The Portfolio returned -0.08% (gross) and the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index returned -0.05%.
Commentary By Conrad Eder The 2026 World Cup was sold to Canadians as a manageable public expense with major economic benefits. Instead, Toronto and Vancouver are now staring at more than $1 billion in combined costs, while taxpayers are once again being told the overruns are worth it. When Toronto’s city council originally considered a World Cup bid back in 2018, they were told it would cost no more than $45 million. That figure is now $380 million. Vancouver’s story is no different. Despite an original price tag of $240 million, it’s now expected to cost $624 million. None of this should surprise anyone, least of all the politicians who signed off on it. Governments consistently understate costs and overstate benefits. From roads to recreation centres, international sporting events are no different. Initial estimates are kept low to make projects politically palatable. Then, once the commitment is made, costs escalate and budgets bloat. That isn’t bad luck. That’s government. Costs have gotten so out of hand that the federal government, having already committed $220 million to support the tournament, recently announced another $145 million, plus a further $100 million for impacted federal departments. That’s on top of what Ontario and British Columbia have already kicked in. All told, what was supposed to cost a few hundred million dollars has metastasized into more than a billion dollars in public spending. If FIFA came to Canada, covered its own costs and ran its operation like any other private event organizer, that would be one thing. But that’s not the arrangement. Host countries are expected to foot the bill, promised that tourists will flood in, hotels will fill up, restaurants will overflow and GDP will surge. The historical record shows those promises of economic invigoration are consistently, embarrassingly wrong. Before the 1994 World Cup, U.S. host cities were promised a $4-billion economic boost. Instead, they ended up with losses between $5.5 billion and $9.3 billion. South Africa spent $6 billion on the 2010 tournament, notwithstanding a $650-million budget, generating revenues of $513 million despite projections of $900 million. Brazil paid $15 billion to host the 2014 edition, promising huge economic gains, only to experience negative economic growth in the years that followed. Yes, restaurants will be busy and hotels will fill, but that doesn’t make the country any better off. Much of that spending is money that would have been spent anyway elsewhere in the economy, and none of it comes close to justifying a $1-billion public outlay. Which raises the question: why do politicians keep agreeing to host these events? The answer has less to do with economics than with optics. Hosting an international tournament comes with its fair share of political perks. For ambitious politicians looking to boost their status or cement a legacy on the world stage, the ribbon-cuttings and photo ops are simply too tempting to pass up. Of course, if they actually wanted a legacy, they could start with the basics: homes people can afford, transit that actually runs, communities that are safe to live in. Yet somehow, despite these long-standing issues, which governments have failed to address, they still managed to find a $1-billion budget for their political vanity project. And make no mistake about who is actually paying for this. Every Canadian taxpayer, including those who will never attend a game, is subsidizing an event that primarily benefits FIFA and its corporate sponsors, the hospitality industry in two specific Canadian cities, and the affluent who can afford $1,000 tickets to watch 90 minutes of soccer in the middle of a workday. There are few more regressive uses of public money than that. But with kickoff weeks away, there’s no stopping it now. All we can do is remember exactly how we got here: politicians who couldn’t resist the spotlight, governments that couldn’t stay on budget, and a public too swept up in the excitement to worry about the bill. Conrad Eder is a policy analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Editorial
Eric Engels joins Ken Reid on Sportsnet Central to discuss the Montreal Canadiens’ struggles on offence and the adjustments they must make ahead of Game 4.
(ANNews) – A powerful voice in Alberta’s contemporary Indigenous art scene, Ryan Willert has built a visible creative legacy across Red Deer and beyond – one shaped as much by hardship and recovery as by paint, ceremony, and public space.
(ANNews) – A powerful voice in Alberta’s contemporary Indigenous art scene, Ryan Willert has built a visible creative legacy across Red Deer and beyond – one shaped as much by hardship and recovery as by paint, ceremony, and public space.
(ANNews) – A powerful voice in Alberta’s contemporary Indigenous art scene, Ryan Willert has built a visible creative legacy across Red Deer and beyond – one shaped as much by hardship and recovery as by paint, ceremony, and public space.
