acer rose

If you take the urban centres out of the equation, lumber and paper industries seem to be suffering for a variety of reasons
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...0-e9becd5a2975
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...d09dcc&k=66977

The high Canadian dollar is probably not exactly helping tourism at the moment either.

I don't know how these sectors compare to mining in terms of contributions to the BC economy but I would say that BC is not exactly looking rosy for quite a few people right now. As long as rich Albertans and immigrants (pseudo or otherwise) are buying property things look okay I guess.

Novocastrian

Pedantic perhaps, but the Canadian Government has no direct control over interest rates, the Bank of Canada does. Just like in the UK since the first days of NuLab.

MarkG

The Canadian dollar isn't high; it's just doing better than the piece of toilet paper they use below the border.

Western governments are engaged in a race to the bottom right now to see how fast they can devalue their currencies, which is why commodity prices have risen so much compared to those devalued currencies. So far the Canadian government have devalued less that most others.

MarkG

As I understand it, the Canadian government control how the inflation figures are calculated just as Gordon Brown does. If the central bank is supposed to keep inflation at 2% and the government tell it what the inflation figure is, how is that in any way 'indepdendent'?

House prices here in Saskatoon have been rising by 30+% a year; are we really supposed to believe that inflation is only 1.7%?

acer rose

I stand corrected on the specifics but had vaguely remembered hearing or reading during the ski season that tourism numbers were down, largely due to a drop off in visitors from south of the border.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...Tourism_080122
I don't suppose the current level of oil related transport costs will help bring them back yet.

Unless Euro-zoners, Australians or Middle Easterners (or wherever the currency looks good against the Canadian dollar) head here en masse with their buckets and spades it could well be a poorer year for those in the industry.

I'm not suggesting that the BC economy is in the doldrums (people I know seem pretty happy with things still), just pointing out to wannabe residents that there is more to BC than Vancouver house prices.

Sjt53

What to do, what to do? My strategy of coming on a TWP and applying for PR is looking more of a gamble in view of the slight air of uncertainty that seems to be around. It was like this here around a year ago, when everyone was making confident statements along the lines of, "Oh, there will be a house price fall of no more than 5%." (of course if that was all, we could just shoot all the Canadian estate agents, I refuse to call them realtors till I have PR, Problem solved.