Most Canadian actors earn less than $20K per year from screen work, survey finds

TORONTO - Most Canadian actors can't pay the bills through onscreen work alone, according to a survey from the Canada Media Fund that found seven in 10 respondents earned less than $20,000 a year from their work on film and TV.

The poll of nearly a thousand screen performers also found only six per cent of respondents earned more than $75,000 per year, and just 13 per cent earned all their income from performing.

Two-thirds of respondents made less than half their money through acting, the Canada Media Fund said. The survey was conducted at the end of 2025 by Abacus Data, and asked performers to reflect on their earnings the year prior.

"People have to find other jobs, and really make ends meet in different ways ... to make their careers sustainable," said Diego Briceño, senior manager of data equity at the Canada Media Fund, who presented the report on Tuesday at the Reelworld Summit in downtown Toronto.

Addressing homelessness and toxic drug use

Winnipeg is facing a housing and toxic drug crisis that is not going away. Every day, we see the consequences — people living without safe homes, encampments in neighbourhoods and public spaces, increasingly toxic drugs, overdoses and emergency services stretched to their limits.

Salvation Army calls on Winnipeggers to donate merchandise as sales soar

The Salvation Army is taking donated merchandise from other regions to stock its Winnipeg thrift stores as increasing sales outpace local donations.

Retail activity at the charity’s eight Winnipeg locations grew more than 10 per cent year over year during several months, from January through April, and again in June.

Although local donations remain strong, they haven’t kept pace with demand, prompting the organization to supplement inventory with merchandise from elsewhere.

Ted Troughton, managing director of the Salvation Army’s thrift store operations, said rising living costs are bringing in new customers.

Bank of Canada’s Macklem warns global resilience ‘under strain’

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem is warning that persistently high global energy prices will drive up the outlook for inflation at home.

While Macklem said global resilience is being tested after a series of shocks, he also expressed some confidence in Canada's ability to weather the storm.

The head of the Bank of Canada spoke to reporters on Saturday in a press conference from the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund meetings in Bangkok.

He said the prevailing message from his peers at the summit is that the global economy has been performing better than expected in the face of ongoing wars in Iran and Ukraine, sweeping trade disruptions and higher borrowing costs from rising bond yields.

Increasingly cited financial term, ‘nut,’ is worth knowing, says best-selling author

It’s nuts. That might be some folks’ reaction if they knew their “nut” in the financial sense of the word.

If that stirs visions of squirrels fighting over acorns, you are not far off.

Nut is increasingly used in popular culture, especially in the United States as the struggle increases for millions of consumers with each passing day.

A couple of high-profile TV examples are South Park and Your Friends & Neighbors, where the nut is discussed in the context of what someone’s spend rate is based on their lifestyle.

A kitchen is transformed with beautiful tiles and new countertops

Remote job sites are a challenge. Not only is distance a consideration when venturing out to gather information for a price quote, but the commute has to be factored into the project’s overall costs. As a result, many of my repeat remote clients indulge my idea to propose several projects at once, in an effort to maximize my time while putting all those kilometres on my work truck.

Although the jaunt from Winnipeg to Gimli is not that demanding, from where I live the travel time is close to two hours each way, making for long work days. So, the homeowners knew to throw everything at me once I had scheduled an initial visit. On the agenda was a main bathroom facelift as well as the addition of a frosted glass door to the office, which just had a doorless entryway from the hallway.

Nearing the end of our chat, the homeowner mentioned almost in passing how she’d love to also have a backsplash in the kitchen. Previously, the wall area above the back edge of the arborite countertops to the bottom of the upper cabinets had always been painted.

After assessing the kitchen, I would have felt remiss in not mentioning that the backsplash might not yield the desired result if they were intent on keeping the arborite counters. It wasn’t an attempt at an upsell — I truly felt that tiling the backsplash above the back edge of the old countertops was not the way to go. After a bit more discussion, I suggested that if they truly wanted a facelift, the cost-effective approach would be to retain the existing cabinetry, while upgrading the countertops to quartz, along with a new undermount sink and faucet. A newly tiled backsplash after those upgrades would be the icing on the cake. The homeowners quickly jumped on board and requested a quote for the kitchen facelift, along with the bathroom reno and the new glass door for the office.

Bank of Canada set for pair of important data drops ahead of ‘live’ rate decision

OTTAWA - The Bank of Canada will get a raft of fresh data to start next week as it weighs what could be a pivotal interest rate decision at the end of the month.

Statistics Canada is set to release its September inflation data on Monday, giving the central bank a look at how energy price pressures are influencing other parts of the consumer basket.

