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Around the world, the kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms of the population have something in common with many of the United Kingdom’s royal palaces.They are often stocked with the same items personally selected by Her Majesty The Queen and other members of the Royal Family, marked by what’s known as a royal warrant.Popular products such as HP Sauce, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Burberry clothing, Clarins skin care or Elizabeth Arden cosmetics can all display a royal coat of arms, marking them as a product chosen by Her Majesty.But those seals of approval may evaporate following the Queen’s death this month, leaving some brands wondering if they’ll continue to enjoy the favour of royal households as His Majesty King Charles takes the throne.HP Sauce, through its parent company Heinz, holds a royal warrant, though it’s not visible on these bottles. Heinz was officially the ‘Purveyors of Heinz Products’ to HM The Queen, a role that could admittedly be difficult for another company to fill.

Hriday Balachandran enjoyed his recent trip to Vancouver so much on discount airline Lynx Air that he just booked tickets to Kelowna, B.C., for the Thanksgiving weekend.It was the Calgarian’s first time flying with the airline and the ticket price was the main selling point — about $100 round trip.Balachandran has also flown with Swoop and had a similar experience.”They have promotions going on all the time,” said Balachandran, who used to work at Air Canada and WestJet in their IT flight operations departments. “Where else will you get that kind of price?” The launch of Canada Jetlines this week brings the number of discount carriers in the country to four, along with Lynx, Swoop and Flair. While the airlines focused on offering cheap fares are growing, so far there hasn’t been a noticeable impact on overall ticket prices and there are questions about whether the air travel industry is large enough to support so many carriers.For now, Jetlines has a single aircraft operating on just one route between Calgary and Toronto, while Lynx has six aircraft flying to ten cities. Flair and Swoop are much larger.The number of aircraft is on the mind of Jason Hampton, who flew with Lynx to Newfoundland to visit family. As hurricane Fiona approaches, he’s been nervous all week about whether the airline will be able to get him back to Calgary this weekend.”My anxieties of course are the possibilities of delays or cancellations of my flight. I’m hopeful they can get me out and home,” he said. “I don’t know what to expect.”Otherwise, he was impressed with Lynx. Like other discount carriers, there are reduced amenities and any extras come at a cost. There was no in-flight entertainment or food service, besides water, but he was prepared so he said it wasn’t a big deal.The airline industry was one of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic in 2020, causing many carriers to delay or cancel orders for new planes. As air travel began to recover, there was a rare opportunity for new airlines to launch and have access to modern aircraft at reduced prices. They could also find space at in-demand airports.While there is more competition in the sky, ticket prices are largely the same as they were before the pandemic began.The average ticket price of a flight in Canada was $193 one-way before taxes and fees in July, when the most recent data is available, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. That’s a $3 increase compared to July 2019.Flair and Lynx both offer a Calgary to Toronto flight, along with other carriers such as Air Canada and WestJet. The average ticket price was $236 in July, compared to $237 during the same month in 2019.On the Calgary to Vancouver route, however, the average ticket price was $31 cheaper.Ticket prices in July might not be the best measurement, said John Gradek, head of McGill University’s aviation management program, because even the discount airlines will raise their fares during the busy summer travel season.Considering the number of airlines now operating in the country, some experts say there aren’t enough passengers to keep them all afloat. Canada already has a long history of bankruptcies and failures in the aviation industry.”We’re going to have some consolidation. It’ll be foolish for us to think that the industry can survive with six carriers operating on routes like Toronto-Calgary or Toronto-Vancouver. That is way too much capacity,” said Gradek.The airline industry is already in a state of flux. A proposed merger between Air Canada and Air Transat was called off in 2021, while a deal between WestJet and Sunwing is ongoing. This summer, Flair was facing the prospect of losing its licence because of rules related to foreign ownership of Canadian airlines, but ultimately was allowed to keep flying.The discount carriers that find success “are the ones who can keep their operations simple. Simple translates to lower cost operations and fewer things that can go wrong. Lower cost with less problems means lower fares — in most cases,” said Jim Hetzel, director at Cirium, in an e-mail.The low-cost airlines in Canada are all private, so their financial performance is unknown.The discount carriers face a stiff financial challenge to offer low ticket prices during a time when fuel, labour and airport costs are all high, former WestJet chief executive Gregg Saretsky said in an interview.”I don’t think there is a chance they are making money,” he said. “I could do some back of the envelope math which would suggest that they’re all burning cash. So, survival will only come if the investors continue to pour more cash into the operation.””They’re all chasing a dream, but it’s not going to end well.”

