Alberta Construction Magazine

Scotiabank study finds recent immigrants driving housing demand in Canada (Housing-Trends-BizFla)

TORONTO _ Scotiabank says new immigrants, who already provide the bulk of growth in Canada`s population, have been driving housing demand in recent years. The report from Scotia Economics says 2006 census data showed 72 per cent of immigrants lived in a dwelling owned by a household member, up from 68 per cent in 2001. By comparison, the increase among those born in Canada was only two percentage points, from 73 to 75 per cent.

FirstOnSite acquires Calgary disaster restoration company for undisclosed price (FirstOnSite)

TORONTO _ FirstOnSite Restoration L.P. says it has acquired Servpro Disaster Restoration, a Calgary provider of restoration services.Terms of the transaction, announced Thursday, were not disclosed.Since early 2007, FirstOnSite has acquired operations in all Canadian provinces except Newfoundland. It recently acquired a restoration company in Saskatchewan.With the newly acquired operations, FirstOnSite has more than $200 million in annual revenue and more than 1,100 direct employees across the country.FirstOnSite is a full service restoration provider with expertise in water losses, document restoration, wind damage, fire and smoke damage, oil spills and other services.The company is majority owned by TorQuest Partners Inc. of Toronto.

Housing starts increase in June: CMHC (CMHC-Housing-Starts)

OTTAWA _ The annual rate of housing starts rose to 140,700 units in June from 130,300 in May.Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the increase is broadly based, encompassing both single- and multiple-family dwellings.CMHC expects housing starts to improve over the next several years as they gradually align with demographic demand, currently estimated at about 175,000 units a year.The annual rate of urban starts increased 9.5 per cent to 120,100 units in June.Urban multiple starts increased 11.3 per cent to 67,000 units, while urban single starts also moved up by 7.3 per cent to 53,100 units in June.Rural starts were estimated at an annual rate of 20,600 units in June.The annual rate of urban starts in June increased 59.4 per cent in the Prairies, 25 per cent in British Columbia, and 3.1 per cent in Ontario. Urban starts declined 6.3 per cent in Quebec, and 3.9 per cent in Atlantic Canada.

FirstOnSite acquires Saskatoon disaster restoration company for undisclosed price (FirstOnSite)

TORONTO _ FirstOnSite Restoration LP says it has acquired First General Services (Saskatchewan) Partnership, the leading disaster restoration company in Saskatoon.Terms of the transaction, announced Tuesday, were not disclosed.Since early 2007, FirstOnSite has acquired operations in all Canadian provinces except Newfoundland, the Toronto company said.With the latest deal, FirstOnSite now has more than $190 million in annual revenues and about 1,050 direct employees in 37 communities across Canada.First General Saskatchewan, which has a strong management team, a solid growth profile and a reputation for high quality work, is a distinguished new member of our team, said Ian Milne, FirstOnSite`s CEO.FirstOnSite is a full service restoration provider with expertise in water losses, document restoration, wind damage, fire and smoke damage, sewer backup, hurricane and tornado restorations and other services.The company is majority owned by TorQuest Partners Inc. of Toronto.

Building permits exceed $5b in May: StatsCan (StatsCan-Building-Per)

OTTAWA _ The value of building permits surpassed the $5-billion mark in May for the first time since last October.Statistics Canada reports construction intentions were up 14.8 per cent from April, due to gains in both residential components and two of the three non-residential components.The agency says the main contributing factors provincially were increases in multi-family dwelling permits in Ontario and institutional permits in Alberta and Ontario.The value of residential permits has increased for three straight months, up 14.4 per cent to $2.6 billion in May.The value of non-residential permits increased 15.3 per cent to $2.4 billion, mainly a result of increases in the institutional component in Alberta and Ontario.Municipalities issued $1.1 billion worth of permits for multi-family dwellings in May, up 40.6 per cent from April.Single-family permits rose 1.4 per cent to $1.6 billion, the third straight monthly increase.Municipalities approved 13,087 new dwellings in May, up 22.1 per cent. StatsCan attributes the increase mainly to a 40.5 per cent increase in multi-family units to 7,948. The number of single-family units approved rose 1.5 per cent to 5,139.

