The Honourable Vic Toews, President of the Treasury Board, on behalf of the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and Minister Responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), and Dennis Fentie, Premier of Yukon, made the announcement.
“The Government of Canada is committed to making affordable housing available in Yukon and across Canada for those who need it most,” said Minister Toews. “Today’s launch provides Watson Lake seniors with quality and affordable rental housing that meets their needs.”
“Yukon is capitalizing on Canada’s economic stimulus package, to the benefit of residents, industry and communities. We are the first jurisdiction to fully allocate this year’s funding received under Canada’s Economic Action Plan,” said Premier Fentie. “We’re very pleased with the partnership established with the Government of Canada, with construction already underway throughout the territory.”
For this new seniors project, the Government of Canada is contributing more than $4 million for 12 affordable housing units and Yukon Housing Corporation is providing $450,000. The project will meet Yukon Housing Corporation’s SuperGreen Home energy standards and features Accommodating Home standards to ensure a barrier-free interior and exterior living environment. The project will enable seniors in Watson Lake to remain in their community.
Last fall, the Government of Canada committed more than $1.9 billion over the next five years to improve and build new affordable housing and to help the homeless. Canada’s Economic Action Plan builds on this with an additional one-time investment of more than $2 billion over two years in new and existing social housing and lending of up to another $2 billion to municipalities for housing-related infrastructure.
Part of my conversation with Garry Wise the other day included a discussion about: what to do with the Ontario Reports which every lawyer in Ontario receives on a weekly basis from the Law Society of Upper Canada? As a new lawyer, I’ve been keeping them with the belief that they may have something useful one day. Older and wiser lawyers have even told me that I should read up on the cases in my practice area as they will sharpen my skills and I may have to refer to them in the future. But, truth be told, why is the Law Society of Upper Canada killing so many trees by not simply making the O.R.s digitally accessible? Perhaps, as Garry Wise suggested in our conversation, an e-mail should be sent out to lawyers on a weekly or monthly basis with all the information we need succinctly organized in a few sentences and with links to the main article somewhere on the Law Society’s website? I came across a recent blog by Ted Tjaden on Slaw that discusses that very same subject matter. His post was also featured in the Law Times. Perhaps the revenue that comes from advertising in print form won’t be as much in electronic format? Perhaps the print form guarantees that all lawyers receive it, whereas the electronic version may not be accessible to all? My take on this is: if and when I’m looking for it, I’ll find it online. As such, I’m going to recycle the shelves of O.R.s I’ve been collecting under the mistaken assumption that I should be keeping them. Goodbye clutter; hello digital age. I encourage you to do the same.
Just for fun, I came up with this spoof on the Ontario Reports. Enjoy…
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Canada’s housing market has become so much more grounded since the ugly property bust of the last recession that this time around it is one of the most resilient sectors of the economic downturn.The lessons learned from the housing bust of the early 1990s helped prevent Canada from being tempted down the subprime path that devastated the United States and, combined with record low interest rates and government stimulus, has caused the impact of the latest slump to be less severe and relatively short lived, figures released Tuesday underscore.”The turnaround in Canadian housing this year might be the single most surprising turnabout we’ve seen in any economic indicator I can think of,” said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. “The fact we saw a little bit of a rebound isn’t a total shock, but the extent of it is nothing short of amazing.”Sales of existing homes in June were up a seasonally adjusted 8.7 per cent from the previous month, marking a fifth straight increase, Canadian Real Estate Association figures showed. Sales were 17.9 per cent higher than a year earlier. Resales activity rocketed along at a record pace in the second quarter, surging by 31.5 per cent from the first quarter of 2009.Porter said the results were “galaxies away” from the yearly decline of about 40 per cent registered at the start of the year.Millan Mulraine, an economics strategist at TD Securities, said record-low mortgage rates were a key difference between the housing bust of the 1990s — when interest rates were on the increase — and now. The ’90s housing downturn, the recovery from which took a decade, resulted in Canada introducing tighter lending standards, which helped prevent house prices becoming too overblown prior to U.S. subprime crisis.Mulraine said that while house prices, sales and construction suffered along with the rest of the recession-struck economy this time around, the market’s relatively stable condition and the relative health of Canada’s banking sector created an opportunity for homebuyers to take advantage of record low interest rates, more affordable prices and government stimulus. The rise in sales activity as well as a drop in new listings have caused the inventory of unsold homes to fall to 4.2 months of supply, the lowest level since August 2007 and well below the peak of 12.8 months hit at the beginning of the year. “Inventory levels are still high in many markets, but fewer new listings and rising sales activity suggests that the selection of homes available for sale may shrink as the year progresses,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist at CREA. “The supply of homes up for sale needs to be drawn down further before average price increases become more widespread among local markets.”The average price of homes sold in June was up 1.7 per cent from a year earlier, skewed higher by rising demand in some of the country’s most expensive markets like Toronto and Vancouver.Klump said monthly sales activity would likely not continue on an unbroken rise, but activity in the second half of this year would “meet or surpass” the results of the first half. Other sectors of the housing market have also registered improvements. Figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation showed last week the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts rose eight per cent to 140,700 in June, while Statistics Canada building permits figures showed that construction intentions rose 14.8 per cent in May.
