Toronto asking rents rise 1.6% after 36 monthly falls

Global News reported that a monthly Rentals.ca and Urbanation report found Toronto’s average asking rent for apartments and condos rose 1.6% in October from a year earlier, the first rise after 36 consecutive monthly falls. Asking rent is the price landlords advertise for a unit on the market, not what sitting tenants pay.

Urbanation president Shaun Hildebrand said rents in Canada’s two largest cities are rising for the first time in nearly three years because of declining supply, and that the trend will continue. In Vancouver, rents also rose 0.2% from October 2025, its first increase after 34 monthly falls.

Yet new building rose: Statistics Canada counted 9,154 new rental homes started in Toronto in 2025, up 44% from 6,341 in 2024. That counts new building, so how it relates to the supply Mr Hildebrand cites is not known.

But around Toronto, rents are still falling: in October they fell 7.7% in Oakville, 5.4% in Markham, 4.8% in Vaughan and 4.3% in Mississauga.

Nationally, average asking rent was $2,036 in October, down 3.2% from October 2025, the 25th straight month of annual decline. That is $166 below the record $2,202 of May 2024. Still, the fall was the smallest year-over-year drop since February, so the pace of decline is slowing.

Sources: Global News · BNN Bloomberg · Statistics Canada

Manulife's core earnings hit a record as net income falls

Manulife, a Toronto insurer, said in its November 4 release that third-quarter core earnings hit a record $2.1 billion, yet net income fell $0.4 billion to $1.4 billion. Core earnings is the measure Manulife led with; net income is the reported profit.

Manulife blamed the fall on a net charge on market experience, the gap between actual and expected investment returns, and a net charge from its Vietnam operations. It said the market charge came from lower-than-expected returns on alternative long-duration assets, mainly private equity, real estate and farmland. For comparison, Sun Life Financial, another Toronto insurer, reported third-quarter net income of $785 million, down 29% from a year earlier, while its underlying net income rose 9%.

LICAT is the capital test for life insurers; OSFI, the federal financial regulator, sets a supervisory target of 100% for the Total ratio. CFO Colin Simpson said Manulife returned $1.3 billion to shareholders in the quarter, with a LICAT capital ratio of 136%.

Sources: Manulife (via PR Newswire) · Manulife Careers · Sun Life Financial · Office of the Superintendent of Financial

York medical school gets federal money for Vaughan building

York University, a multi-campus Toronto university, said the federal government’s Budget 2026, announced on November 5, will support a medical school building in Vaughan. CTV News Toronto reported that Ontario will commit $55.8 million and York is raising $350 million to build the school; the federal amount is not stated.

Dean David Peters said the school will be purpose-built to train family medicine and generalist physicians. The Ontario Medical Association, which represents the province’s physicians, said more than 2.5 million Ontarians have no access to a family physician. York describes the school as the first Canadian medical school to focus on community-based primary health-care education. Its model includes an accelerated three-year MD program and earlier community-based residency, the training doctors do after their degree.

At full capacity York will graduate 80 physicians a year and have 240 undergraduate learners. For comparison, Toronto Metropolitan University opened a medical school in Brampton in September 2025, with 94 undergraduate positions at full capacity. York’s 240 undergraduate learners are more than twice that number.

York plans its first class at its Keele Campus in north Toronto in 2028, pending accreditation. Dean Peters said York expects preliminary accreditation status in spring 2027.

Sources: York University · CTV News Toronto · Ontario Medical Association

Wealthsimple's AI assistant Penny acts only with client approval

Wealthsimple, a Toronto firm offering chequing, investing and tax filing, unveiled an AI assistant, Penny, on November 5. Penny works only inside Wealthsimple’s platform, the company said, and acts only when clients confirm. Its launch date has not been announced.

CP24 reported that Wealthsimple says clients will be able, by early 2027, to connect accounts to tools such as ChatGPT or Claude, at access levels they set. One route to such access is screen scraping: about nine million Canadians share financial data by handing over confidential banking credentials, the Canada Gazette said. Wealthsimple does not favour that route: Jordan Deutsch, a director of software development, said the company does not advocate sharing primary credentials and wants safe direct connections for AI agents instead. The Consumer-Driven Banking Act, which received royal assent in March 2026, includes a prohibition on screen scraping, but its regulations are still only proposed.

Nine days earlier, on October 27, Wealthsimple announced an equity round of up to $425 million. That values the company at $13.8 billion, up from $10 billion when it raised $750 million in October 2025.

Map: Massey Hall, Toronto. © OpenStreetMap contributors

Sources: Wealthsimple · iPhone in Canada · CP24 · Canada Gazette (Department of Finance Canada)

Canada Goose's loss deepens to $26.3 million despite higher revenue

CP24 reported that Canada Goose, a Toronto company that sells apparel, including luxury parkas, lost $26.3 million in the quarter ended September 27, against $17.4 million a year earlier. Revenue rose to $274 million from $258.8 million, yet the loss deepened.

Weighing on the quarter were comparable sales, which compare sales in the same business with a year earlier. Those in its direct-to-consumer business, which sells to shoppers rather than through other retailers, fell 7.5%.

Over the summer Canada Goose sold Baffin, a bootmaker in Stoney Creek, Ontario, to L.P. Royer of Sherbrooke, Quebec. To make comparisons easier, it left Baffin, which made about $35 million in fiscal 2026 revenue, out of both years’ results.

Because parkas sell best in winter, the company has pushed rainwear, sunglasses and shoes and boots more aggressively to build year-round business. To show that year-round range, it outfitted actor Ewan McGregor on a transatlantic sailing expedition filmed for the series True Wind. Chief executive Dani Reiss said his first priority is to deepen brand desire and turn it into more consistent demand.

Sources: CP24

1.6%: the rise in Toronto’s average asking rent for apartments and condos in October from a year earlier, Global News reported. It is the first increase after 36 straight months of decline. Nationally, asking rents fell 3.2%.

Vacancy rate: 3.0% in 2025, up 0.5 points from 2.5% in 2024. It is the highest since 2021.

Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, via Statistics Canada, table 34-10-0127-01 (Toronto census metropolitan area, buildings of six units or more, each October)

LICAT ratio: a measure of a life insurer’s capital against its risks. Canada’s regulator, OSFI, sets supervisory targets of 70% (Core) and 100% (Total). Manulife said its ratio was 136% in the third quarter.

• Weather: Cloudy. 60 percent chance of showers in the morning. High 14°C. Overnight low 7°C.

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Small charts show the last seven readings: trading days for the TSX, the dollar and the bond; weeks for gas.

Polson Iron Works, 1886. Toronto once built ships. Polson Iron Works, founded in 1886 by William Polson and his son Franklin, had its yard at the foot of Sherbourne Street, where David Crombie Park is now. It built the Toronto Island ferry Trillium in 1913, which survives, and six minesweepers for the navy in 1917. The company stopped work around 1919.

Sources: Wikipedia: Polson Iron Works

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength.

Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (1859). Scottish writer and reformer (1812-1904), whose Self-Help, a book of working lives, sold a quarter of a million copies in his lifetime.

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