OTTAWA (Reuters) – North American regulators should phase out the type of rail car involved in last July’s deadly Lac-Megantic crash “sooner rather than later,” Canadian investigators said on Thursday, urging the United States and Canada to impose tougher standards swiftly.

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued three recommendations each, adding pressure on regulators to improve safety on the tracks after a series of oil-by-rail accidents in recent months.

Neither the TSB nor the NTSB have the power to impose regulations, which only the U.S. and Canadian governments can put in place.

“A long and gradual phase-out of older cars simply isn’t good enough,” TSB Chairwoman Wendy Tadros said at an Ottawa news conference. “The period in which that phase-out happens is something we’re going to leave to regulators, but we’re saying this should be happening sooner rather than later.”

Government officials in both countries said on Thursday they viewed the recommendations as a matter of urgency.

The oil that exploded in the Lac-Megantic, Quebec, derailment, which caused an explosion and fire that killed 47 people, was carried in DOT-111 tanker cars that pre-dated tougher new safety standards for that type of car that were introduced in October 2011.

While DOT-111 cars built since 2011 comply with new requirements, tens of thousands of older ones remain in service, and shipping oil by rail has grown exponentially as the industry discovers and extracts crude deposits in areas such as the Bakken region of North Dakota, where pipelines are scarce.

“The large-scale shipment of crude oil by rail simply didn’t exist 10 years ago, and our safety regulations need to catch up with this new reality,” said NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman. “While this energy boom is good for business, the people and the environment along rail corridors must be protected from harm.”

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As Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz said yesterday, the nation’s economic recovery still rests upon the backs of debt-laden consumers.

Statistics Canada’s release of retail sales for November confirmed the governor’s remarks.

Retail sales were up 0.6 percent month-over-month to $41 billion, far better than the 0.2 percent increase economists had expected. Excluding autos, retail sales rose 0.4 percent from October, a tick better than the consensus estimate. 

“Canadian consumers hit the malls and dealer lots in unexpected force,” writes CIBC’s Peter Buchanan. Sales of motor vehicles and parts rose by 1.2 percent month-over-month, the largest sales gain of any subsector. Electronics and appliance stores also saw a marked increase in sales over the course of the month.

TD’s Sonya Gulati notes that this provides key insight into the holiday shopping season. ”November and December represent nearly 20 percent of all annual retail sale transactions,” she writes. “All said, we expect that the season will likely be an average one.”

According to Scotiabank’s Derek Holt and Dov Ziegler, “Annualized tracking of the volume gain in retail sales almost doubled in Q4,” suggesting that this sector and manufacturing will fuel growth in the final quarter of 2013.

However, there is a sense that early winter weather pulled forward some purchases, and storms during December may dampen next month’s results. ”Don’t be surprised if December sales are quite weak with the weather wreaking havoc,” warned BMO’s Benjamin Reitzes.

READ MORE: CIBC: Here Are 5 Reasons Why The TSX Could Beat The S&P 500 This Year

SEE ALSO: CIBC’s Benjamin Tal Offers A Shocking Explanation For Why Canadian Inflation Is So Low

Good morning. Here’s what you need to know.

— Global financial markets continue to get rocked even after Thursday’s massive sell-off, with the deepest moves coming from emerging markets. Asian markets got whacked in overnight trading, with Japan’s Nikkei down 1.94% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 1.25% lower. European markets were down across the board, with France off the most. And U.S. futures are deep in the red with Dow futures down a whopping 96 points.

— A car bomb killed at least four people and wounded 50 at the main Egyptian police headquarters in Cairo. “The blast shook and damaged nearby buildings, including a museum and courthouse, and sent black smoke rising above the Egyptian capital as a large number of ambulances rushed to the scene,” the AP reported. The attack, which the AP called “hugely symbolic,” comes on the eve of the third anniversary of the riots that led to Hosni Mubarak’s 2011 ouster.

