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Jun 16, 2022 7:31 PM - The Canadian Press
Amid stubbornly hot inflation and rising interest rates, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland detailed financial commitments to ``help make life more affordable for millions of Canadians'', but the measures were all previously announced.
Freeland delivered a keynote address about the state of the Canadian economy at the Empire Club of Canada in downtown Toronto on Thursday afternoon.
In her speech, Freeland highlighted the federal government's ``Affordability Plan,'' which she referred to as a suite of measures totalling $8.9 billion in new support for Canadians in 2022.
The measures were all included the past two federal budgets and are now taking effect.
Freeland called recent skyrocketing inflation a ``global phenomenon'' that is being driven by lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing lockdowns in China and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Last month, Statistics Canada reported the inflation rate for April rose 6.8 per cent compared with a year ago.
That's the highest since January 1991.
The federal agency is expected to release May's inflation report next week.
