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Several Canadian cities are facing high office vacancy rates even as many workers have returned to downtown towers and suburban business parks.   With residential rents increasing and a housing shortage in much of Canada, the idea of turning empty offices into housing is very trendy.  There’s even government funding for renovating offices into residential use.  Projects are underway in Calgary and Halifax; others are being planned or debated in Toronto, London, Ont., and Yellowknife.But what are the keys to making an office conversion work? And how much do conversions reduce the glut of office space, and create meaningful housing stock?CBC News spoke with experts inside the industry to find out.WATCH | Cities work to transform empty office buildings into residential space: Cities work to transform empty office buildings into residential space2 days agoDuration 2:04Cities across North America are repurposing older, empty office buildings, turning them into residential property — and demolishing them outright if they’re not worth salvaging.The problem and the potential While 8-10 per cent vacancy is considered healthy for the office market, according to the commercial real estate firm CBRE, the national office vacancy rate is 17 per cent and a few major city centres are even higher like Calgary at 30 per cent, Edmonton at 22 per cent and London, Ont., also at 22 per cent.   Other firms have more upbeat figures, but older offices are a hard sell for leases, leaving a lot of space that seems ripe for residential conversion.Turning offices into condos or apartments, however, usually isn’t a quick fix.”In some cases (it’s) really easy,” said Steven Paynter, a director and architect in Toronto with Gensler, an international architecture and planning firm.”But if the building doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work at all and then it’s near on impossible.”Buildings need a high score on ‘conversion calculator’ If there’s one person who knows the score on what makes office conversions work, it’s probably Paynter.He and colleagues at Gensler developed a conversion calculator to compare office towers to an ideal residential building.  Steven Paynter, an architect in Toronto who works on conversion projects, says some offices are easy to turn into residences, but most are nearly impossible.

Canada’s egg industry appears to be quietly sidestepping widespread shortages and wildly spiking prices affecting other countries, and some say supply management is to thank.The system, which controls the supply, import and farm price of eggs, poultry and dairy, is often criticized as benefitting Canadian farmers at the expense of consumers. Critics blame supply management whenever prices of eggs and milk in Canada surpass those south of the border.But as disease, climate change and geopolitical unrest threaten global food supplies, supporters say the upside of supply management is increasingly apparent.”We have a made-in-Canada system that has never been more critical to food security in Canada,” said University of Waterloo history professor Bruce Muirhead, a former research chair for Egg Farmers of Canada.”It’s keeping family farms alive and eggs on store shelves at a time when we’re seeing shortages around the world.”Bird flu has impacted supplyCanada isn’t immune to the conditions affecting egg prices and supply in other countries.Avian influenza, or bird flu, labour shortages, supply chain issues and soaring feed, fuel and packaging costs have all affected egg production and processing costs in Canada over the past year.Statistics Canada said egg prices climbed 16.5 per cent year over year in December, making a dozen eggs that cost about $3.25 last year now $3.75.While it’s a significant increase, it’s a fraction of the spiralling costs recorded in other countries.In the United States, for example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said egg prices were up 59.9 per cent in December compared with a year earlier.In states like Arizona, California, Nevada and Florida, the cost of a carton of eggs exceeded $6 US a dozen or about $8 Canadian in recent weeks. Stores in some regions have even rationed eggs to avoid empty shelves amid supply-chain issues and possible shortages.The situation in the U.S. has prompted accusations of alleged price collusion among the nation’s top egg producers, while some news reports have suggested shoppers are travelling to border towns in Mexico or Canada to buy more affordable eggs.WATCH | Avian flu ravages global bird populations:’Explosive’ avian flu surge hits global bird populations2 months agoDuration 2:03Global bird populations are being ravaged by a deadly strain of avian flu, wiping out flocks of domestic poultry and killing wild birds. Some researchers warn the virus could eventually evolve to better infect humans and potentially start a future pandemic.In the United Kingdom, major supermarkets Tesco, Asda and Lidl have also set limits on how many eggs customers can buy, while some egg farmers say they can no longer break even. Egg prices in December were up 28.9 per cent year over year, the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics reported.New Zealand is also experiencing a nationwide egg shortage, leaving some store shelves bare and even prompting some consumers to rush out to buy their own backyard chickens. Statistics New Zealand said in an email the country’s egg prices increased 28.8 per cent in December 2022 compared with December 2021.Canadian eggs had ‘excessively high prices to begin with’But critics say prices in Canada haven’t soared as drastically as in other countries for the simple reason that prices were already high to begin with.”When prices are already among the highest in the world, it’s no surprise that our prices didn’t spike quite as much,” said Krystle Wittevrongel, a senior policy analyst with the Montreal Economic Institute.”It’s easy to maintain more price stability when we have huge, excessively high prices to begin with.”Provincial egg marketing boards have indicated that prices in Canada are starting to come down.A farmer collects eggs on a farm in Australia. Unlike Canada, where the supply of eggs is rationed and capped, other countries have seen drastic shortages of eggs due partly to an outbreak of bird flu.