— The Australian dollar continues its vicious bloodletting. The currency has closed lower on 12 of the last 14 weeks. “The RBA is actively trying to talk the Aussie dollar down because it is concerned that up until around 3 months ago the Aussie traders weren’t reacting to the deterioration in the terms of trade in the manner they should have been – by selling,” writes Business Insider Australia’s Greg McKenna. “It’s Friday night before a public holiday in Australia which could make trading thinner than normal given the extra day traders need to hold any positions instituted tonight.”

— JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon just got a raise. The New York Times reports that Dimon, who saw his pay reduced to a measly $11.5 million last year following the London Whale debacle, fared better this year. The Times didn’t have an exact figure, but the boardroom debate “pitted a vocal minority of directors who wanted to keep his compensation largely flat, citing the approximately $20 billion in penalties JPMorgan has paid in the last year to federal authorities, against directors who argued that Mr. Dimon should be rewarded for his stewardship of the bank during such a difficult period,” according to the report.

— Reuters reports that activist investor Carl Icahn’s has a larger stake in in eBay than previously disclosed. Icahn’s stake is closer to 2%, according to the report. Icahn has said he hopes the company will spin off its highly-profitable PayPal unit. He also announced Thursday that he bought another $500 million worth of Apple stock, bringing his total to $3.6 billion.

— Microsoft beat earnings expectations yesterday right after the bell. Revenue came in at $24.52 billion versus the $23.68 billion consensus estimate, while EPS was $0.78 against the $0.68 consensus. The stock traded up 3% after hours.

— Nobel Prize-winner Robert Shiller knows a thing or two about bubbles. And at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Shiller said that Bitcoin certainly is one. “It is a bubble, there is no question about it…. It’s just an amazing example of a bubble,” he said, adding that he’s “amazed by how people are so excited about it.” He tells his students, “No, it’s not such a great idea.”

— British Prime Minister David Cameron thinks he will be able to keep the U.K. in the European Union, Reuters reports. Cameron will give citizens an “in/out” referendum on a plan to reshape EU ties if reelected next year. “I’m confident that we’ll have a successful renegotiation and a successful referendum,” he said during a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “I’m confident this is do-able, deliverable and, as I say, winnable for Britain to stay in a reformed European Union.”

— The Japanese government predicts that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won’t be able to meet his budget-balancing promise under his current spending plan, Reuters reports. “Forecasts by the Finance Ministry, reviewed by Reuters on Friday, show that even in the rosiest of four scenarios, the government will run a primary budget deficit – which excludes debt service and income from debt sales – for the fiscal year to March 2021,” according to the report. “Under existing policy, Abe’s government has promised to halve the primary deficit by fiscal 2014/15 and bring it into balance five years later.”

— Droughts have been crushing beef prices. Live cattle contracts hit $1.43/lb. yesterday, the highest since the contract started in 1964. “There are a lot of cattle in America – just over 89 million head in total – but those numbers are down from 94 million in 2010,” wrote ConvergEx’s Nick Colas. “Pasture land doesn’t recovery from drought in just one or two years, so ranchers have to maintain lower herd sizes even when the weather improves. It did so this year, but numerous articles in local farming community newspapers seem to indicate that ranchers remain cautious despite this year’s better environment. Bottom line: U.S. herds are at a 60 year low and seem likely to remain depressed.” And in other environment-related news, there is a massive propane shortage in the United States right now.

Goldman Sachs’ Alec Phillips explains where we are ahead of the next debt ceiling deadline:

Our projection is generally consistent with the Treasury’s. The Treasury has in the past defined the deadline as the point at which borrowing authority has been exhausted and the cash balance dips below $50bn. This is an approximation of the cash balance that the Treasury considers prudent. Although the Treasury did not explicitly state the cash balance it expects in late February when the deadline is reached, our own projection implies that in the final days of February, the total headroom under the limit–the cash balance plus the change in debt outstanding–will total around $50bn.

Although there is often some discussion about how long the Treasury could continue after its projected deadline to make timely payments before it completely exhausts its cash balance, Congress has generally treated the Treasury’s stated deadline as the “real” deadline. There is not likely to be much time between these two dates in any case; if Congress fails raise the debt limit by the end of February, our estimates imply that the Treasury could deplete its cash balance as soon as the second week of March.