Gasoline lifts Canadian inflation to 3.1% in September

Canada’s annual inflation rate, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose to 3.1% in September from 3.0% in August, Statistics Canada said. Gasoline drove the acceleration: its price was up 27.8% on a year earlier, against 22.8% in August. Excluding gasoline, the CPI rose 2.2%, down from 2.4% in August.

Energy as a whole rose 19.0% year over year, after a 15.4% gain in August. Statistics Canada said crude oil reached its highest level since May amid uncertainty about wars in the Middle East. Other prices were calmer: rent rose 2.8% nationally, the same pace as in August, while grocery prices rose 1.7%, slowing from 2.8%. The release gives no Toronto-specific figure, so the city’s own rent pace is not known from it. Ontario tuition fees rose 2.1% in 2026, the largest increase since 2018, after the province ended its freeze.

The lesson is to read two numbers. The rate with gasoline rose to 3.1%, while the rate without it slowed to 2.2%.

Statistics Canada will publish the October CPI on Monday, November 16. Whether crude oil stays at September’s level is not yet known.

Sources: Statistics Canada

Chow and Bradford set out pledges on four issues

Mayor Olivia Chow and her main challenger, Brad Bradford, have set out pledges on transit, housing, taxes and policing, NOW Toronto reported a week before election day.

Ms Chow would cap Toronto Transit Commission fares at 10 rides per week and build another 10,000 rental homes. Mr Bradford would scrap the municipal land transfer tax on principal residences bought for $1.1m or less; he says eligible buyers could save around $18,000. He would cut water bills by 25 per cent, which he says would save the average household $300 a year, and freeze property taxes for a year to allow a spending review.

On policing, Ms Chow would back the city’s hiring plan of 360 officers a year through 2029 and rebuild East York’s shuttered 54 Division station, due to reopen in 2030. The figure of 360 a year is the most the province permits, so it acts as a ceiling on the city’s hiring plan.

Both would start building the Scarborough East light rail line: Mr Bradford by 2030, Ms Chow with no stated date.

Sources: NOW Toronto

Tenstorrent more than doubles its value to US$6.2bn

Tenstorrent has closed a Series E funding round of US$1.5bn (C$2.1bn), BetaKit reported. It values the company at US$6.2bn (almost C$8.8bn), more than double the US$2.6bn set by its Series D in late 2024.

Toronto remains Tenstorrent’s largest office, with 200 of its 1,000 employees, BetaKit reported. The company plans to spend the money on Galaxy server manufacturing, new hardware and hiring, according to BetaKit. Where the new hires will sit is not yet known.

A post-money valuation is a company’s worth once the new cash is counted, so it includes the US$1.5bn just raised. Tenstorrent moved its headquarters from Toronto to Santa Clara, California in 2023 to court American investors and prepare for an eventual initial public offering, BetaKit reported.

BetaKit noted that The Information and Bloomberg reported this summer that Intel and Qualcomm had shown takeover interest. Whether any bid follows is not known.

Sources: BetaKit

Canadian publishers sue Anthropic over AI training

Global News reported that a coalition of Canadian news publishers is suing Anthropic, an AI company, in an Ontario court. Postmedia, Torstar, The Globe and Mail and The Canadian Press allege that Anthropic infringed their copyright by using their content to develop Claude, its large language AI model. The suit was filed on October 6th; Cartt.ca, a news site, first reported it. The allegations have not been proven in court.

According to Global News, publishers have urged Ottawa to take a position on how AI systems use copyrighted content, after its national AI strategy did not address the issue.

The claim separates three wrongs: copyright infringement, breach of the websites’ terms of service (their rules for visitors) and circumvention of technological protection measures meant to restrict copying.

Anthropic has not responded to Global News’s request for comment, so its position is not yet known. The same publishers and CBC/Radio-Canada sued OpenAI in 2024; that case has not been settled.

Sources: Global News

TTC says Queen's Park fencing passed inspection, then narrowed

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) says it inspected a Queen’s Park work zone the previous week and found the fencing met its 1.8-metre (six-foot) setback requirement, NOW Toronto reported. A TTC spokesperson said something has since narrowed the platform area.

NOW Toronto reported that the station is officially listed as accessible, with three elevators, but construction continues at platform level. Emily Mills told the outlet she was riding with her mother, a wheelchair user, to a chemotherapy appointment on Oct. 15. She said her mother has missed appointments because the route was not accessible.

A setback requirement is a fixed distance, and a passed inspection shows compliance only “at the time” it was made. An accessible listing describes a station’s design, not its state on a given morning.

The TTC said the narrowing is being corrected and that it is looking into how it happened. It is also installing better signage and says there are no public access points beyond the fenced area. How the platform narrowed, and when the correction will finish, is not yet known.

Sources: NOW Toronto

3.1% is Canada’s annual inflation rate for September, up from 3.0% in August. Gasoline, up 27.8% year over year, led the acceleration. Excluding gasoline, prices rose 2.2%.

Post-money valuation: a company’s value immediately after a funding round, including the new money. Tenstorrent’s latest round values it at US$6.2 billion (almost C$8.8 billion) post-money.

• Weather: Sunny. Wind northeast 20 km/h becoming light in the afternoon. High 17°C. Overnight low 3°C. (as of Oct 19)
• Daylight: Sunrise 07:37, sunset 18:26; 10 h 49 min, 3 min less than yesterday
• Dollar: 70.31 US cents, up 0.20 (as of Oct 13)
• 5-year bond: 3.54% (it steers fixed mortgage rates) (as of Oct 9)
• Gas: 186.9 cents a litre for regular, up 5.5 on the week (last reported Oct 5)
• Subway: Line 2 Bloor-Danforth: no service Kipling to Jane, all day; Line 1 Yonge-University: no service York Mills to Eglinton, from 23:00. (as of Oct 19)
• Civic: Municipal election in 6 days (Monday, October 26)

All the long day the vapours played
At blindfold in the city streets,
Their elfin fingers caught and stayed
The sunbeams, as they wound their sheets

E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake), The Lifting of the Mist, in Flint and Feather (1912). Mohawk poet and performer (1861-1913), whose career on stage began at a recital in Toronto in 1892.

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