Today’s news: Trending business stories for January 15, 2024

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Today’s headlines

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Top story

Canada weighs cap on foreign students amid housing crunch

Canada will consider measures to cap the number of international students in the coming months as the country wrestles with a housing shortage.

“That volume is disconcerting,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in a pre-taped interview with CTV News on Jan. 14, referring to the rise of foreign student visas in Canada. “It’s really a system that has gotten out of control.”

Miller said the federal government will have “conversations” with the provinces in the first half of this year “to make sure that the provinces that have not been doing their jobs actually rein in those numbers on a pure volume basis.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has faced criticism for welcoming more immigrants — both permanent and temporary — during an affordability crisis that has caused the cost of housing to spike and curtailed supply.

The number of foreign students in Canada has nearly tripled in the past decade, reaching more than 800,000 last year. International students pay about five times more tuition as Canadians.

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Miller’s comments expand on earlier plans to consider limiting foreign-student visas.

Jacob Lorinc, Bloomberg

10:20 a.m.

Capital Power, Ontario Power Generation could build small nuclear reactors in Alberta

Capital Power Corp. and Ontario Power Generation have signed a deal to assess the development of small modular nuclear reactors in Alberta.

The companies say they will complete the feasibility assessment within two years.

Capital Power chief executive Avik Dey says the deployment of SMR technology will provide an important source of power in Alberta in the future.

OPG is developing an SMR project at its Darlington site in Ontario.

The construction of the first of four SMRs will be completed by the end of 2028 and is expected to be online by the end of 2029.

Edmonton-based Capital Power has a total of about 7,700 megawatts of power generation capacity at 30 facilities across North America.

The Canadian Press

7:30 a.m.

Stock markets before the opening bell

United States markets are closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Equity index futures are flat. Treasury markets are also closed.

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European stocks fell as traders weighed the outlook for monetary policy ahead of a raft of speeches by policymakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index slipped 0.2 per cent, extending a lacklustre start to the year after a 13 per cent rise in 2023. Basic resources and carmakers led the decline after Germany’s economy dodged a recession, though the latest data showed it contracted for the first time since the pandemic last year. Germany’s 10-year yield rose about three basis points as bonds across the euro region fell.

In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index closed up 71.82 points at 20,990.22 on Friday.

Bloomberg

What to watch today

The Bank of Canada will release its business outlook survey and survey of consumers for the fourth quarter at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Data releases today include manufacturing sales and orders for November and wholesale trade. The Canadian Real Estate Association will also release the MLS Home Price Index and existing home sales for December.

The World Economic Forum begins in Davos, Switzerland today.

Need a refresher on Friday’s top headlines? Get caught up here.

Additional reporting by The Canadian Press, Associated Press and Bloomberg

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