

Employment is now 186,000 jobs above pre-Covid levels. November’s report marks the sixth straight month of job gains. Markets are already pricing in five Bank of Canada interest rate hikes next year.

Employment increased in both the services-producing and goods-producing sectors in November. Both full-time (+80,000; +0.5%) and part-time (+74,000; +2.1%) work increased, and employment gains were spread across six provinces.

Total hours worked increased 0.7% and returned to the pre-pandemic February 2020 level for the first time. Hours rose across most industries, led by manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and construction. Despite increasing in November, hours in the goods-producing sector were still below their pre-pandemic level (-3.6%). All of the growth compared with February 2020 was in the services-producing sector (+1.3%), most notably in professional scientific and technical services (+12.5%).

Record high employment rate among core-aged women

More than 8 in 10 (80.7%) core-aged women aged 25 to 54 were employed in November, the highest employment rate recorded since comparable data became available in 1976 and 1.0 percentage points higher than in February 2020. In November, employment among core-aged women grew 66,000 (+1.1%), primarily in full-time work (+47,000; +0.9%), with growth spread across several industries.

Employment rose by 48,000 (+0.7%) among core-aged men in November, with gains entirely in full-time work. The employment rate for men aged 25 to 54 increased 0.5 percentage points to 87.1%, which is on par with the recent high in September 2019, and 0.5 percentage points higher than in February 2020.

Unemployment rate declined for the sixth consecutive month

The unemployment rate fell 0.7 percentage points to 6.0% in November. This was the sixth straight monthly drop and the most significant decline since March 2021. Before the pandemic, the unemployment rate had hit a record low of 5.4% in May 2019 and was 5.7% in February 2020.

First decline in long-term unemployment since August

The number of Canadians unemployed for 27 weeks or more fell 62,000 (-16.2%) in November, the first monthly decline in long-term unemployment since August 2021. Long-term unemployment fell more for women (-43,000; -24.2%) than for men (-19,000; -9.4%), with the decline spread across the core-aged and 55 and older age groups. The decline was particularly sharp for those who had been unemployed for 52 weeks or more (-56,000; -23.4%).

Long-term unemployment as a proportion of total unemployment fell 2.2 percentage points to 25.6% in November, following four months of little change. The share remained elevated compared with the level of 15.6% observed before the pandemic.

Average hourly wages were 5.2% higher (+$1.46 to $29.57) in November 2021 compared with two years earlier, controlling for the unprecedented changes in the composition of employment since February 2020. The October CPI indicated an increase of 5.3% from two years earlier. In comparison, fixed-weighted average wages had increased 5.1% from October 2019 to October 2021, or 7.5%, without controlling for composition changes.

Not surprisingly, wages increased more for recent hires than for established employees. The record-high job vacancies in September have continued to focus attention on the question of whether employers in some industries might raise wages to address recruitment and retention challenges. Average wages increased faster for new employees than for employees who have been in their current job for 18 months or longer.

Bottom Line 

When the Bank announces its policy decision next week, Governor Macklem will undoubtedly confirm that the economy has bounced back from its Q2 weakness. Though the omicron variant has increased uncertainty regarding the pandemic outlook, the economy is rapidly approaching full employment. Moreover, as inflation remains well above target and wage pressures are mounting, the Bank will be mindful of its commitment to normalize interest rates next year. If anything, today’s labour market report may accelerate expectations for a BoC rate hike to the first quarter of next year rather than the second.

Dr. Sherry Copper

Chief Economist, DLC

“September provided another month’s worth of evidence from all across Canada that housing market conditions are stabilizing near current levels,” said Cliff Stevenson, Chair of CREA. “In some ways that comes as a relief given the volatility of the last year-and-a-half, but the issue is that demand/supply conditions are stabilizing in a place that very few people are happy about. There is still a lot of demand chasing an increasingly scarce number of listings, so this market remains very challenging.”

Housing supply remains a major constraint, forcing many buyers to either pay up for scarce properties or to remain on the sidelines. This is particularly troublesome for first-time homebuyers as mortgage rates are coming under renewed upward pressure as inflation concerns have forced yield curves to steepen and longer-term bond yields to rise worldwide.

Exacerbating supply problems, the number of newly listed homes fell by 1.6% in September compared to August, as gains in parts of Quebec were swamped by declines in the Lower Mainland, in and around the GTA and in Calgary.

With sales up and new listings down in September, the sales-to-new listings ratio tightened to 75.1% compared to 73.2% in August. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.8%.

Based on a comparison of sales-to-new listings ratio with long-term averages, a small but growing majority of local markets are moving back into seller’s market territory (see chart below). As of September, it was close to a 60/40 split between seller’s and balanced markets.

There were 2.1 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of September 2021, down slightly from 2.2 months in August and 2.3 months in June and July. This is extremely low and indicative of a strong seller’s market at the national level and in most local markets. The long-term average for this measure is more than 5 months.

In line with tighter market conditions, the Aggregate Composite MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) accelerated to 1.7% on a month-over-month basis in September 2021.

The non-seasonally adjusted Aggregate Composite MLS® HPI was up 21.5% on a year-over-year basis in September, up a bit from the 21.3% year-over-year gain recorded in August.

Looking across the country, year-over-year price growth is creeping up above 20% in B.C., though it is lower in Vancouver (13.9%), on par with the provincial number in Victoria, and higher in other parts of the province (see table below).

Year-over-year price gains are in the mid-to-high single digits in Alberta and Saskatchewan, while gains are into the low double digits in Manitoba.

Ontario saw year-over-year price growth pushing 25% in September; however–as with B.C.–big, medium and smaller city trends, gains are notably lower in the GTA (19.0%) and Ottawa (16.4%), around the provincial average in Oakville-Milton (26.9%), Hamilton-Burlington (26.5%) and Guelph (26.4%), and considerably higher in many of the smaller markets around the province.

Greater Montreal’s year-over-year price growth remains at a little over 20%, while Quebec City is now at 12.7%. Price growth is running a little above 30% in New Brunswick (higher in Greater Moncton, a little lower in Fredericton and Saint John), while Newfoundland and Labrador is now at 12% year-over-year (a bit lower in St. John’s).

Canada continues to contend with one of the developed world’s most severe housing shortages. As our borders open to a resurgence of immigration, excess demand for housing will mount. The impediments to a rapid rise in housing supply, both for rent and purchase, are primarily in the planning and approvals process at the municipal level. Liberal Party election promises do not address these issues.

It is noteworthy that while Canada suffers one of the most acute housing shortages, housing affordability is getting worse in many OECD countries (see chart below).

Some of the inflation is coming from disruptions on the supply side emanating from COVID-related disruptions, which may work themselves out in time. However, they’re still getting worse, and many suggest the timeline could be much longer than just this year. In addition, extreme weather events and climate change initiatives–both of which are more or less permanent–have also boosted inflation pressure. Consumer demand for goods and housing and business capital expenditures have surged in the face of labour shortages. Wage rates are beginning to rise. All of this has raised prices spilling into next year. Higher interest rates are likely sustainable even though the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve will likely hold overnight rates steady for the next year (see charts below).