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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/canadian-baby-boomers-stand-inherit-100000876.html TORONTO, June 6, 2016 /CNW/ - Baby boomers in Canada will inherit an estimated $750 billion over the next decade in the country's largest-ever transfer of wealth, one that is expected to alter the retirement landscape and have potentially significant economic impacts, finds a new CIBC Capital Markets report. Canada currently has just over 2.5 million people over the age of 75, of which close to 45 per cent are widowed, the report says. The number of elderly people in Canada today represents a 25 per cent jump over the level seen a decade ago. "We estimate that the coming decade will see close to $750 billion exchanging hands, almost 50 per cent more than the estimated amount of inheritance received over the past decade," says Benjamin Tal, Deputy Chief Economist, CIBC Capital Markets, who authored the report The Looming Bequest Boom – What Should We Expect? "The transfer is estimated to boost the asset position of Canadians 50-75 years old by no less than 20 per cent." There will be even more Canadians aged 75+ in the next decade, who will not only be the largest cohort of that age group on record, but also wealthiest, with an estimated total net worth north of $900 billion. He expects this shift in wealth, coming when boomers themselves are approaching retirement age, can potentially impact Canada's retirement landscape as well as many facets of the economy, including labour force participation, the real estate markets and transform income inequality into wealth inequality.

Huge news! Days of Future Past that was shot here in 2013 grossed $745 million worldwide and cost over $200 million to shoot. The new film's budget could be $250 million + Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Channing Tatum. Rumours of the original cast of Ian McKellen, Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry returning are also in the air. http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/09/04/x-men-returning-to-montreal

http://blog.buzzbuzzhome.com/2013/02/montreal-condo-market-optimism.html While the age-old rivalry between Toronto and Montreal has pitted the cities’ hockey teams and arts scenes against each other, there’s another set of bragging rights up for grabs. Which metropolis has the better condo market? Toronto may have mind-boggling number of new units coming on the market, but Montreal is no slouch when it comes to construction crane sightings. We previously reported on the flurry on new builds in Quebec’s largest city and now there are new numbers to make the case for the Montreal boom. Despite concerns about the market overheating, Property Biz Canada pinpointed some optimistic stats coming out of the Quebec Apartment Investment Conference: About 7,726 condo units will be delivered by 2016 in the downtown area, which includes Old Montreal, Griffintown and the Lachine Canal. Of those units, 64 per cent (or 4,658 suites) have already been sold or reserved, leaving 2,568 units left to be sold in the next four years (or 642 a year). According to Debbie Lafave, senior vice president of Baker Real Estate, investors make up 50 per cent of buyers of downtown Montreal condos, compared to the higher percentages suggested for Toronto. Some developers suggested that rental apartment buildings likely aren’t being built since rents in Montreal are too low and construction and land costs are too high to justify their construction. And condos are the most affordable means of entry-point into the Montreal market for first-time buyers. With a condo boom in Canada’s two largest cities, we can’t help but wonder: which city will see the steadiest gains and sales in the future?

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Montreal+police+Chargers/7123905/story.html#ixzz24F9CEr36 I saw one a few weeks back. I thought it was the SQ until I caught up with it at a light.

Montreal Forum adds a touch of Dawson College class Brenda Branswell Montreal Gazette August 9, 2010 MONTREAL - Some Dawson College students will have classes this year in a place they probably never expected to study - the old Montreal Forum. The downtown college is renting additional space in the Pepsi Forum because of an influx of 300 additional students. Dawson is creating nine classrooms in the building, including two computer labs for students who are studying social sciences, said Donna Varrica, a college spokesperson. Dawson is one of several colleges that is accepting more students for the coming school year. The decision to take in extra students came in June when the Quebec government announced it would inject more than $1 million to deal with the space problem at Montreal Island's crowded CEGEPs. Varrica said the top priority for Dawson was to find extra space that wasn't far from the college. Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Forum+adds+touch+Dawson+class/3378079/story.html#ixzz0w9Kr4HzN

