VANCOUVER -- A slowing economy will put the brakes on B.C. retail sales growth through 2009, according to a Central 1 Credit Union report.
Retail sales throughout the province rose by 6.7 per cent last year to top the $56-billion mark but growth is expected to slow to 5.5 per cent this year and 3.1 per cent in 2009.
"B.C.`s multi-year run of robust growth in retail sales is forecast to slow," the report said, noting retailers face "headwinds" from a sharp drop in the U.S. economy, a strong Canadian dollar, high fuel prices and higher interest rates.
Not only is B.C. short of workers, but our productivity -- the value of the goods or services that each of us produces -- also lags behind that of other provinces.
The news gets worse: The labour shortage is here to stay, not resolvable even by an economic slowdown. And the productivity gap is getting wider.
That`s the glum message from BC Stats this week. Gloomier still is the fact that, although long and strong on analysis, the report is short on solutions.
Bedbugs aren`t hard to get, but mighty hard to get rid of
When Keith Nemeth moved into an apartment in James Bay, the last thing he expected was bedbugs.
"Sometimes I`d wake up and feel the bugs crawling across my face," says Nemeth, who struggled with the bugs for more than three years. "Even when I get an itch now, I look down to make sure it`s not a bedbug."
One website, Bedbugregistry.com, aims to help people like Nemeth avoid future infestations. It allows users to list the addresses of bedbug-infested properties -- and it lists several in Victoria.
In a small boardroom just off Douglas Street, a big screen shows a series of vectors painting Lake Shasta and a nearby hillside in northern California.
The vectors and markings show the route of the Martin Mars water bomber owned by Port Alberni`s Coulson Group as it flies between the lake and the wildfires it`s helping to fight in California.
Being able to watch from a boardroom thousands of kilometres away, or from anywhere on Earth for that matter, comes courtesy of Victoria`s Latitude Technologies, a small but leading avionics equipment manufacturer that is hitting new heights with its two-way voice and data equipment.
Greater Victoria will see an expansion of transit service starting next week, thanks to funding included in the provincial government`s $14-billion transit plan.
The plan, which aims to double transit ridership provincewide and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, will provide a portion of the $15.6 million required to increase regional service in Victoria by seven per cent with more service during morning and afternoon rush hours and increased service in the evening on major routes starting Sept. 2.
Strata fees come home to roost, even if owner can`t
Dear Condo Smarts: Our home was totally damaged by a fire in a neighbour`s unit earlier this spring. Repairs and rebuilding have been going well but we have been unable to live in our unit since and are in temporary housing paid for by our insurance until the restoration is complete.
We just received a notice from our strata corporation advising that we had not paid our strata fees since the March fire and that a lien may be imposed if we don`t pay. They have agreed to wait until we are back in our home to pay the fees. But do we really have to pay our fees even though we are unable to live in our townhouse because of someone else`s fire?
A marathon investigation into one of the biggest financial frauds in B.C. history concluded Tuesday with multiple charges against former Vancouver lawyer Martin Wirick and Vancouver real estate developer Tarsem Singh Gill.
Wirick was arrested at his Vancouver workplace, Koko`s Gourmet Pet Foods in North Vancouver, and Gill near his Ross Street home in South Vancouver on Tuesday by members of the special RCMP-Vancouver police task force that conducted the six-year investigation.
The number of British Columbians collecting Employment Insurance took a jump in June, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday, mainly in areas outside major cities and in manufacturing and trades.
Statistics Canada found that on a seasonally adjusted basis, 39,670 workers in the province were receiving regular benefits in June, a 6.7-per-cent increase from May, and 6.4-per-cent higher than in the same month a year ago.
More than 100 hectares of BCR Properties Ltd.-owned land on Willowcale Road was given rezoning approval by city council Monday, but with restrictions that take into consideration air quality concerns.
Final approval of the rezoning is being withheld pending the registration of a covenant to restrict future development and the expansion of existing uses. Part of the land is being used by Canfor for log storage, while another portion is the location of Northwest Wood Preservers, about nine kilometres south of the city`s downtown.
Has TransLink been taken for a ride on a property deal it recently completed in Surrey?
At first glance, it looks as if our public transit company has indeed been the victim of a property flip for its purchase last spring of a 4.86-acre vacant property at 7118 King George Highway.
As outlined last week in the North Delta Leader, TransLink paid $9 million for the property on which it plans to build a larger bus exchange and storage depot that would replace a current bus exchange on nearby 72nd Avenue.
B.C.`s devastated forest sector won`t be out of the woods for at least another 15 months, with demand in the crucial U.S. housing market getting worse before it gets better, an industry analyst says.
"We`re not at the bottom yet -- close, but not yet," said Russ Taylor, a veteran analyst with International Wood Markets Group. "The bottom line is lumber demand is about 30 per cent from its peak.
"That means one mill in three has to close or curtail."
Scam artists use the Net to prey on the charitable
They may not hold a meteorology degree or possess a fortune teller`s crystal ball, but online criminals are very much in the forecasting business.
They`re trying to predict when the next big natural disaster will hit, and are scooping up domain names that sound like charitable donation sites dedicated to a specific crisis. As public awareness grows of the rampant criminal activity on the Internet, these online thieves are getting increasingly crafty in their trickery.
Web surfers may already be skeptical about donating money to suspicious-sounding URLs. But if they sound realistic enough while carrying messages canvassing for charitable donations, those of a benevolent nature may still be fooled.
The provincial government is set to pump $1 million into the City of North Vancouver`s MacKay Creek/CN Rail overpass, adding another link to the North Shore Spirit Trail.
The funding will enable construction of a pedestrian and cycling overpass over the CN Rail lines to give trail users access to the city`s waterfront.
A $10-million project to upgrade the city of Victoria`s water distribution pipes will be one of the largest of its kind in Canada.
The project, expected to start in November, is needed to ensure quality drinking water and improved water pressure for firefighting, Victoria city council learned yesterday during a staff presentation outlining the plan for how to upgrade water mains installed in 1927.
Bruce Kerr, project co-ordinator for the engineering department, said the project will use so-called "trenchless" technology to minimize road excavation and cut construction costs by up to 75 per cent.
Jennifer Woodford discovered Thursday it would cost her another $2,600 to catch a flight home to England, but didn`t know if she had the resources to cover it.
"I don`t even have a credit card on me," said a tearful Woodford, who had just learned that her prepaid flight home to London`s Gatwick Airport had been cancelled because carrier Zoom Airlines had ceased operations only hours earlier. "I hope one of my friends will help me out."
People in Victoria already like to walk a lot -- but the city wants to spend $28.8 million to make them like it more.
The pedestrian master plan -- a document that will guide pedestrian-related projects and policies over the next 20 years -- calls for more than 67 kilometres of new sidewalks to be built on roads that don`t have any.
The plan was greeted with enthusiasm by Victoria city council, although achieving it will be no cakewalk.
VANCOUVER -- Energy companies, in 2007, discovered almost twice the amount of natural gas than British Columbia produced during the year, raising provincial gas reserves to a new high.
B.C. had almost 483 billion cubic metres of remaining raw gas reserves, compared with 462.4 billion cubic metres at the end of 2006, according to the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission`s latest report on hydrocarbon and by-product reserves.
Alex Ferguson, the commission`s CEO, said high levels of exploration and technological improvements helped boost discoveries in 2007 that were 177 per cent in excess of natural gas production during the year.
