From the Newsletter - April

Tax deadlines are now down to hours for many people, I hope you are not one of them. It would be tough to be working on taxes on such a wonderful day. The kids are outside more now so watch out when you are driving, and it may be time to find out if your sunscreen is still any good or if you need to get some more.

I have booked our spring camping and will soon have to actually organize "the stuff."

I was at a short seminar on the HST and it seems to me that this is a great opportunity for businesses to keep prices stable while getting some tax breaks and actually making the clients pay more. I am thinking of contractors in particular, so I suggest if you are hiring anyone for work being done after 1 July that you get them to rethink their before tax quote.

On the rate front the markets are clearly anticipating the Bank of Canada raising rates, so we have seen several jumps in the last month or so.

I also went to a seminar last week with a Benjamin Tal speaking, I like his take on this generally. the sad news was that he does not think the signs of recovery in the US are anything solid, and that Stimulus spending is still holding things together, and that banks are holding on to foreclosed properties to prevent a flood on the market. He commented on the commercial real estate crisis in the US and said it will have a much smaller impact that others have intimated.

In the US manufacturing sector the improvements have all been capital related with very little impact on job recovery, which means consumers will not be strong enough to take up the slack when stimulus ends.

He also commented on the strength of China, but noted that if China slowed down then the demand for commodities would drop which would affect Canada.

Canadian recovery is slowing and people turning to self employment has helped the job figures. From a market perspective there is apparently some $120 billion in cash sitting around looking for somewhere to go that would give their owners good returns, and given that much of it is held by boomers they will lean to conservative and dividend forms of investment.

Mr. Tal expects a 50 bps hike in June/July then possibly another 100 bps before they stop and wait for the US to start raising rates in 2011.


The days of US as the key economic player are gradually diminshing. The rate information and news items will come in below.

If you want to learn more about the effects of the new rules that came into play this month please contact me or check out some links at CMHC.

News and update

Well clearly I have neglected this for 2 solid years, odd it does not feel that long. I think times moves more quickly these days because it hardly feels like I have been back, but I have indeed been home for 4 weeks after our lovely vacation. Buisness has been good and the rate changes have kept me on my toes.