Canada’s benchmark stock index dropped heavily on Friday as prospects of a global recession cause investors to sell first and ask questions later.The S&P/TSX Composite Index was off by more than 500 points or more than three per cent to just below 18,500 in the afternoon, dragged down by a plunge in the price of oil.The benchmark price of crude oil in North America lost $5 to trade below $80 for the first time since January. The catalyst for oil’s decline seems to have been central banks signaling this week that they are so committed to reining in inflation that they are willing to create a recession to achieve it.The U.S. Federal Reserve hiked its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, and nine other countries around the world followed suit the next day. That will help bring down inflation, but it will likely come at great cost to the economy.”Clearly what they are saying is they are so determined to bring inflation down that they are going to bring down the economy in the process,” said John Zecher, the founder of Toronto-based money manager J Zechner & Associates. “That’s the way the market is reading it … They aren’t going to stop until the economy turns down.”About a fifth of the companies on the TSX are in the energy sector, and they were among the biggest losers Friday. Shares in Suncor, Cenovus, MEG Energy and Crescent Point all lost more than eight per cent on the day.More and more economic indicators are starting to suggest Canada’s economy either already has derailed or is about to. Employment numbers last week showed the economy has lost jobs for three months in a row, and retail sales data on Friday showed that Canadians are putting away their wallets once more.Stock markets are responding to that gloom, and some analysts think there is a lot more pain to come.”The lows that we saw recently in the summer months are going to be challenged in the next couple of days to weeks,” said Larry Berman, chief investment officer with Toronto-based money manager QWealth, in an interview.  “The market [isn’t] priced for what the central banks are going to do.”The Canadian dollar dipped as low as 73.65 cents US, it’s lowest level in more than two years.More to come

Facing sky-high inflation, consumers put away their wallets more often in July, new data revealed Friday, as retail sales fell for the first time since 2021.Canadian retailers rang up $61.3 billion in sales in July, Statistics Canada reported Friday. That’s a decline of 2.5 per cent from the previous month’s level as lower sales at gas stations and clothing stores led the way down.Sales at gas stations fell by 14 per cent. A big part of that was lower prices for the fuel itself, but even in volume terms sales were down by seven per cent. Fewer people were filling up during the month, which was in keeping with the vehicle segment overall as auto sales edged down 0.5 per cent. Both new and used car dealers reported declines.Consumables like food and drink also weren’t flying off the shelves, as supermarkets and grocery stores saw sales slip by 0.9 per cent, while liquor stores saw a decline of 1.2 per cent.”The trend is clear, consumers are pulling back on spending,” economist Royce Mendes with Desjardins said. “The slowdown in consumption is exactly in line with what the Bank of Canada is trying to engineer with its rate increases.”CIBC economist Karyne Charbonneau also linked the spending slowdown to the central bank’s recent moves, saying in a note to clients that “Canadians may have started to react to higher interest rates.”

1:53:00FULL EPISODE: What’s your tipping story?From oil changes to take-out food, the “tip nudge” has quickly become a “well-established societal norm” in Canada, according to food economist Mike von Massow.Card payment machines have made it simple for businesses to prompt a gratuity option, even in industries where tipping previously wasn’t part of the cost or conversation. And data from Canadian trade associations show the average percentage tip for restaurant dining has gone up since the pandemic began. Von Massow, who’s also a professor at the University of Guelph, says the expectation for Canadians to increase the amount of their gratuities is getting out of control, and has become a hot-button issue across the country.”I went to my local craft brewery the other day, just to the bottle shop, to pick up a couple of cans of my favorites,” von Massow said. “When I was paying there, literally someone grabbed beer out of the fridge and gave it to me and I was prompted to tip in that circumstance.”He calls it a “double whammy” for consumers, with more businesses asking for tips while simultaneously raising their prices.”You know, I’ve started to wonder if I give a particularly good lecture, should I put a jar at the front of the lecture hall at the end, and as they file out? Maybe they could drop a few bills in there for me, too. I mean, where does it stop?”International alternativeKate Malcolm moved to Port Perry, Ont., in 2017 from the U.K., where tipping isn’t common.Five years later she says she still has a hard time coming to grips with Canada’s tip culture. “There is no way that in England you would give $10, $20, $30 to a hairdresser,” she said. “It’s so expensive to get your hair done as it is, and then you have to tip them as well? It’s such a foreign concept.”Malcolm, who runs a podcast aimed at newcomers, included her reaction to Canada’s unwritten rules for gratuities in a TikTok video outlining her “culture shock.”A screenshot of Kate Malcolm in a TikTok video that includes her reaction to Canada’s unwritten rules for gratuities.

