Artist’s rendering of development

CBC radio broadcast it time and time again this morning. The Ottawa Citizen practically gushed about how wonderful the concept is. But the jury is still out in my opinion on whether the compromise between Ottawa builder Ashcroft, city planners and the community will actually protect this heritage site. Just check out the historic sites at: 635 Richmond Rd (also with condos built all around it); 2988 Richmond Rd (condos around a historic schoolhouse). Fine examples of how historic preservation and commercial developments are not good bedmates in Ottawa.

  As of Saturday this week, we will meet our new Museum of Nature. I am not sure if I would want to be at the grand opening at noon (I HATE crowds!), but I will definitely be there before Sept 6th as that is when three temporary exhibits depart, one being the Canadian Wildlife photography competition.

   To check out more details go to www.Nature.ca

Photo by Jean Levac / Ottawa Citizen

We’re giving away 2 tickets to the December 28th game between Ottawa & Montreal! Game time is 7:30 p.m. and parking is included.

Entry deadline is Tuesday, Dec. 22nd

How to enter:

In the comments section below enter your:

• name
• phone numbers
• best email to reach you at
• the cool new web features we have launched -there are 3 of them in total. (To find them go to Carole’s website, click on the listings page and then click on 156 Osprey Cres. With this listing we have introduced 3 new web features that will keep us on the cutting edge of technology – name one of them & your name will be entered once, name two & your name will go into the draw twice, name three…well you get the idea!)

***NOTE: Your name & entry will not be visible on the public site****  

GOOD LUCK! BOTH TO YOU AND THE SENATORS!!!

Entry deadline is November 9th.

 How to enter:

In the comments section below enter your:

• name
• phone numbers
• best email to reach you at
• and to see if you were AWAKE while reading the newsletter…who did you see pictured in the newsletter that you will NOT see at the game?!

***NOTE: Your name & entry will not be visible on the public site****  

GOOD LUCK! BOTH TO YOU AND THE SENATORS!!!

 

 

 

The draw will be November 9th at 3:00 pm and the winner’s name posted on the blog and notified.

How to enter:

 Entry deadline is 4 p.m. on April 2nd

 How to enter:

Go to my website (www.caroleevans.com) and look through my CURRENT listings for a picture of a hummingbird (spring is in the air you know!!).  In the comments section below enter your:

• name
• phone numbers
• best email to reach you at
• the address of the house where you found the picture of the hummingbird
• and the word “Clients” if you are a current or past client (in which case your name goes into the draw twice).

***NOTE: Your name & entry will not be visible on the public site****The draw will be April 2nd and the winner’s name posted on the blog and notified.GOOD LUCK! BOTH TO YOU AND THE SENATORS!!!

The legendary editor of The New Republic, Michael Kinsley, once held a “Boring Headline Contest” and decided that the winner was “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.” Twenty-two years later, the magazine was rescued from its economic troubles by a Canadian media company, which should have taught us Americans to be a bit more humble. Now there is even more striking evidence of Canada’s virtues. Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it’s Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system the healthiest in the world. America’s ranked 40th, Britain’s 44th. Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn’t grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense. Over the past 15 years, as the United States and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers. Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1. Partly this reflects Canada’s more risk-averse business culture, but it is also a product of old-fashioned rules on banking. Canada has also been shielded from the worst aspects of this crisis because its housing prices have not fluctuated as wildly as those in the United States. Home prices are down 25 percent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada. Why? Well, the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest on your mortgage isn’t deductible up north. In addition, home loans in the United States are “non-recourse,” which basically means that if you go belly up on a bad mortgage, it’s mostly the bank’s problem. In Canada, it’s yours. Ah, but you’ve heard American politicians wax eloquent on the need for these expensive programs—interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year—because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home. Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? – It’s 68.4 percent.

Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses, and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position. The government has restructured the national pension system, placing it on a firm fiscal footing, unlike our own insolvent Social Security. Its health-care system is cheaper than America’s by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes. Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States; “healthy life expectancy” is 72 years, versus 69. American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America’s largest car-producing region.

I could go on. The U.S. currently has a brain-dead immigration system. We issue a small number of work visas and green cards, turning away from our shores thousands of talented students who want to stay and work here. Canada, by contrast, has no limit on the number of skilled migrants who can move to the country. They can apply on their own for a Canadian Skilled Worker Visa, which allows them to become perfectly legal “permanent residents” in Canada—no need for a sponsoring employer, or even a job. Visas are awarded based on education level, work experience, age and language abilities. If a prospective immigrant earns 67 points out of 100 total (holding a Ph.D. is worth 25 points, for instance), he or she can become a full-time, legal resident of Canada. Companies are noticing. In 2007 Microsoft, frustrated by its inability to hire foreign graduate students in the United States, decided to open a research center in Vancouver. The company’s announcement noted that it would staff the center with “highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S.” So the brightest Chinese and Indian software engineers are attracted to the United States, trained by American universities, then thrown out of the country and picked up by Canada—where most of them will work, innovate and pay taxes for the rest of their lives.

If President Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our quiet—OK, sometimes boring—neighbours to the north. Meanwhile, in the councils of the financial world, Canada is pushing for new rules for financial institutions that would reflect its approach. This strikes me as, well, a worthwhile Canadian initiative.