By Mata Press Service Canada is spending years attracting, educating and integrating some of the world’s most skilled newcomers, only to see too many of them leave for the United States. A new TD Economics report says the country’s brain drain has changed. It is no longer simply about Canadian-born doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs heading south. It is increasingly about highly educated immigrants, international students and new Canadians using Canada as a stepping stone to larger paycheques, stronger innovation hubs, deeper venture capital markets and better growth opportunities across the border. The report, titled Canada’s Silent Brain Drain , warns that Canada has become a “feeder system” for the U.S. innovation economy, producing and attracting skilled workers who are then drawn away by the higher rewards available in American technology, engineering and research clusters. “The core challenge is not in attracting world-class talent, but in anchoring that talent within its borders to build, scale, and lead globally competitive firms at home,” the TD report says. That warning lands at a critical time for Canada, which has leaned heavily on immigration to fill labour shortages, grow its population and strengthen its economic base. TD says the country remains good at selecting skilled immigrants and producing strong graduates. The problem is that Canada is not giving enough of them a compelling reason to stay. The report says the people leaving are not marginal workers. Canadians applying for U.S. labour certification, a key step toward employment-based green cards, are disproportionately highly educated and concentrated in computer science, engineering and technical management. Roughly half work in computer, mathematical, architecture or engineering occupations, with wage offers that TD describes as exceptionally high. The immigrant dimension is striking. By 2024, foreign-born Canadian citizens accounted for about 60 per cent of Canadian applicants for U.S. labour certification, up from just over half a decade earlier. TD says this suggests Canada is increasingly functioning as a staging ground. It selects skilled immigrants, integrates them into the labour market, then loses some of its most valuable workers to larger and more lucrative U.S. ecosystems. Immigration does not automatically offset these losses, the report says. In fact, the movement of skilled newcomers out of Canada can deepen the problem. TD cites the Institute for Canadian Citizenship’s Leaky Bucket 2025 report, which found onward migration is highest among immigrants with doctoral degrees, strong earnings potential and experience in management, information and communications technology, engineering and science-based occupations. Within five years of entering Canada, highly educated immigrants are more than twice as likely to leave as lower-skilled immigrants. The trend also reaches into Canada’s universities. TD cites Statistics Canada research showing that graduates in mathematics, computer science and engineering are less likely to remain in Canada than non-STEM graduates, even among Canadian citizens. Doctoral graduates and students from highly ranked universities have the lowest retention rates, especially in the first five years after graduation. International students show slightly better retention than before, but TD says those gains are fragile. Students from top institutions and advanced programs still leave at disproportionate rates. Many are in fields where U.S. entry barriers are relatively low through TN visas and employer sponsorship. The University of Waterloo, long seen as one of Canada’s top pipelines for technology talent, provides another warning sign. TD says Waterloo data show the highest-performing students are the most likely to leave Canada after graduation. Among Canadian-born students, exit rates at the top of the skill distribution are roughly double those at the bottom. For international students, top performers are twice as likely to leave as Canadian-born top performers. The report says those students are not leaving because Canada failed to educate them well. They are leaving because compensation, career mobility and growth opportunities are stronger elsewhere. At the centre of the problem is Canada’s weak record in turning research and talent into globally competitive companies. TD says Canada performs strongly in education and research, but lags in business research and development, technology adoption, commercialization and the scaling of firms. As a result, the economic returns from Canadian innovation are often realized abroad. That weakness matters beyond the technology sector. When highly skilled immigrants, graduates and entrepreneurs leave, Canada loses more than individual workers. It loses future founders, managers, researchers, mentors and investors. TD says those exits reduce managerial capacity, entrepreneurship and knowledge spillovers, making it harder for Canada to lift productivity and living standards. The report describes this as a quieter and more selective version of the brain drain Canada saw in the 1990s. Canada is not being hollowed out across the board, TD says. It is “spilling out at the top.” A major part of the problem is what TD calls Canada’s “missing middle” of growth companies. Canada has many small businesses and a small number of large employers, but too few firms that grow into globally competitive mid-sized companies. Fewer than 3,500 large firms account for more than 4.5 million employees, or 36 per cent of total employment in Canada. In the United States, large firms account for about 18 per cent of employment, while small and medium-sized firms carry a larger share. TD says this points to a long-standing problem. Too many Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises struggle to grow because of limited capital, regulatory burdens, compliance costs or business choices that reward staying small. Without more high-growth firms, Canada will continue to lose ambitious workers to jurisdictions where they see greater upside. The pay gap is another powerful pull. TD cites evidence that median pre-tax wages for technology workers in the United States are 46 per cent higher than in Canada, before factoring in the decline of the Canadian dollar. U.S. technology firms also tend to provide a larger share of compensation through equity, giving workers more potential upside if companies grow. Taxes add to the challenge. TD says Canada’s personal tax system is less competitive for high-skilled workers and founders. Top marginal tax rates exceed 50 per cent in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, while Alberta sits slightly below at 48 per cent. The report says the issue is not only the rate, but how early those top rates apply. Top news
Sopra Steria launches €40 million share buyback program
The Portfolio returned -0.05% gross in Q1 2026, matching its benchmark index. Read the full analysis for more details.