May 2012 Ontario Economic Fundamentals

[Ally]

Nova Scotia building permit values up




A 10.2 per cent increase in the value of building permits issued in Nova Scotia during March, compared to the same month last year, was reported Monday by Statistics Canada.




The statistics indicate residential construction should be on the upswing in coming months, with permits valued at $142 million written in March of this year, most of it residential.





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[Ally]

Halifax's cunard block tender coming




The Cunard Block development project on the Halifax waterfront will be up for tender in the next few weeks.




Provincial Crown agency Waterfront Development Corp. Ltd. president Colin MacLean said they`re seeking a private partner for the multimillion-dollar project, and that the tender process will be launched by the end of June or early July.




At that point, developers will be able to make their pitch for a long-term lease on the land, worth about $8 million.





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[Ally]

Condos drive Canada's housing start surge




Canada`s condo building frenzy showed no sign of abating last month, as housing starts surged to their highest level since 2007.




While some analysts had predicted housing starts would weaken after a particularly strong March, starts in April rose to an annualized rate of 244,900, readily beating predictions of 204,000 made by most economists.







`This report reflects unbelievable strength in Canadian housing starts, and all of the gain was in multiples again which reflect the ongoing Canadian condo craze,` said Scotia Capital economist Derek Holt.





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[Ally]

The Ontario labour market




Four major trends are seen in Ontario`s job market today.






Revival of Job Creation Results in Lower Unemployment Rates: A revival of job creation has resulted in lower unemployment rates across Ontario. In 2010, Ontario produced a solid 108,000 new jobs, the largest annual increase since 2007 and recovering about two-thirds of the jobs that were lost in 2009. Full-time employment growth was also strong, increasing in 2010 from 2009 when 95,600 new full-time jobs were created.




Employment growth in 2010 was concentrated among workers aged 25-54 years of age and those aged 55 years and over. Ontario`s unemployment rate declined to 8.7% in 2010 from 9.0% in 2009 and today stands at 7.4% unfortunately remaining above the national average for the sixth year in a row





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[Ally]

Toronto housing bubble talk dismissed




The head of Canada`s biggest bank and one of the country`s leading developers said the housing market is not in a bubble, even as one economist said Toronto is caught in a `condo craze.`




Canadian housing starts rose to the highest since September 2007 last month, led by multiple-unit projects, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. said yesterday. The annual pace of home starts rose 14 percent to 244,900, Ottawa-based CMHC said.





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[Ally]

Toronto condo market ripe for correction?




Surging housing starts in Toronto have led to the number of new condo units being built far exceeding the absorption rate in the city, raising the risks of a correction.




That was the conclusion of Marc Pinsonneaul, an economist with National Bank Financial, in a note he put out on Thursday titled Toronto condo market: Ripe for a correction? Mr. Pinsonneaul warned in the note that the number of new condos under construction has grown to represent 34 months of Toronto`s current absorption rate ` up from 20 months just six months ago.





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[Ally]

Mimico Waterfront: Another 'wall of condos' disaster in the making?






When Waterfront Toronto was created in 2001, the agency was promised wads of public funds and told to undo the pell-mell planning that has marred a crucial city asset: its lakeshore.




Now, some residents of southern Etobicoke are concerned that the same mistakes are being repeated along the western waterfront, and no one is watching.




`They built a wall of condos, and now they`re paying (hundreds of millions) to fix it,` says Mimico resident Kyle Gojic. `We`re doing the same thing here, but on a larger scale.`





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[Ally]

Windsor's unemployment rate dips, still highest in Canada





Windsor`s unemployment rate fell by more than half a percentage point in April to 10.1 per cent but still remains the highest in Canada, according to figures released today by Statistics Canada.




The March unemployment rate locally was 10.7 per cent.






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[Ally]

Flaherty takes Mulcair to task over oil sands





TORONTO -- NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has it wrong on the oilsands, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday.




Mulcair told a CBC radio program last weekend the oilsands are artificially inflating the Canadian dollar and hollowing out the country's manufacturing sector.




He called it the definition of Dutch disease -- a reference to the Netherlands and how a natural gas find in that country led to declines in manufacturing in the 1960s.





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[Ally]

Caviar condos to flood Toronto market




TORONTO, May 13 (Reuters) - Five months after buying one of Toronto's new luxury hotel condominiums, Oliver Baumeister is girding for a glut of suites like his to hit the market as the biggest names in the hotel business open hundreds of units in Canada's largest city.




Baumeister, himself a real estate agent, is in no rush to sell. When Toronto's untested market for five-star condo living absorbs the surplus - say by 2016 - he intends to offload his sky-high unit for a tidy 20 percent profit, and look for his next Canadian real estate investment.




"A bunch of it will sit for a while and it will take time to sell," said Baumeister, who has been buying Toronto condominiums with his brother for the past four years.





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[Ally]

Ottawa rental rates third highest in country




Low vacancy rates in the Ottawa rental market are maintaining the city's higher-than-average rent prices, a trend that's expected to continue in the face of lower predicted vacancy rates this year and next.




In 2011, the city's vacancy rate was 1.4%. That's expected to drop to 1.2% this year, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing data.




That, in turn, is driving up rent in the capital city: The average rent was $1,086 last year in Ottawa -- third highest in the country -- and that's predicted to increase by 3% to $1,122 in 2012.