A lawyer for Tesla Inc. shareholders who claim Elon Musk deceived them when he tweeted that he had secured funding to take his electric car company private is expected to make closing arguments to a San Francisco jury on Friday.A jury of nine will decide whether the tweet artificially inflated Tesla’s share price by playing up the status of funding for the deal and, if so, by how much.Investors are seeking billions in damages from Musk, Tesla and several of the company’s directors.The trial is testing whether Musk, the world’s second-richest person, can be held liable for his sometimes impulsive use of Twitter.Tesla shareholders have accused Musk of misleading them on Aug. 7, 2018, by tweeting that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 US per share, a 23 per cent premium to its last closing price and valuing the company at $72 billion US, and had “funding secured.”Share price droppedThey say Musk lied when he tweeted later that day that “investor support is confirmed.”Tesla’s share price traded above where it had been before Musk’s tweets for much of the 10-day period covered by the lawsuit, but fell as it became clear no buyout would happen.During the three-week trial, jurors heard testimony from witnesses including Tesla directors, Musk’s financial advisers and Musk himself.Musk testified funding was not an issue when he sent the tweets. He said he had lined up financing, including a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, and could have used his stake in SpaceX to fund the deal.But Musk admitted on the stand that he lacked specific commitments from potential backers.The defence team, which also is expected to make closing arguments on Friday, has acknowledged the tweets contained “technical inaccuracies,” but said Musk was focused on making sure small shareholders had the same information as large investors who knew about the potential buyout.

A jury has cleared Elon Musk of wrongdoing for 2018 tweets in which he declared he had financing to take Tesla private.More to come. Previous version of story belowA lawyer for Tesla Inc. shareholders who claim Elon Musk deceived them when he tweeted that he had secured funding to take his electric car company private is expected to make closing arguments to a San Francisco jury on Friday.A jury of nine will decide whether the tweet artificially inflated Tesla’s share price by playing up the status of funding for the deal and, if so, by how much.Investors are seeking billions in damages from Musk, Tesla and several of the company’s directors.The trial is testing whether Musk, the world’s second-richest person, can be held liable for his sometimes impulsive use of Twitter.Tesla shareholders have accused Musk of misleading them on Aug. 7, 2018, by tweeting that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 US per share, a 23 per cent premium to its last closing price and valuing the company at $72 billion US, and had “funding secured.”Share price droppedThey say Musk lied when he tweeted later that day that “investor support is confirmed.”Tesla’s share price traded above where it had been before Musk’s tweets for much of the 10-day period covered by the lawsuit, but fell as it became clear no buyout would happen.During the three-week trial, jurors heard testimony from witnesses including Tesla directors, Musk’s financial advisers and Musk himself.Musk testified funding was not an issue when he sent the tweets. He said he had lined up financing, including a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, and could have used his stake in SpaceX to fund the deal.But Musk admitted on the stand that he lacked specific commitments from potential backers.The defence team, which also is expected to make closing arguments on Friday, has acknowledged the tweets contained “technical inaccuracies,” but said Musk was focused on making sure small shareholders had the same information as large investors who knew about the potential buyout.

The U.S. economy added more than half a million jobs in January, an astonishing number that pushed the jobless rate down to its lowest level in half a century.The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that the job gains were widespread, with leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, health care, retail, construction and government all adding workers. The oil and gas sector, IT and financial services were all basically flat, but no sectors lost jobs.The job gain was more than twice the 197,000 that economists were expecting. It was also enough to push the jobless rate down to 3.4 per cent. That’s the lowest level on record since 1969.January’s numbers are even better than the torrid pace seen in 2022, where on average the U.S. economy added 375,000 new jobs every month.January’s total means that there are now only 5.6 million people in America who classify as officially unemployed, which means they are of working age, are seeking a job but can’t get one.Inflation concerns remainThe average hourly wage rose by 10 cents during the month to $33.03. That’s an increase of 4.4 per cent in a year, but still well below the pace of inflation.The booming job market is good news for workers, but paradoxically it suggests that inflation is likely to remain high. The U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, has hiked interest rates aggressively in recent months trying to tame inflation, but so far, all it has managed to do is bring the annual rate down from eight per cent to six per cent.The strong jobs number suggests the Fed will think it needs to do even more. Prior to the numbers coming out, investors in financial instruments known as swaps thought there was about an 80 per cent chance that the Fed would hike its rate again at its next meeting.After the data came out, those odds jumped to more than 90 per cent.Economist Royce Mendes with Desjardins said the numbers suggest January was “an absolutely monster month for hiring.””We are more confident in our call that the Fed will continue raising rates at its next two meetings,” he said.

