News
Albertans Concerned About Interest Rate Hikes & Housing Bubble

A new survey released by MNP LTD finds that Albertans are concerned about the uncertainty of a potential housing bubble and impending interest rate hikes, adding financial stress to households already carrying a record level of debt.
Six in ten (61 per cent) of Albertans and nearly half (48 per cent) of Canadians homeowners are concerned about the impact rising interest rates will have on their finances. At the same time, more than half of Albertans (59 per cent) are worried about the potential impact that a decline in house prices might have on homeowners.
“So many are over-leveraged right now. Making matters worse, many are not making regular payments against the principal. With the financial stress of the downturn, and the threat of an increase in interest rates, many are going to find it even harder to make ends meet,” says Donna Carson, Licensed Insolvency Trustee at MNP LTD, a division of MNP LLP.
Nearly four in ten (39 per cent) homeowners in Alberta say that they will be faced with financial difficulties if the value of their home goes down, the highest proportion among other provinces. Even if home values don’t decline in the near future; three in ten Albertans (31 per cent) who have a mortgage agree that they are ‘in over their head’ with their current mortgage payments.
Homeowners aren’t the only ones concerned. Nearly eighty per cent of Albertans rate their ability to cope with a 1% interest rate increase as less than optimal. The vast majority of Albertans (83 per cent) would have difficulty absorbing an additional $130 per month in interest payments on debt.
“We’ve become far too comfortable paying only the minimum payments on our debts. It’s time to start assessing our ability to pay down those debts and ask ourselves if we can truly afford them if there is a rate change,” says Carson.
When asked about their personal debt situation, the majority of Albertans don’t feel optimistic. Nearly seven in ten (69 per cent) rated their debt situation as less than good, while sixteen per cent rated their situation as bad. On a scale of one to ten, from terrible to excellent, Albertans gave themselves an average rating of 6.
With nearly four in ten Albertans (38 per cent) finding themselves within $200 per month of financial insolvency, there is little wiggle room left to pay any unexpected bills or debts. If that amount is increased to $300 per month, a staggering forty-two per cent of Albertans would be on the verge of insolvency, with nearly one in four (22 per cent) not making enough to cover their bills and debt payments. Four in ten (42 per cent) say they are concerned about their current level of debt.
“Albertans should be bracing themselves for what’s ahead, especially those who already consider themselves to be in financial distress. Seek professional advice and start creating a realistic plan to deal with that debt,” says Carson.
Survey Highlights include:
- Three in ten Albertans with a mortgage agree they are ‘in over their head’ with their current mortgage payments
- Nearly four in ten homeowners in Alberta agree they will face financial difficulties if the value of their home goes down, six in ten Albertans think we’re in a housing bubble
- Six in ten Albertans agree they are concerned about the impact of rising interest rates
- Nearly eighty per cent of Albertans rate their ability to cope with a 1% interest rate increase as less than optimal
- Over a quarter (27%) of Canadians with a mortgage agree that they are ‘in over their head’ with their current mortgage payments. This includes more than one in three Quebecers (35%), followed by residents of BC (32%), Alberta (31%), Atlantic Canada (25%), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (23%), and Ontario (21%).
- Half of Canadians (51%) are concerned about the potential impact on home owners that a decrease in house prices might bring.
- Over forty (44%) of Canadians are within $200 of financial insolvency at the end of the month, down 8 points from March 2017, and 12 points from September 2016.
- Women are significantly more likely (48% women vs. 39% men) than men to be within $200 of insolvency at month-end.
- Gen X’ers are more likely (48%) to be within $200 of insolvency at month-end, compared to Millennials (43%) and Baby Boomers (40%).
- Half of Canadians (50%) are $300 per month away from being financially insolvent.
- Atlantic Canadians are the most likely to rate their personal debt situation as ‘bad’ – the highest in the country at 22%
- While two in three Canadians (67%) think we’re in a housing bubble, only a minority (43%) expect that bubble to burst through a decline in house prices in the next year. Half (51%) are concerned about the potential impact on home owners that such a decrease might bring.
International
UK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female

