Canada's Real-Time Rail launches without any Big Six bank

Payments Canada, the national non-profit developing Canada’s instant payments system, said on November 9 that its Real-Time Rail (RTR) has launched. BetaKit reported that eight launch members are on it, including Toronto-based Wealthsimple and Koho and Questrade’s new banking entity, Questbank, but none of Canada’s Big Six banks.

Mike Katchen, chief executive of Wealthsimple, a Toronto money-management platform founded in 2014, said in Payments Canada’s release that the company is proud to be among the first institutions to join. Daniel Eberhard, chief executive of Koho, another Toronto fintech firm, was blunter about the missing banks, saying the rail would be largely “performative” without them.

But more participants are expected in the coming months, including all major Canadian financial institutions, The Canadian Press reported. The Department of Finance has the same aim: a spokesperson said it will work to have all major financial institutions in the rail by summer 2027.

Development of the rail began in 2015 with a 2019 target, so it arrives seven years late after repeated delays. Canada was the only G7 country without an instant payment rail, and Payments Canada says it is now the first to launch one with mandatory centralized fraud services.

Claire Célérier, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said the open question is what fees retail banking customers may face for faster transfers.

Sources: Payments Canada · BetaKit · Wealthsimple · BNN Bloomberg

Toronto will add up to 1,533 winter shelter spaces

Toronto will open up to 1,533 extra shelter and housing spaces from November 15 to April 15, 2027, 18% more than last year, the City said. The City now shelters nearly 7,000 people a night, down from 9,000 a year ago. Even so, it says a homelessness emergency continues, driven by unaffordable housing, insufficient income supports and unmet health needs.

Up to 588 of the spaces are permanent supportive and subsidized units, and about 505 are new shelter and 24-hour winter respite spaces. The rest open only when it is cold. Warming centres, 254 spaces at five sites, open at -5C or during winter weather event warnings. About 186 surge spaces open at -15C, and in extreme cold the City will also send extra street outreach teams to urge people indoors.

For context, a Financial Accountability Office of Ontario report, cited by the City, found homelessness rose 17.9% across Ontario from 2022 to 2025 but fell 8.2% in Toronto. But the City says progress is at risk without stable funding agreements between all three orders of government.

Sources: City of Toronto

RBC agrees to buy Australian fund manager Yarra Capital

RBC, Canada’s biggest bank, said on November 9 that it will buy Yarra Capital Management, an Australian fund manager. Yarra, which invests clients’ money in Australian shares and bonds, manages about A$18 billion.

RBC says the deal is a springboard for the Australian growth ambitions of its asset management arm, RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM), which manages about $834 billion. Damon Williams, RBC GAM’s chief executive, said Australian institutional investors spread money across global markets, which RBC sees as demand for its international capabilities. It would not be RBC GAM’s first overseas purchase: WealthProfessional reported that it bought UK-based BlueBay Asset Management in 2010.

BNN Bloomberg reported that financial terms were not immediately available. Even so, RBC does not expect a significant effect on its common equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio, a measure of core capital, mainly shareholders’ equity, against risk-weighted assets, used to judge if a bank can absorb losses. RBC expects the deal to close in the first quarter of 2027, subject to closing conditions that include regulatory approval.

Sources: Royal Bank of Canada · WealthProfessional · BNN Bloomberg

GTA living wage rises 40 cents to $27.60 an hour

CP24 reported that the living wage in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), the hourly pay full-time workers need to support themselves, is now at least $27.60, the Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN) said. That is $9.65 above Ontario’s $17.95 minimum wage, which rose on October 1, and 40 cents above last year’s $27.20.

The network calculates the living wage for 10 Ontario regions and three household types, including two parents with two young children. The wage is the before-tax pay each adult needs to cover food, shelter, childcare, transport and recreation, after counting taxes, benefits and transfers.

Among those costs, housing for a family of four in a three-bedroom GTA apartment runs $34,802 a year, including hydro and tenant insurance. For that family, housing costs more than groceries and childcare combined, which come to $12,914 and $12,565 a year.

The shortfall is not limited to the GTA: the network says even in the region with the lowest living wage, a full-time minimum-wage worker would fall short of basic expenses.

Sources: CP24

AGO sets September 2027 opening for 40,000 sq ft addition

Global News reported that the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), a Toronto art museum, will open a 40,000-square-foot addition on September 25, 2027. It is the seventh expansion since the gallery was founded in 1900. The collection has grown: UrbanToronto reported that the museum has added 18,000 works over the past decade, mostly from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Much of the new space will bring stored art into view, with five new gallery floors that raise the art display area by 30%. The galleries are column-free, with single spaces up to 5,000 square feet and 23-foot ceilings for large installations.

The project began in 2022 with a $35 million lead gift from Dani Reiss, chairman and chief executive of Canada Goose. Other donors and the federal and provincial governments have since secured full capital funding plus an endowment for ongoing operations.

The addition also has Zero Carbon Building Design certification, a first for a Canadian cultural institution of its size. Details of the opening program will be announced in spring 2027.

Sources: Global News · UrbanToronto

$27.60 an hour is the least a full-time GTA worker needs to support themselves, the Ontario Living Wage Network said. That is $9.65 above the provincial minimum wage of $17.95, and up 40 cents from $27.20 last year.

C$ in US cents: 70.81 US cents on November 9, 2026, down 0.7% from 71.33 on November 10, 2025.

Source: Bank of Canada

Living wage: the hourly, before-tax pay each adult needs to cover costs such as food, shelter, childcare, transportation and recreation. The network also counts taxes, benefits and transfers. Its GTA figure is $27.60 this year.

• Sun Nov 15: Toronto’s winter homelessness services plan begins, running to April 15, 2027.

• Weather: Cloudy. Becoming a mix of sun and cloud in the afternoon. Wind northwest 30 km/h gusting to 50. High 15°C. Overnight low 4°C.

• Daylight: Sunrise 07:04, sunset 16:57; 9 h 53 min, 2 min less than yesterday

• Subway: Line 2 Bloor-Danforth: no service Keele to St George, from 23:59.

• Civic: New council term begins in 5 days (Sunday, November 15)

• TSX: 36,446.26 at the close ▲ 1.84% (The Canadian Press)

• Dollar: 70.81 US cents ▼ 0.07%

• 5-year bond: 3.36% (it steers fixed mortgage rates) ▼ 0.03 (as of Nov 6)

• Gas: 162.8 cents a litre for regular, down 15.1 on the week

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

Jennie Smillie and Women’s College Hospital, 1911. Jennie Smillie, considered the first recorded woman surgeon to practise in Ontario, graduated in medicine in Toronto in 1909. No Canadian residency was open to women, so she trained in Pennsylvania. In 1911 Women’s College Hospital opened at 18 Seaton Street with seven beds, and she was its associate chief of gynecology from 1912 to 1942. The hospital grew, moved to larger premises and is now affiliated with the University of Toronto. Smillie died in Toronto in 1981, aged 103.

Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia: Jennie Smillie

the long, straight ways of the place

Henry Scadding, Toronto of Old (1873). Anglican priest (1813-1901) and the city’s first historian, who wrote Toronto of Old to record the town’s early life before it was forgotten.

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