Building permits exceed $5b in May: StatsCan (StatsCan-Building-Per)

Life after General Motors: communities in crisis rebuild for a bright future (Auto-Cities-Rebuild)

By Tobi CohenTHE CANADIAN PRESSMONTREAL _ The resurrection of the Chevrolet Camaro remains a sore point for many former General Motors workers near Montreal, but Quebec`s last automotive town has discovered it`s better off in some ways without the troubled carmaker.The Boisbriand plant shut its doors for good in 2002, leaving 1,500 people _ the last of what was once a workforce of 4,700 _ unemployed.By the time GM decided to resume production last March of the iconic muscle car in Oshawa, Ont., the sprawling plant that was the centrepiece of Boisbriand for 35 years had been levelled and efforts were underway to transform the land into an eco-friendly neighbourhood.Boisbriand, located about 45 kilometres northwest of Montreal, can take comfort in the fact it was able to weather the worst of its own economic storm before the global financial crisis really took hold.It was hard for the city, which lost a major tax revenue, Boisbriand Mayor Sylvie St-Jean said in an interview. We`re talking $2.2 million. We`re starting to come out of it.Fortunately, just two per cent of laid-off GM workers actually lived in the city and about three-quarters of them were nearing retirement.But it was a decision by developer Faubourg Boisbriand and Cherokee Investment Partners, which purchased the site, decontaminated it and is now turning it into a residential, commercial and business city, that has truly revitalized Boisbriand, St-Jean said.And in an ironic twist of fate, the land once owned by a failing company often accused of missing the ball on environmental efficiency, is now certified green.As such, developers are going to great lengths to make it pedestrian-friendly. They`re also taking steps to reduce erosion, collect rainwater for irrigation and make homes more energy efficient.By the time the development is complete, probably in another three years according to developer Helene Gignac, the city can expect to generate a lot more tax revenue than before.Gignac estimates the commercial area alone will create some 2,000 jobs, while hundreds more will result during the construction phase.If we look at salary, it`s certain the commerce and industry in the future will never replace this loss, St-Jean said, adding the city is planning to commemorate in some way the town`s automotive past.But Boisbriand also has a growing agri-foods industry and is relatively close to Montreal for commuters.All in all, post-GM life in Boisbriand is good, says St-Jean.We didn`t want it to close but there comes a point where you can`t do anything, she said. We had some good chapters with GM but that chapter is over and we`re moving on.While the situation is somewhat more dire in cities like Oshawa and Windsor, Ont., they too are preparing for a future in which the automotive industry plays a smaller role.In Oshawa, about 6,000 unionized auto jobs remain as well as a smaller number of supplier positions. That`s down from 25,000 jobs 30 years ago. In the last year alone, the city lost 10,000 jobs, many of them last May when a truck plant was idled.Mayor John Gray said while many families are hurting, much is being done to mitigate the effects. Despite popular belief, building permits are up as Oshawa continues to attract industrial, commercial, government and institutional investment.We`re making sure we don`t just sit on our hands and repeat the mistakes of cities like Flint, Mich., where they thought the automotive industry was going to come back, he said.With three post-secondary institutions, including the new University of Ontario Institute of Technology, education and re-training is key, he said.He hopes research into the electric car will make Oshawa a centre of excellence in the area. And given the city`s proximity to two expanding nuclear plants, he foresees opportunities there for retraining and employment.Windsor, Canada`s automotive capital, once supported close to 60,000 automotive jobs. Today, about 12,000 remain. The city`s unemployment rate in May was 13.5 per cent, the highest in Canada.Mayor Eddie Francis is confident the auto sector won`t completely disappear but he knows it`s changing and, as such, the city is adapting.Recognizing the automotive decline, many parts-suppliers reluctantly began diversifying their supply base seven years ago, said Francis, who became mayor in 2004.The city also started to reposition its local economy. Windsor`s post-secondary institutions are expanding to accommodate skills re-training, particularly in health sciences.Given Windsor`s proximity to the United States, efforts are also underway to build the city`s tourism industry, he said. Windsor is now home to the third largest convention centre in Ontario and a new 5,000 seat downtown entertainment venue that attracts big acts like Celine Dion.It`s also invested $71 million in a new arena for the Memorial Cup-winning Windsor Spitfires and recently hosted the Red Bull Air Race which brought some 300,000 visitors to the region.Francis said Windsor is also poised to invest in capital works projects and also become a transportation hub for its $1.5-billion agri-foods industry.Someone on the line today is trying to be the ambulance driver of tomorrow, he said. Someone working in the paint shop yesterday is re-training their skills and looking to become a dental hygienist.Windsor is a good textbook example about how people are really doing everything they can to not only reposition the city, but reposition themselves for the economy.Shannon and Peter Piasentin, both former mould designers for different Windsor auto-parts companies, are a perfect example.Shannon was laid off in February 2008. The 32-year-old mother of three has since decided to turn her photography hobby into a part-time career.After 10 years in the business, her husband Peter, also 32, saw the downturn coming and decided several years ago to leave his high-paying job to pursue his dream of becoming a police officer.While both took massive pay cuts when they changed careers, they`re also happier now and admit they might not have taken the leap if not for the downturn in the automotive industry.I didn`t like the job but I got comfortable with the pay, Shannon said. Once I was laid off, it was my opportunity to walk away from it.Of course the transition isn`t easy for everybody.After the plant in Boisbriand closed in 2002, Daniel Juneau was just four years away from getting his full pension and decided to move his young family to Oshawa in order to continue with GM.The transition was tough and he promised his wife they would return to Quebec just as soon as they could.Three years later, the 51-year-old is back in St-Jerome, just north of Boisbriand. He`s unemployed and disappointed about the fact his beloved Camaro plant has moved.For me it was bad management and it was political, he said. They were mostly older workers. It was an easy plant to close.