Office vacancy rates to go even higher: report Financial Post Published: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 Neither Calgary nor Toronto can expect any immediate relief, as both will see millions of square feet of new supply coming onto the market over the next 24 to 36 months (seven million for Calgary and five million for Toronto). Sean DeCory/National Post Neither Calgary nor Toronto can expect any immediate relief, as both will see millions of square feet of new supply coming onto the market over the next 24 to 36 months (seven million for Calgary and ... OTTAWA -- Vacancies in Canada's office market have surged to 8.5% and will climb toward levels not seen since the dot-com bust earlier this decade before finally levelling out, commercial broker Avison Young said in a report Wednesday. "The vacancy rate will definitely be trending up in the coming quarters," said Bill Argeropoulos, director of research at Avison Young. "We're not sure if it will breach the recent high of 11.5% in 2003, but we do see the vacancy perhaps breaching the 10% barrier in the coming quarters and perhaps into 2010, largely because of new supply coming into the market." Furthermore, said Avison Young chief executive Mark Rose: "The global financial crisis has had a significant impact on market psychology, creating inertia and paralyzing decision-making. Recovery . . . will occur only when corporate profits return, unemployment rates drop and decision-makers believe were are trending upwards." In the past 12 months, vacancies have climbed more than two percentage points from the 6.1% rate of mid-year in 2008, and Mr. Argeropoulos said it will likely be the end of 2011 before national rates begin to level off. Mississauga holds the distinction of having the highest office vacancy rate in the country at 10.8%. Toronto experienced the highest annual change among eastern cities, climbing from 6.6% to 9.6% in the past 12 months, a three-year high. Calgary, meanwhile, underwent the highest change in vacancy rates among western cities, soaring from 3.6% in mid-2008 to 9.3% by mid-2009. Neither Calgary nor Toronto can expect any immediate relief as both will see millions of square feet of new supply coming onto the market over the next 24 to 36 months (seven million for Calgary and five million for Toronto). Both will definitely surpass the 10% vacancy rate in the months ahead, Mr. Argeropoulos said. Calgary also saw the largest plunge in rental rates, with downtown Class A space collapsing to $30 per square foot from $46. This is still the most expensive in the country, however, along with Edmonton, where prices are also at $30. Nationally, lease rates for downtown Class A space fell to $22 per square foot in mid-2009 from $25 the year before. Prices ranged from a low of $13 in Quebec City to Calgary and Edmonton's $30. Avison's mid-year office survey tallies results for 12 regions across the country. Canwest News Service ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Unused office space up 75% in Q2: report Garry Marr, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 The amount of unused office space business put on the sublease market grew by almost 75% last quarter from a year ago, a further indication of the crumbling economy. CB Richard Ellis Ltd. said more than 7.7 million square feet of office space came back into the market across the country, an increase from the more than 4.4 million that hit the market in the same quarter a year ago. The sheer size of the increasing sublease market drove the national vacancy rate to 8.3% from 6.4% a year ago. "The deepening recession has prompted businesses across the country to continue to identify ways to trim overhead and pare back their need for phantom space," said John O'Bryan, vice-chairman of CB Richard Ellis. "The trend of doing with less right now is especially evident in Canada's major office markets. However, it is important to note that the commercial real estate market typically lags behind the residential market by a few months, so we are simply now experiencing the slowdown that other markets went through in the last quarter." Mr. O'Bryan said the Canadian market continues to fare better than United States markets where vacancy rates reached 15.9% at the end of the first quarter. Canadian vacancy rates were only 7.5% at the end of the first. "If we were in the U. S. right now looking at a national occupancy rate of 91.7%, there would be a widespread sense of optimism regarding the health of the country's commercial market." But there are clear signs across the country that the office market has been hit hard by the economy with vacancies rising everywhere. In Vancouver, the beaten-down technology and resource sectors helped drive sublet activity. The effect was to push the vacancy rate from 5.6% to 7.8%. The once-airtight Calgary office market has sprung a leak as lower oil prices have led many of Alberta's junior oil and gas companies to cut their space. In the second quarter, Calgary's vacancy rate rose to 10.2% from 4.6% a year ago. CB Richard Ellis says it will rise to 20% by the end of 2009. Vacancies in Toronto, the largest office market in the country, rose to 8.4% in the second quarter, up from 6.7% a year ago. CB Richard Ellis expects rates to continue to rise in 2009 and 2010. In Montreal, softness in the commercial market drove vacancy rates up from 8.5% to 9.7%, on a year-over-year basis. The real estate company said cost-containment measures by large tenants have impacted the market. Backed by the federal government, Ottawa is proving to have the best office market in the country. The overall vacancy rate grew to 5.1%, only a slight jump from the 4.9% a year ago. Ottawa's suburban offices, which are more dependent on the private sector, were hit harder than the government-dominated downtown core. gmarr@nationalpost.com Here's the complete report : http://www.avisonyoung.com/library/pdf/National/MidYear09-National-Office.pdf