A Reuters poll of economists expects the annual rate of inflation rose to 3.2 per cent in September, up from three per cent in August, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.

RBC assistant chief economist Nathan Janzen said he expects inflation held steady at three per cent last month. Persistently high gasoline prices tied to the ongoing war in Iran will remain the biggest fuel for inflation, he said.

NDP expects crypto, data centre electricity levy to shave about $50 annually off residential Hydro bills

Revenue from the province’s new electricity levy on cryptocurrency businesses and large AI data centres will go toward offsetting residential bills, rather than the coffers of cash-strapped Manitoba Hydro.

To get a suitable home, buyers figure out what they’ll accept as a trade-off: Re/Max

TORONTO - Canadians are willing to make compromises to afford a home that better meets their needs, a new survey from Re/Max finds.

The survey, released Wednesday, said 65 per cent of respondents would compromise in at least one way to afford a larger or more suitable place to live. Such compromises might include living further away from city centres or choosing an older home that may need renovations.

“Rather than giving up on home ownership, Canadians are making different choices about how to get there. For some, that means looking outside their current community or reconsidering the type of home they buy," Don Kottick, president of Re/Max Canada, said in a news release.

"For others, it means making different financial choices. Buyers are identifying what matters most and where they have room to be flexible.”

Older Canadians less confident in their retirement finances: BlackRock survey

A new survey from BlackRock finds that Canadians who are closer to retirement age appear to be less confident about their plans compared with younger people.

“Canadians have made meaningful progress building retirement savings, but saving is only part of the equation,” said Nick Nefouse, global head of retirement solutions at BlackRock, in a news release Tuesday.

"As people move through different stages of life, they face different retirement challenges, from balancing competing priorities early in their careers to making decisions about income, spending and risk later on."

The survey finds that 70 per cent of generation Z respondents indicated they are on track for their retirement, compared with only 51 per cent of gen X respondents, "showing signs that confidence is shifting as retirement gets closer."

Business leaders want capital gains deferral to keep money in Canadian firms

TORONTO - Canadian business leaders are calling on the federal government to reform tax policies in hopes of bolstering investments in domestic firms.

More than 150 investors and executives signed a letter sent to Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne on Tuesday, asking him to consider two policies they claim will bolster entrepreneurship in Canada.

The first encourages the country to adopt a program akin to the U.S. qualified small business stock incentive, which allows capital gains from qualified small business stocks to be excluded from federal tax.

The second proposes allowing more entrepreneurs and investors to defer paying some capital gains taxes when proceeds from some domestic business transactions are reinvested in another homegrown venture.

Lemonade stand brings in hundreds for West Broadway Youth Outreach

Like most 12-year-olds, there’s nothing Ruby Barkley enjoys more than a tall glass of lemonade. So when she decided to set up a lemonade stand, Ruby’s Sips + Sweets, in her neighbourhood last month, her mom was only too happy to say yes.

Especially since Ruby had decided she was going to donate proceeds of the sales to West Broadway Youth Outreach (WBYO), a non-profit organization providing recreational and life-skills programming for children aged four and up.

Ruby had set up lemonade stands in the past and was accustomed to serving up glasses from a pitchers of drink she’d already pre-made, but this time round she chose to do something different.

“We got a muddler press and I hand-pressed the lemons and then added flavours. It’s a whole process. It’s hand squeezed right before your eyes and anybody can watch it. I loved doing it,” she says.

The election of our discontent: City at a crumbling crossroads, grumbling residents say in poll

There’s an undercurrent of unhappiness running through the Winnipeg electorate as the municipal election day approaches.

One-half of Winnipeggers believe the city is heading in the wrong direction, according to a new Abacus Data poll, with nearly one-third unsure if Winnipeg is regressing or progressing.

Only 21 per cent of residents believe the city is on the right track, the Free Press-commissioned poll found.

That discontentment extends to how the city spends its tax dollars, with four in 10 Winnipeggers believing they receive poor value for what they pay in property taxes.

Trade tensions spur fresh wave of interest in community-supported farms, fisheries

It started with one fisher who wanted to be paid a fair price for his catch.

Now Skipper Otto — Canada’s largest community-supported fishery — is connecting roughly 70 independent fish harvesters directly to Canadian consumers, a number that has grown as trade tensions with the United States send demand for local food soaring.

"We have our commitments before we even untie from the docks," said Skipper Otto chief executive Sonia Strobel, whose father-in-law Otto Strobel was the inspiration for the seafood business she co-founded with her husband, Shaun.