Susan Smith (L) and Marion Calder, directors of ‘For Women Scotland’ cheer as they leave the Supreme Court on April 16, 2025, in London, England after winning their appeal in defense of biological reality
From LifeSiteNews
By Michael Haynes, Snr. Vatican Correspondent
The ruling, in which the court rejected transgender legal status, comes as a victory for campaigners who have urged the recognition of biological reality and common sense in the law.
The U.K. Supreme Court has issued a ruling stating that “woman” in law refers to a biological female, and that transgender “women” are not female in the eyes of the law.
In a unanimous verdict, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled today that legally transgender “women” are not women, since a woman is legally defined by “biological sex.”
Published April 16, the Supreme Court’s 88-page verdict was handed down on the case of Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v. The Scottish Ministers (Respondent). The ruling marks the end of a battle of many years between the Scottish government and women’s right campaigners who sought to oppose the government’s promotion of transgender ideology.
In 2018, the Scottish government issued a decision to allow the definition of “woman” to include men who assume their gender to be female, opening the door to allowing so-called “transgender” individuals to identify as women.
This guidance was challenged by women’s rights campaigners, arguing that a woman should be defined in line with biological sex, and in 2022 the Scottish government was forced to change its definition after the court found that such a move was outside the government’s “legislative competence.”
Given this, the government issued new guidance which sought to cover both aspects: saying that biological women are women, but also that men with a “gender recognition certificate” (GRC) are also considered women. A GRC is given to people who identify as the opposite sex and who have had medical or surgical interventions in an attempt to “reassign” their gender.
Women Scotland Ltd appealed this new guidance. At first it was rejected by inner courts, but upon their taking the matter to the Supreme Court in March last year, the nation’s highest judicial body took up the case.
Today, with the ruling issued against transgender ideology, women’s campaigners are welcoming the news as a win for women’s safety.
“A thing of beauty,” praised Lois McLatchie Miller from the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group.
“They looked at the whole argument, not just who goes in what bathroom and trans women. This is going to change organizations, employers, service providers,” Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, told the Telegraph. “Everyone is going to have to pay attention to this, this is from the highest court in the land. It’s saying sex in the Equality Act is biological sex. Self ID is dead.”
“Victory,” commented Charlie Bently-Astor, a prominent campaigner for biological reality against the transgender movement, after she nearly underwent surgical transition herself at a younger age.
“After 15 years of insanity, the U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that men who say they are ‘trans women’ are not women,” wrote leader of the Christian political movement David Kurten.
Leader of the Conservative Party – the opposition to the current Labour government – Kemi Badenoch welcomed the court’s ruling, writing that “saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact and now isn’t true in law, either.”
Others lamented the fact that the debate even was taking place, let alone having gone to the Supreme Court.
“What a parody we live in,” commented Reform Party candidate Joseph Robertson.
Rupert Lowe MP – who has risen to new prominence in recent weeks for his outspoken condemnation of the immigration and rape gang crisis – wrote, “Absolute madness that we’re even debating what a woman is – it’s a biological fact. No amount of woke howling will ever change that.”
However, the Supreme Court did not wish to get pulled into siding with certain arguments, with Lord Hodge of the tribunal stating that “we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not.”
The debate has taken center stage in the U.K. in recent years, not least for the role played by the current Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer himself has become notorious throughout the nation for his contradictions and inability to answer the question of what a woman is, having flip-flopped on saying that a woman can have a penis, due to his support for the transgender movement.
At the time of going to press, neither Starmer nor his deputy Angela Rayner issued a statement about the Supreme Court ruling. There has been no statement issued from the Scottish government either, nor from the office of the first minister.
Transgender activists have expectedly condemned the ruling as “a disgusting attack on trans rights.” One leading transgender campaigner individual told Sky News, “I am gutted to see the judgement from the Supreme Court which ends 20 years of understanding that transgender people with a GRC are able to be, for all intents and purposes, legally recognized as our true genders.”
International
Tulsi Gabbard tells Trump she has ‘evidence’ voting machines are ‘vulnerable to hackers’

From LifeSiteNews
By Stephen Kokx
Last month, Trump signed an executive order directing federal election-related funds to be conditioned on states “complying with the integrity measures set forth by Federal law, including the requirement that states use the national mail voter registration form that will now require proof of citizenship.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced during a Cabinet meeting last week at the White House that voting machines across the U.S. are not secure.
“We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time, and vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast,” she said about a half hour into the meeting.
Gabbard’s remarks confirm what millions of Americans have long suspected about elections across the U.S.
President Donald Trump himself has maintained skepticism of current voting methods and has called for paper ballots to prevent cheating.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was one of only a few voices to publicly argue that voting machines, like those run by Dominion and Smartmatic which were used during the 2020 presidential election, were compromised. GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene took to X to praise the businessman after Gabbard made her remarks.
“Mike Lindell along with MANY others vindicated!!” she exclaimed on X. “Another conspiracy theory being proven right! Guess what Democrats already knew this and publicly talked about it in 2019! And then lied and lied and lied!!!”
Last month, Trump signed an executive order directing federal election-related funds to be conditioned on states “complying with the integrity measures set forth by Federal law, including the requirement that states use the national mail voter registration form that will now require proof of citizenship.”
Congress has also taken steps to ensure election integrity by voting on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (also known as the SAVE Act) last week. Dubbed “controversial” by the media and left-wing groups, the common sense bill would require persons to show proof of citizenship before voting. The House approved the measure 220-208 with four Democrats in support. The bill now heads to the Senate where it will face an uphill battle for the required 60 votes. Republicans currently have a 53 seat majority.
Gabbard told Trump at the meeting that the evidence she found “further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections.”
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