Alongside a set of additional tariffs imposed on countries the U.S. hasn’t yet struck a deal with, Canada’s blanket 25% tariff has been reset to 35% - further pressuring an already strained trade relationship.

Thankfully, the new measures still exclude USMCA-compliant goods. The trade agreement is the reason the tariff-fallout hasn’t been worse, and is an area Trump will keep applying pressure leading up to the 2026 review.

GDP fell 0.1% in May, in-line with analyst expectations for a second straight monthly contraction driven by weakness in goods-producing industries.

The slowdown was felt most in resource extraction, public administration, and retail trade - as refinery maintenance, a post-election air pocket, and auto tariffs all put pressure on results for the month.

The print wasn’t all bad though, with inventory builds supporting a manufacturing rebound…

… home resale activity driving the second straight gain in real estate…

… and a broad-based recovery in transportation. Combined with an expected uptick in retail sales, early estimates for June call for a 0.1% rebound in GDP.

Payroll employment increased for a second straight month in May, gaining 0.1% thanks to adds in health care and retail trade, partly offset by continued weakness in manufacturing - where employment has declined 1.2% since December.

The real story in this release was job vacancies though, which fell another ~4% after April’s ~3% decline and sit nearly 16% lower than they were a year ago.

At ~480K, vacancies are at their lowest level in almost eight years while unemployment remains elevated, posing challenges for any near-term recovery in the labour market.

Earnings season is starting to ramp up…

GFL Environmental (GFL) was up 6% on earnings, which beat estimates on both revenue and profit thanks to pricing-led margin expansion and volume growth.

The strong print prompted management to take its full-year guide higher, adding $110M and $50M to the revenue and EBITDA outlook, respectively. With net leverage sitting at 3.2x…

… the always aggressive Patrick Dovigi has room for continued buybacks (3.5M shares in Q2) and M&A, which could be further fuelled by a partial sale of its infrastructure unit.

Copper has shed over 20% in the past two days, following a dialled back version of Trump’s original 50% tariff on the red metal that largely spares Canadian exports.

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