Former Brookfield partner to lead AbitibiBowater restructuring effort (AbitibiBowater)

MONTREAL _ Bruce Robertson, a former senior managing partner at Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (TSX:BAM.A), has been appointed chief restructuring officer by AbitibiBowater Inc.The Montreal-based newsprint and lumber producer, which has been among the Canadian forestry companies hit by a downturn in U.S. house construction and publishing, has been under court protection from creditors since mid-April and was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange on May 15.At Brookfield, which has a long history of investing in resource companies including many in the forestry industry, Robertson managed over $7 billion in North American distressed private equity, bridge lending and real estate finance.He has also served on a number of private and public boardsRobertson will report to David Paterson, AbitibiBowater`s president and chief executive officer.We are pleased to have Bruce Robertson on board and to share his expertise in corporate finance and restructurings, Paterson said in a statement.AbitibiBowater owns or operates 23 pulp and paper facilities and 30 wood products facilities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Korea.

Tough times for Washington newspapers leads state officials to give tax cut (US-Newspaper-Tax-Cut)

By Rachel La CorteTHE ASSOCIATED PRESSOLYMPIA, Wash. _ As newspapers across America struggle through a brutal economic climate, papers in Washington state are getting a tax break.A new law that gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 per cent cut in Washington`s main business tax took effect this week, providing some much-needed relief to the business after a year in which The Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed its final edition and other papers suffered drastic cutbacks.It`s not a bailout, because it`s not enough money, said House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, the Democrat who sponsored the measure. But it is our way of saying to the newspapers that we do believe you`re incredibly important to our state and our democracy.The Society of Professional Journalists and the National Conference of State Legislatures was not aware of any other state that has granted a similar tax break to the newspaper industry.In Michigan, a bill that was introduced in May would exempt newspapers from paying that state`s main business tax, but the bill has not yet had a hearing. And several states, including Mississippi, Idaho and Colorado, have existing sales-tax exemptions for newspapers.The Washington tax cut, which will cost the state about $1.3 million a year, was approved despite uneasiness in the industry about newspapers relying on the government they cover for help.But there was also a recognition that these are historic times for the industry.Newspapers across the country have resorted to layoffs, pay cuts, furloughs and other cost-cutting moves to deal with a wounded business model and a recession-fueled drop in advertising.The Post-Intelligencer was converted to an Internet-only publication with a much-reduced staff, and The Seattle Times _ the only mainstream daily left in the state`s largest city _ has had severe financial troubles of its own and has cut 500 positions in the past year.Gov. Chris Gregoire called the decision to stop printing the 146-year-old P-I a huge historical loss.Gregoire said that while the tax break won`t cure all that ails newspapers, she felt the state needed to do something.The industry has to right itself, and government can`t and won`t be a part of it righting itself, she said. But I don`t want government to be part of the reason that this industry can`t make it.In May, the company that publishes The Columbian filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to resolve credit issues involving a building project.Publisher Frank Blethen said things have improved slightly for his newspaper since earlier this year, when he testified in support of the tax break and said that we`re hanging on by our fingertips.We`re probably hanging on by our fingers now, Blethen said. The tangible result is with all the pressure on budgets and all the red ink right now, anything that helps dampen that means that there`s going to be fewer reporters laid off, and less content reduction. It`s not big enough to take a lot of pressure off, but it helps.The News Tribune of Tacoma publisher Dave Zeeck said that the approximate $100,000 a year in savings his newspaper will see is the equivalent of keeping two reporters on staff for a year.We are doing everything we can to preserve news content, and this certainly helps, he said, noting that they are still paying about $150,000 in state business and occupation taxes even after the cut.Washington state`s tax cut is to the state`s business and occupation tax, which is based on gross revenues instead of profit. Washington is one of just a handful of states that does not have a state income tax. The law provides newspapers the same discounted rate given to the aerospace industry, including Boeing Co., and the timber industry.But media watchers are quick to point out that those other industries have a different relationship with the government than newspapers.It makes me a little nervous, said Dave Aeikens, president of the Society for Professional Journalists. There needs to be a clear separation between the government and the watchdog role of the press. If it looks like there`s any type of tie, then the public`s not going to trust the press.Publishers say that line is not in jeopardy.We`re very good at separating our opinions from our news coverage, said Michael Shepard, publisher of the Yakima Herald-Republic. We`ve been doing that for hundreds of years. It wasn`t our reporters and editors who were asking for this relief.Rufus Woods, publisher and editor of the family-owned Wenatchee World, said he didn`t personally push for the tax cut because he didn`t think it was enough to make a difference, and that with the state`s current financial troubles, I didn`t think it was a good year to do it.I don`t think it`s up to the government to make us survive, he said. We need to figure out how to make that happen. We`re like any other business. We need to find new ways to do things.