The next airline hoping to pose a threat to the country’s Air Canada-WestJet duopoly is slated to take its inaugural flight Thursday.Canada Jetlines, a new startup airline headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., is scheduled to begin service with twice weekly flights from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport to Calgary International Airport.The airline said it will hold a ribbon cutting celebration to mark the occasion when its first flight arrives in Calgary Thursday morning.Canada Jetlines bills itself as an “all-Canadian, value-focused leisure carrier.” While Toronto-Calgary is its only scheduled route right now, the company’s chief commercial offer, Duncan Bureau, said the airline plans to service the leisure market both domestically and trans border with flights to the Caribbean and the Americas.The airline currently has one Airbus A320 and a second to join in December, with plans to expand the fleet to 15 Airbus A320s by 2025 at a rate of five aircrafts per year, said Bureau.Low-cost carriers emergingCanada Jetlines is Canada’s newest, but not first, airline to emerge in the wake of the pandemic.Edmonton-based Flair Airlines has been aggressively expanding in the last year and a half, and now serves 36 airports with 85 routes and a fleet of 18 aircraft.Calgary-based Lynx, formerly known as Enerjet, launched last spring and said at the time it hoped to operate nearly 90 flights a week on nine routes by June, all within Canada.WestJet also operates its own subsidiary low-fare airline, Swoop, which launched in 2018 and offers service to destinations in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean.While these competitors operate under a low-cost, no-frills model, Canada Jetlines aims to differentiate itself with service to the premium leisure market, said Bureau.He added he is critical of the business model being used by so-called low-cost carriers like Flair and Lynx.”If you’re charging fares at rates that are lower than the cost of parking your car at the airport, the economics just don’t work and it’s not sustainable,” Bureau said.The deepest pocketsCanada Jetlines plans to offer a premium experience to customers that include departure times that fit the preference of the consumer over the pilot and 174 seats in lieu of the standard 180 to provide increased comfort, said Bureau.On its website, Canada Jetlines is advertising introductory fares starting at $99 for one-way trips between Calgary and Toronto for a limited time.To compare, Flair offers one-way trips from Calgary to Toronto for $49, the same route starts at $99 on Lynx and you can fly from Edmonton to Toronto for $59 with Swoop, according to the companies websites.The pandemic’s ravaging of the mainstream airline industry is making it possible for startup airlines to obtain parked and inactive planes at a good price, said Rick Erickson, an independent aviation analyst based in Calgary.Such is the case for Canada Jetlines, as the pandemic paved the way for the airline to hire available talent and acquire aircraft at a low cost.”I think the ones who survive are going to be the ones who have the deepest pockets. It generally takes anywhere from 18 to 24 months for new airlines to start turning a profit, so with all of these new players coming onto the market, the question is ‘who has the deepest pockets and who has the best business plan?”‘ said Erikson.Bureau said Canada Jetlines plans to offer service in the U.S. within the next three months although any official offerings and dates have yet to be announced.Canada Jetlines is an independent airline that is publicly traded on the NEO Exchange.

The pace of inflation is cooling. The annual rate came in at seven per cent in August, Statistics Canada reported this week. That’s down from the four-decade high we saw in June.But that doesn’t mean prices are coming down. Even the most optimistic scenarios forecast prices will continue to climb even as inflation comes back under control. “It’s more that price increases will be slower rather than prices will be falling,” says BMO’s senior economist Benjamin Reitzes. The best case scenario is that higher interest rates, and a cooling economy, will lower inflation to a more moderate pace. Right now, overall inflation is slowing — but it’s mostly being dragged down by a lower global price of oil.Reitzes says consumers shouldn’t expect that to happen with other goods and services.The cost of eating out has surged since 2020. Even as inflation cools, analysts expect prices in restaurants will continue to rise.

