The Tories tried unsuccessfully several times to bring down the Liberal minority government in 2024. The current speculation in Ottawa is the election will come in the spring when the government unveils its budget, but even if that doesn’t happen, the fixed date for the next federal election is Oct. 20, 2025.
The Tories have been pitching a plan to end the government’s carbon tax and slash spending, offering a very different alternative to how the Liberals have governed.
The Conservatives have said they would scrap the Liberal government’s pledge to cap emissions from the oil and gas sector. The industry has claimed the emissions cap is the equivalent to a cap on production and would result in job losses.
Real estate: When will the housing market recover?
Mortgage rates are coming down but the housing market has so far been slow to respond, and high home prices are still making buying a home in many big Canadian cities a difficult goal for many families.
Davelle Morrison, a real estate broker at Bosley Real Estate Ltd., said 2024 was a terrible year for the real estate market, but she expects things to turn around in 2025.
“I know it’s gonna be better,” she said. “People are gonna come to the table to buy because I think people have sat on the sidelines for long enough.”
One factor helping buyers will be lower interest rates. The Bank of Canada cut interest rates five times in 2024 to bring its policy rate to 3.25%. The big banks have followed with cuts to their prime rates, taking down the cost of variable-rate mortgages and other floating-rate loans.
But Morrison said she doesn’t think the market is going to return to the frenzied days of 2021 and early 2022 when prices soared.