Nobel Prize winning author criticizes Quebec`s new hydro project (Leclezio-Que-Hydro)

By Michel DolbecTHE CANADIAN PRESSPARIS _ Critics of a new hydroelectric project in Quebec now have a prominent ally _ Nobel Prize-winning author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio.In an opinion piece published Wednesday in French-language daily Le Monde, Le Clezio denounces the Romaine River hydro project launched by the Quebec government last May.The French author, who received the Nobel literature prize in 2008, decried the impact the $6.5 billion project will have on the region`s natural beauty.Look at the photo that accompanies this piece, he wrote.Because soon it may be nothing but a memory.Le Clezio goes on to predict that forests and the life they contain will disappear should massive dams continue to be built.The result will be the decomposition of flora and the asphyxiation of the ecosystem, he said.He also contends the river`s destruction would be an environmental catastrophe harmful to the Inuit way of life.Forever, the river has been visited by nomadic Inuit _ the Native American tribe known to Quebecers as the Montagnais, the prize-winning author wrote.The Inuit live in harmony with the river, it is their mother. For them, it is a sacred river linked through millennia to their history as it brings them game, fish and medicinal plants and berries.When Premier Jean Charest helped launch the project in May, he called it the biggest construction initiative in Canada.Four dams are to be built on the river on Quebec`s Lower North Shore by 2020.The Romaine River is one of the largest remaining undammed rivers in the province and flows through northern Quebec before emptying into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.Both Quebec and Ottawa have determined that construction of the dams should not have a major environmental impact on the river.The project would produce 1,550 megawatts of power, with the electricity from the complex just north of Havre-Saint-Pierre destined for export.In his article, Le Clezio also mentions Inuit poet Rita Mestokosho, who has spearheaded the fight against the behemoth hydroelectric project.She speaks of the fragility of the river, of the environmental disaster that would be caused by the flooding of the surrounding valley, he says.She speaks of the fragility of her people and how this project condemns them to death.Mestokosho wanted to go to court to fight the government decision but the Inuit Nation rallied behind the project, says Le Clezio, because they were pressured by Hydro-Quebec lawyers and the promise of jobs and economic development.It is easy to criticize that decision from a distance, he notes, but adds that he still thinks the river`s destruction would be an irreversible tragedy with as yet unforeseen consequences.If, despite evidence of the errors of the modern technocratic world, the Romaine river disappears, we will have lost something in the battle and be right to bitterly question the future we leave to our descendants.