The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by three quarters of a percentage point in its latest move to get ahead of runaway inflation.The decision by the U.S. central bank was in line with what economists were expecting, although there was some thought that the Fed might hike by even more — a full percentage point.Instead the Fed raised its trend-setting rate by 75 basis points for the third time in a row.More to come

The number of households who rent their homes has grown twice as fast as the number of those who own, census data has revealed.Statistics Canada revealed Wednesday that the number of households who rent their homes grew by more than 21 per cent between 2011 and 2021. By contrast, the number of households that own their homes grew by just eight per cent over the same period.Although the gap is narrowing, owners still outnumber those who rent by a significant margin. More than 10 million households owned their home last year — about twice as many as the five million who rent.All in all, Canadians were less likely to own their own home than they were in 2011.The shift away from home ownership is especially pronounced among the generation that is typically most likely to want to buy: young adults.In 2011, about 44 per cent of those in the age 25-29 cohort owned their home. By 2021, that percentage had fallen to 36.5 per cent.The drop-off for those in the next age group was almost as pronounced: from 59.2 per cent for those between the ages of 30 and 34, to 52.3 per cent.Overall, there was a clear demographic gap between those who own and those who rent. Baby boomers — which the data agency defines as anyone 56 to 75 years old in 2021 — made up 41.3 per cent of all homeowners in Canada.Meanwhile millennials — between 25 and 40 years old in 2021 — made up 32.6 per cent of all renters.While both owning and renting come with a cost, those who own their home have been lucky enough to offset those costs by way of a significant increase in the value of their homes. That isn’t the case for anyone who rents.Worse still for renters, the average cost of keeping a roof over their head has increased by more than what those who own have experienced. The average cost for shelter among renters grew by 17.6 per cent in the past five years, from $910 a month, on average, in 2016, to $1,070 in 2021.That’s roughly twice as large as the 9.7 per cent increase borne by owners, whose average monthly cost went from $1,130 in 2016, to $1,240 last year.

To hear some of the candidates seeking to become the leader of Alberta’s governing UCP — and the province’s next premier — one would think the oil and gas industry was in the doldrums, struggling to make a buck.In fact, Canada’s oilpatch is enjoying its most lucrative year on record. Its profits have been described as a broken cash machine, as the largest companies collect billions in profit every few months.Still, one major challenge hasn’t gone away: finding a way to lure back the global banks, insurance firms, and investors that don’t want to be associated with an industry — particularly the oilsands — that’s become a target in the global climate crisis. It’s one reason why the biggest oilsands producers have made pledges to wipe out their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (a pledge a number of environmental groups find dubious).But while big oilsands players are busy talking up their efforts to slash emissions, on the campaign trail for the UCP, there is little focus on the environment, let alone acknowledging global warming or climate change.No more net-zero talk In the party’s first official leadership debate, candidate Danielle Smith said Alberta could achieve the goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, a target that the federal government has set, as have many private sector companies, including the large oilpatch players. Her opponents were quick to pounce. Smith, whose campaign centrepiece is an act she says would allow Alberta to decline to enforce any federal law, was actually attacked for supporting the federal Liberal government and promoting an idea that one candidate said would bankrupt the province. Candidate Todd Loewen, who has largely been aligned with Smith, was adamant he didn’t even want to talk about net zero and give any more oxygen to the discussion.”It’s all bull. It’s all B.S.,” he said, during a debate last month. “We need to quit talking about these money-wasting ideas. There’s nothing good that will come with those things.”Smith hasn’t mentioned “net-zero” since. Her original comments were about how the province could reach the climate target through developing a hydrogen industry and growing the number of carbon capture and storage projects in Alberta.On the topic of the environment, her focus has been on how Canada should export more natural gas internationally to displace coal and other heavy-emitting sources of energy, while advocating for more pipelines and growing oil and natural gas production.”Talking about phasing out bitumen is as dumb as talking about phasing out cement or phasing out steel,” she said, during a subsequent debate.Smith’s stance is noteworthy considering experts say her insistence that the science behind climate change hadn’t yet been settled was one reason she lost the 2012 provincial election as the then-leader of the Wildrose.A few carbon capture and storage projects are operating in Alberta, including Shell’s Quest facility. The federal and provincial government subsidized the construction costs.