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[Ally]

The downtown relief line already exists: Markham councillor



Markham councillor Jim Jones thinks he`s found a magic-bullet solution for Scarborough`s rapid transit deficit, the rush-hour snarls at the Yonge/Bloor station, and even the diesel exhaust expected to waft over west-end neighbourhoods when Metrolinx launches its air-rail-link trains in 2015.





In recent weeks, the veteran politician, a former IBM network executive who spent six years as a Canadian Alliance MP, has been energetically shopping around his `I-METRO-E` scheme that proposes using GO`s Stouffville rail corridor ` which snakes through Markham and runs parallel to Kennedy Road before angling towards Union Station ` to deliver local service to the GTA`s eastern flank.





He`s already had an audience with the Board of Trade and has won over several Toronto councillors representing wards in both downtown and Scarborough. Mr. Jones`s idea goes to Markham council on Tuesday.





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[Ally]

Condos might be OK for Toronto, but this is the beach




In 1980, a burger joint opened in the Beach strip of Queen Street East. Singing staff served up burgers, fries and milkshakes from a corner building on a commercial strip of one- or two-storey shops, a streetscape that was pretty typical of Toronto`s main streets.




In the ensuing 32 years, that Lick`s Homeburgers has grown to become a chain of 23 outlets and Toronto has become home to the greatest concentration of condo-building construction cranes on the continent. Still, that low-slung Beach strip has remained more or less the same.





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[Ally]

Won't somebody save Hamilton's heritage buildings?






Some buildings have been salvaged, but many barely stand, crumbled beyond the point of repair, with their broken windows and unkempt facades noticeably sticking out. Increasingly, the debates over the future of Hamilton's heritage buildings have come to represent a changing landscape of political interests.




Much like other post-industrial cities in the American Rust Belt, Hamilton has been traversing a period of revitalization in its downtown core. As the largely suburban city has begun to take note of its new-found urban potential, there is an ongoing debate over what to do with the abundance of vacant old buildings downtown.





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[Ally]

Public input on Brampton basement suites





Residents will have their say on basement apartment regulations at one of at least four open houses proposed for June.

Committee of council recommended the dates at yesterday`s meeting, but they still have to go to council next Wednesday for final approval. Additional dates and locations could be added.





The proposed dates for the public open houses are in the evenings on:





` June 4 at Cardinal Ambrozic Secondary School;

` June 13 at Louise Arbour Secondary School;

` June 14 at Mount Pleasant Community Centre;

` June 25 at Chris Gibson Recreation Centre.





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[Ally]

MDA sheds 100 jobs in Brampton, more expected



MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) has lost about 100 employees at its Brampton facility, and expects to lose more this year as a result of cuts to its space-robotics program.





The company, based out of British Columbia, declined an interview with The Guardian, but reports suggest scientists and engineers are leaving the company because Ottawa has failed to deliver funds for space robotics and meet deadlines on the Radarsat Constellation project, which is supposed to improve surveillance of Canada`s coastline, northern territories and Arctic waterways.





MDA`s Brampton operation designed the Canadarm and was awarded the contract to plan the satellite system in 2006.





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[Ally]

Brampton's eagerness landed air Canada deal





Air Canada`s decision to build its new, state-of-the-art operations facility in Brampton largely came down to the city`s eagerness to have the airline located here, a company official said.





`When we approached (Brampton) they probably invested more time and effort than any other municipality in terms of trying to attract us and showing us the advantages of a Brampton location,` said John Segaert, senior director, system operations control.





Recently, local dignitaries, among them Mayor Susan Fennell, joined Air Canada representatives in marking the start of construction on the airline`s new `nerve centre` on Ironbridge Road, near Mississauga Road and Steeles Avenue.

Measuring 65,000 sq. ft., the two-storey building, to be completed in 2014, will house approximately 500 employees that will schedule crews, maintain flight schedules and manage cargo for the airline.





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[Ally]

Canadian wholesale sales driven by auto




OTTAWA ` Canadian wholesale sales increased for the ninth time in 12 months in March, rising 0.4% from February on strength in the motor vehicles and parts subsector, Statistics Canada said on Thursday.




The gain was slightly greater than the 0.3% advance forecast by market analysts. In volume terms, sales were unchanged.





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[Ally]

Low inventory of listings in Hamilton; average price continues to rise



The REALTORS Association of Hamilton-Burlington (RAHB) reported 1454 property sales through the RAHB Multiple Listing Service (MLS&#194 for the month of April. RAHB also reported a 9.6 per cent increase in average sale price for the month compared to April of last year.





Seasonally adjusted* sales of residential properties were 2.2 per cent lower than the same month last year, with the average sale price increasing 10.3 per cent for the month. Seasonally adjusted numbers of new listings, however, were 12 per cent lower than the same month last year.





Listing inventory is down across the board when compared to the same month last year. The number of active listings at month end is notably lower than last year, and at 510 units is almost 27 per cent fewer than at the same time in 2011.





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[Ally]

London, ON is movin' on up




A new national report gives London high marks for downtown investment and planning policies that boost its core.




The report, surveying 10 Canadian cities, was released by the by the Canadian Urban Institute on Wednesday in Ottawa.




Along with London, the cities analyzed include Halifax, Fredericton, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.




London topped six cities with $174 million in public investment in downtown projects since 1999, such as the John Labatt Centre and Covent Garden Market.





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