"Our members can pick and choose whatever seafood they want throughout the year from their pre-paid credit," she said in an interview from Vancouver. "It's a model that supports local small-scale fisheries and we're seeing more and more interest as Canadians think hard about food security and supporting local."

Perfecting profitability

More jaded of investors may roll their eyes at another book offering up a formula for the “perfect portfolio.”

Veteran portfolio manager Peter Lazaroff, based in St. Louis, and host of the Long Term Investor podcast understands the scepticism around his recently published book The Perfect Portfolio: a Proven Guide to Smart Investing for Long-Term Success.

Yet the chief investment officer at Plancorp Wealth Management, which has about US$10.2 billion in assets under management, has a caveat to the notion of the perfect portfolio.

“The perfect portfolio on paper is probably a lot different than the perfect portfolio for you in real life because what’s ‘perfect’ is a formula you can stick with for decades on end.”

Gillingham outlines big plan for Seine River in a second term as mayor

Scott Gillingham promises to turn the Seine River into a permanent recreation and nature attraction, if re-elected as mayor.

At a riverside campaign announcement Friday, Gillingham said a long-term plan would be to create Rivière-Seine Historic Municipal Riverway encompassing the entire Winnipeg section of the Seine, building on past volunteer efforts to clean up the river and make it a paddle-friendly attraction.

The Seine, which winds through St. Boniface and St. Vital, originates in the Sandilands Provincial Forest, passes through southeastern Manitoba, crosses the Red River Floodway and joins the Red River in St. Boniface just north of The Forks.

“What we want to do, really, is to establish the permanence of this river and allow its beauty and the opportunity to enjoy it, to be something that we don’t just leave to volunteers alone, but come together and focus on establishing it as, really, a place that gets focused attention and investment,” said Gillingham.

Restaurants ‘under pressure’

Happy hour outings are on Jackie Piggott’s calendar — but even those are fewer.

She and her husband might visit a restaurant once a month. It’s a change over the past year: earlier, they might go twice, thrice or weekly.

“It’s something that we’ve talked about, my husband and myself, just because the pricing is so expensive,” Piggott said, stopping during a grocery run in St. Vital. “It’s also better for our health.”

She’s in the majority: a new Restaurants Canada report found 80 per cent of Canadians are eating out less frequently because of higher living costs, up from 75 per cent in 2025.

More than 60,000 Manitobans rely on food bank each month, Harvest Manitoba report says

Linda Smith first turned to Harvest Manitoba in the early 1990s when her husband became permanently disabled. Now, on a fixed income, she continues to access the food bank to make ends meet.

Smith is one of more than 60,000 Manitobans now relying on food banks each month as demand continues to grow, a new report by Harvest Manitoba reveals.

The organization said in its 2025-26 impact report, released Thursday, that 61,188 people accessed a food bank in the province in March. Nearly half of them were children. The number of people accessing food banks in the province since 2020 has ballooned by more than 150 per cent, including more seniors, like Smith, than ever before.

Smith, a mother of five now in her 70s, first went to Harvest Manitoba in 1991 when he husband was disabled, and then again in the mid 2000s following a major car accident that led to a brain stem injury that forced her out of the workforce.

Life, disability coverage confusingly diverse ecosystem for most Canadians

Life insurance is like going to the dentist, without the physical discomfort.

It raises uncomfortable thoughts; it’s costly, and yet most people are much better off with it than without.

Certainly, life insurance (and disability and even critical illness) is a “lifesaver” for families when the unthinkable happens, says Jason Evans, fee-for-service certified financial planner at Evans Retirement Planning.

The Winnipeg adviser (who does not sell insurance) speaks from experience. His father died when Evans was young and life insurance kept the family solvent.

Dollar breakfasts, used Billy bookcases: Ikea’s latest affordability pitch

From second-hand Billy bookcases to cheaper meals, Ikea is leaning into its low-cost roots as cash-strapped Canadians look for more affordable ways to furnish their homes and feed their families.

The Swedish retailer says it's doubling down on affordability by expanding its used-furniture business, keeping restaurant prices low and wringing savings from sustainable product design and supply chain efficiencies.

Two of Ikea’s top executives sat down with The Canadian Press to discuss how the retailer is trying to deliver more value as Canadians grapple with high costs for housing, food and other expenses.

Ikea Canada chief executive and chief sustainability officer Selwyn Crittendon said the retailer’s sell-back program, which gives customers store credit for gently used Ikea furniture that is then resold, is growing quickly.