Nestlé Canada says it is winding down its frozen meals and pizza business in Canada over the next six months.The four brands that will no longer be sold in the freezer aisle at Canadian grocery stores are Delissio, Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine and Life Cuisine.The company says it is focusing on categories that support long-term business growth, including confectionary, coffee, ice cream, premium water and pet food.Nestlé Canada president and CEO John Carmichael says this decision will allow the company to further invest in the categories it’s prioritizing.The company does not manufacture these products in Canada, so no manufacturing facilities in Canada will be affected.Nestlé says it will work with its retail partners to facilitate the exit of these products from stores.Stouffer’s frozen meals are one of several brands that will no longer be sold in Canada, as Nestlé pivots its focus to other food items.

The intelligence embedded in ChatGPT may be artificial, but the creators of the wildly popular chat bot are hoping it can do something humans strive for all the time: make money.OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, will soon roll out a paid version of the service in a pilot project, where people willing to spend $20 US a month will get a premium version of the product.Starting soon, customers in the U.S. who sign up for the program will get preferential access to the service, even at peak times of demand, when many users are currently locked out.They’ll also get faster response times for their queries, and priority access to new features and improvements as they roll out.The subscription service will only be available to U.S. users for the time being.Wildly popular service has its criticsThe service has taken the world by storm since its launch in November, becoming the first viral mass-market artificial intelligence tool.But ChatGPT is not without its critics. Detractors have already waved red flags about the service’s potential to lead to job losses, as well as being a haven for plagiarism and cheating.In a blog post, the California-based company says it is also exploring other options for its business, including lower-cost plans, communal subscriptions for corporate clients and data packs.But the free version is here to stay, they say.”We love our free users and will continue to offer free access to ChatGPT,” the company said. “By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access availability to as many people as possible.”

The world’s most powerful central banker, Jerome Powell, has decided against following Canada’s lead and will not commit to taking a break in raising interest rates.While specifically noting the Bank of Canada’s rate hike pause one week ago, U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Powell refused to echo Bank Governor Tiff Macklem’s optimism that he had inflation on the run.”I think it would be premature, it would be very premature, to declare victory,” said Powell, at the Fed’s monetary policy news conference on Wednesday.In many ways, Powell’s outlook on the economy was similar to Macklem’s. In some ways, it may have been a question of whether the inflation glass was half full or half empty. Similar to Macklem, Powell foresaw that “growth would continue but at a subdued pace,” with little fear of a deep recession. In fact, Powell hinted that there may be signs of a disconnect between retreating inflation and jobs, with the high demand for labour meaning the exact opposite of a jobless recovery.”I will say that it is gratifying to see the disinflationary process now getting underway and we continue to get strong labour market data,” said Powell.More evidence whether jobs can stay strong as inflation falls will come on Friday when the U.S. Department of Labour releases January employment numbers.WATCH | Canada added 104,000 jobs in December:Canadian economy gains 104,000 jobs in December, unemployment falls slightly27 days agoDuration 2:57Canada’s economy added 104,000 jobs in December as the unemployment rate fell slightly to 5 per cent, Statistics Canada said Friday.This month, Canada’s different method of data collection means Statistics Canada’s jobs numbers arrive a week later. But in both economies the previous month’s data showed job creation remained strong. Canada’s were spectacularly strong with more than 100,000 jobs created, sending unemployment near a record low.If you wonder whether the Fed pays any attention to Canada, on Wednesday Powell revealed that he does, telling reporters, “You saw what the Bank of Canada did and I know they left it that they are willing to raise rates after pausing.”Pause could be riskyHe said the Fed did not rule out doing something similar once there were clear signs inflation was on the run.While many critics have called for the central bank to wait a few months or even a year to see if current rate increases have done enough, Powell said history has shown that pausing too soon was risky.Rate cuts boost markets and many in the financial and real estate sector want the Fed to relent.  But there are also many voices on the other side worried that a pause in rate hikes will just take us back to the days of overvalued meme stocks and crypto, saving up problems for later. Homes under construction in San Marcos, Calif., last week. Powell said high rates have begun to take effect on real estate but ‘non-housing services’ showed signs of persistent inflation that the Fed had to get under control.

