Capacity utilization by Canadian industries fell for the second straight quarter between July and September while every sector but mining reduced its industrial capacity utilization, Statistics Canada reported today.

StatsCan said industries operated at 82.7% of capacity in the third quarter, down from 83.5 in the second quarter.

This decline puts the current rate 4.4 percentage points below the most recent high of 87.1%, reached in the fourth quarter of 2000.

The industrial capacity utilization rate is the ratio of an industry’s actual output to its estimated potential output.

Sixteen of 21 major groups in the manufacturing sector — which accounts for almost half of total production — reduced their capacity utilization in the third quarter.

Manufacturers operated at 81.7% of their production capacity in the third quarter, down from 82.4% in the second quarter.

Only mining, with 15% of total production, posted a rise in its rate in the third quarter, the result of a hike in oil-and-gas extraction activities and higher international demand for metal ore.

http://www.statscan.ca/Daily/English/071214/d071214a.htm

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TSX-MX deal prompts insider trading probe

Quebec’s securities regulator is examining possible insider trading involving the recently announced merger of the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Montreal Exchange.

Quebec finance minister Monique Jérôme-Forget confirmed today that the Autorité des marchés financiers is examining whether certain members of the MX’s board of directors who made large share purchases in the months leading up to the $1.3 billion deal profited from the knowledge they had of the negotiations regarding a possible merger.

“I am worried,” Jérôme-Forget told reporters. “It will have to be looked at closely.”

If any wrongdoing is uncovered during the securities commission inquiry, the minister said, the commission has the power to stop the merger. She insisted her government was remaining at arms’ length from the entire process.

TSX Group Inc. is acquiring Montreal Exchange Inc. in a cash-and-stock deal unveiled Monday after months of on-again-off-again negotiations.

Jérôme-Forget reiterated that she intends to hold public hearings on the announced merger. The hearings will begin near the end of February, 2008, she said.

“We will be hearing a lot of people who don’t like this deal. The securities commission will then have to assess if it can stop the deal,” the Minister said.