Population growth stagnated in Q2, with just 20K added at the country level and a Q/Q decline in Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia.

The regional declines were driven mainly by in-country dynamics, with continued interprovincial migration towards Alberta…

… while the headline number was largely due to an immigration slowdown, as the government aims to reduce permanent admissions to under 400K this year.

Non-permanent residents declined ~60K Q/Q, following the government’s goal to reduce this category to 5% of the total population by 2027. At ~7% currently (~1M above target)…

… this segment should weigh on near-term population growth - benefitting per capita GDP at the expense of absolute growth and posing challenges for grocers (necessity-based same-store growth) and REITs (apartment demand) if it continues.

Yesterday BMO announced its acquisition of Burgundy Asset Management for $625M, $125M of which is contingent on limiting AUM churn. The deal adds $27B (6%) to BMO’s existing platform, which has delivered >25% ROE over the past year.

The transaction is the latest in a long list of wealth management consolidation, and comes at a similar AUM price to Scotiabank’s $950M bid for Jarislowsky Fraser ($40B AUM) and TD’s $792M Greystone deal ($36B AUM) from 2018.

With the deal paid for in shares (~0.6% dilution), yesterday’s 0.8% drop tells me the market is chalking this up as a nothingburger. But the long-term implications are clear: this is a scale game, and it’s only getting tougher for the independents.

Annnnnnd the winner of dumbest headline of the day goes to: CMHC gives up on goal to return to 2004 housing affordability levels.

Truly groundbreaking stuff. I mean really, the analysis that must have gone into this conclusion… I can’t even begin to imagine!

Empire Company (EMP-A) got a 5% lift on earnings, where it delivered $0.74 of EPS - a beat to the street’s $0.71 on better same-store sales growth of 3.8%, well ahead of SG&A growth of 2.5%. Management highlighted it expects the Buy Canada movement has staying power and raised the dividend 10%.

A great chart here from Commodity Context (also written by a Canadian!) highlighting a continued draw in crude oil inventories, which now sit at the very bottom of the five year range.

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