The holiday price freeze put in place by some of Canada’s biggest grocery chains has hit its expiry date, so shoppers should brace themselves for news that could be hard to swallow: get ready for your food bill to go up. By a lot. Again. Loblaws made headlines last fall when it announced it would freeze prices on hundreds of its in-house No Name brand through the holiday season. The grocery chain pitched the plan as a salvo for cost-conscious shoppers hit hard by high inflation, but people in the industry quickly panned it as little more than a publicity stunt, since grocery chains typically implement similar price freezes over that period, refusing to accept any price hikes from their suppliers during the critical shopping season.Loblaws pledged in October that No Name-branded grocery staples wouldn’t see price increases until the end of January at least. It’s now February, and the chain told CBC News in a statement this week that it plans to keep prices where they are “wherever possible” but warned that many prices may well go up in the coming weeks. “Once the price freeze ends, customers can expect some prices may increase, but as mentioned originally, we will continue to hold most of our No Name prices flat,” spokesperson Catherine Thomas said. “The cost to stock our shelves has gone up, month after month.”Montreal-based chain Metro sang a similar tune at its annual general meeting last month, with CEO Eric La Flèche telling reporters that the chain had received more than 27,000 requests from its suppliers last year to raise prices by more than 10 per cent. That’s more than three times the normal level.”There are cost increases coming, and we expect that some of these cost increases will be reflected at retail,” he told reporters at a media briefing on Jan. 24. “We are going to do our best to make sure that price increases are gradual and progressive to protect prices as much as possible [but] unfortunately, inflation is continuing.”Shoppers like Palaash Tiwari know that all too well. Shopping for food in Toronto on Wednesday, Tiwari told CBC News that he’s made major changes to his diet in recent months, like buying less and cheaper types of meat, trying to save money where he can. He’s also basically stopped going out to restaurants because of the prohibitive cost.”People have to make choices on what they want to consume,” he said. “People need to find their own alternative.”WATCH | Shoppers react to end of grocery price freeze: What the end of the price freeze means for your grocery bill15 hours agoDuration 1:56Major grocery chains say shoppers should expect even higher prices for food in the coming weeks. Shoppers on the streets of Toronto told CBC News what that might mean for their food budget.Why fresh produce is so priceyOf course, not every type of food is going up at the same pace.Statistics Canada data released this week shows that a slew of grocery items have seen double-digit price increases, beyond what is normal during winter months. The retail price of tomatoes has gone from $4.57 a kilogram in October to $6.99 in December — an eye-watering increase of more than 52 per cent in just two months. Celery and grapes are almost as bad, with price increases of 49 and 46 per cent, respectively, in only two months. And foods like apples, broccoli and iceberg lettuce aren’t far behind.Most of the biggest increases right now are in fresh fruits and vegetables, and there’s a very good reason for that, according to Mike von Massow, a food economist at the University of Guelph.”If you look out your window there’s snow on the ground [so] we’re not producing … fruits and vegetables to a significant degree.”Loblaws’s highly publicized price freeze over the holiday season was dismissed by many as little more than a publicity stunt.

The U.S. central bank raised its target interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, and promised “ongoing increases” in borrowing costs as part of its ongoing battle against inflation.”Inflation has eased somewhat but remains elevated,” the Federal Reserve aid in a statement that marked an explicit acknowledgement of the progress made in lowering the pace of price increases from the 40-year highs hit last year.Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example, was still seen as adding to “elevated global uncertainty,” the Fed said. But policymakers dropped the language of earlier statements citing the war as well as the COVID-19 pandemic as direct contributors to rising prices.Still, the Fed said the U.S. economy was enjoying “modest growth” and “robust” job gains, with policymakers still “highly attentive to inflation risks.””The (Federal Open Market) Committee anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to two per cent over time,” the Fed said.But in keeping the promise of more rate hikes to come, the Fed pushed back against investor expectations that it was ready to flag the end of the current tightening cycle as a nod to the fact that inflation has been steadily declining for six months.It’s also a departure from the outlook the Bank of Canada gave last week, when Canada’s central bank hiked its rate to 4.5 per cent but signaled that it may be content to keep its rate there.