Nojoud Al Mallees, The Canadian Press

The New Democrats will bring forward a non-confidence motion to bring down the Liberals in the next sitting of the House of Commons, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Friday.

In the latest blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's struggling Liberal government, Singh wrote a letter address to Canadians in which he doubled down on his call for Trudeau to resign but also said the NDP will vote to bring down the government, regardless of who is at its helm. 

The Liberals' fiscal update was intended to encourage business investment and beef up border security ahead of Donald Trump's return to the White House next month.

But the sudden resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland hours before the document was tabled instead ignited even more political and economic uncertainty.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has demanded the federal government present a plan before Parliament to beef up border security as U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatens to impose stiff tariffs on Canada.

The Liberal government plans to temporarily lift the federal sales tax off a slew of items just in time for Christmas and send cheques to millions of Canadians this spring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Thursday.

"Our government can't set prices at the checkout, but we can put more money in people's pockets," Trudeau said at a press conference in Toronto alongside Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce on Thursday a temporary GST break for certain essential items to help ease affordability pressures.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says in a statement that the announcement is in response to his party's demands to permanently lift the goods and services tax on a range of expenses.

Canada's inflation rate climbed back up to two per cent in October, shifting expectations slightly in favour of a smaller, quarter-percentage point interest rate cut next month. 

The report from Statistics Canada on Tuesday said prices in October increased at a faster annual pace in five out of the eight major components of the consumer price index.

A major driving factor of the uptick in headline inflation was gasoline prices on an annual basis falling to a lesser extent in October compared with September.

Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.

Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.

Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.

Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.

Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.

Inflation finally hit the Bank of Canada's two per cent target in August after a tumultuous battle with skyrocketing price growth, raising the odds of larger interest rate cuts in the coming months.

Canada's annual inflation rate fell from 2.5 per cent in July to reach the lowest level since February 2021.

The slowdown can be attributed in part to lower gasoline prices, Statistics Canada said Tuesday in its consumer price index report.

A battle is heating up between Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh ahead of the return of the House of Commons next week, as the Conservatives challenge the NDP to help them bring down the government.

Singh said Wednesday he won't be taking advice from Poilievre, while sidestepping questions about whether the NDP would vote in favour of a non-confidence motion, as Poilievre challenged him to do.

New Democrats are huddling in Montreal to strategize a new path forward ahead of the fall parliamentary session — one that doesn't include the Liberals at their hips and ideally makes them a credible alternative to the Conservatives at the next election.

The three-day caucus retreat kicking off Tuesday comes less than a week after NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced the end of the supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberals. 

It's also taking place in one of the two cities where the NDP is hoping to win a byelection on Sept. 16.