H&R REIT hits a roadblock with The Bow LORI MCLEOD November 14, 2008 When H&R Real Estate Investment Trust signed on as the owner and developer of EnCana Corp.'s new head office in Calgary last year, the deal marked a milestone. At the peak of the real estate boom in February, 2007, the handshake between the natural gas producer and the real estate developer set in motion the creation of a unique, crescent-shaped skyscraper which is set to become the tallest office tower west of Toronto. At the time it was announced the project known as The Bow, became a symbol of Calgary's coming of age as a Canadian financial powerhouse in the midst of the commodities boom. Almost two years later, times have changed and the development that was to become H&R's crown jewel has hit a funding wall. "At present there are no financing arrangements in place on any of the REIT's development projects, and the current difficult economic conditions have impacted H&R's financing strategy," the trust said late yesterday in a release of its third-quarter financial results. The trust said it is considering selling assets, including The Bow, to address its funding challenges. So far, attempts to find an investor for the project have failed and are unlikely to succeed until H&R moves further along with its financing and construction efforts, said Neil Downey, analyst at RBC Dominion Securities Inc. H&R's biggest problem has been the seizure of the credit markets, which happened swiftly, unexpectedly, and before it secured a construction loan for The Bow, said Dennis Mitchell, portfolio manager at Sentry Select Capital. Labour and materials costs are rising, and the cost of the project has risen from $1.1-billion to $1.4-billion. Adding to the pain is the downturn in the financial and commodities markets, which is sending office vacancy rates up and real estate values down. While the large scale of The Bow was a bit concerning, in "heady" times it was an exciting project, Mr. Mitchell said. "In February of 2007 you were essentially in the peak of the market. You were talking about [real estate firm] Equity Office Properties being purchased in a bidding war. You had people talking about a wall of capital coming into the markets. It was a pretty heady time," said Mr. Mitchell, whose firm recently sold nearly all of the 55 million H&R shares it owned. His view in February, 2007, was that H&R would be able to sell a 50-per-cent stake in the project at a gain in about six months. As the project proceeds, over budget and in need of $1.1-billion in funding, H&R is facing some tough choices, Mr. Downey said. While it was not mentioned as an option by H&R, Mr. Downey has raised the possibility of a distribution cut of up to 50 per cent, starting in 2009 and continuing until the project is completed in 2011, he said. "This would be a Draconian move by REIT standards," he added. However, it would provide H&R with an additional $300-million in capital, which should be enough to make up the financial shortfall if it can secure a $500-million construction loan, he said.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The credit crunch may only be in its early stages and a bigger contraction in lending in coming months could have "serious implications" for the U.S. economy, Standard & Poor's Rating Services said Friday. While politicians and others have complained that banks aren't lending, the data on credit outstanding credit in the U.S. only tenuously supports this idea, the rating agency said. See related story. "What's behind the apparent difference between perception and reality?" Standard & Poor's credit analyst Tanya Azarchs said. "It may be that, while growth in overall credit was positive through at least third-quarter 2008, it has risen at a slower pace than at any time since 1945 -- far below the 8%-10% rate in most years." Banks are replacing loans as they mature, but there's little net new loan growth, she noted. "That could mean that the slowdown in lending is just an opening act, and a true credit crunch may yet take the stage," Azarchs warned. Banks are making fewer and fewer commitments to lend, and new issues of bonds and securitized assets have slowed to a trickle, the analyst said. "This portends a contraction in total credit available in the coming months," she wrote. "Since this lack of lending may have serious implications for the economy, the U.S. government has been devising policies that would encourage banks to lend." Given such pressure, S&P is focusing more on whether banks are free to make loans they think are prudent and on the health of the overall economy, Azarchs said. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Credit-crunch-may-only-have/story.aspx?guid={4F0DA616-A789-49A7-9EFE-A65C5A0986F9}

Have Some Champagne With That Brisket? Montreal is just bubbling with Jewish culture November 08, 2007 Kathy Shorr Jewish Exponent Feature Ever since the Parti Quebeçois came to power three decades ago, bringing with it greater nationalism and stricter language laws favoring French, it's been easy to feel uneasy about Jewish life in Montreal. The Jewish community has shrunk from a high of about 120,000 before that 1976 election, to just under 100,000 now. Many who left were the younger, well-educated postwar generation of Ashkenazi descent, who had been educated primarily in English. (Barred from attending the Catholic, French-speaking schools, they'd attended the English-speaking Protestant ones.) But come to Montreal today, and you'll find a Jewish world that feels more vital than many American communities with comparably-sized communities. You can see live Yiddish theater, visit a new world-class Holocaust center and sample kosher restaurants serving everything from Chinese food to Moroccan chicken tagine. The Jewish community in Montreal is one of the most traditional in North America. According to a report by B'nai B'rith Canada's Institute for International Affairs, the community has a remarkably low intermarriage rate (less than 7 percent) and a remarkably high rate of religious observance (50 percent keep kosher). At roughly the same time that wave of Ashkenazi Jews left, about 20,000 Sephardic, French-speaking Jews arrived -- most of them coming from North Africa, especially Morocco. And with a continuing influx of Jewish immigrants, including as many as 10,000 Russian Jews in recent years, the city has maintained a vibrant Jewish culture that is now about 25 percent Sephardic. In Search of 'Duddy' Visitors looking for signs of Jewish life have several sections of the city to explore. Anyone interested in history will want to go to the Mile End neighborhood, the setting for Mordecai Richler's famous novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Just east of Mount Royal Park is a five-street-wide area between the Avenue du Parc and the Boulevard Saint-Laurent -- the Jewish neighborhood for much of the first half of the 20th century. The old neighborhood was increasingly abandoned after the war, as Jews started to make their way out to the suburbs. But Mile End is still home to a large Chasidic community. And it still looks a lot like it did when Richler wrote about going to Tansky's store for a package of Sen-Sen. The rowhouses remain, with their outside staircases and little balconies. And some of the old haunts, like Moishe's Steakhouse and Schwartz's Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen, are open for business as usual. The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre People come to Moishe's for the best steaks in town, while Schwartz's long, narrow dining room teems with crowded tables of patrons ordering sandwiches piled with smoked beef. Several blocks north is the St. Viateur Bagel Shop, celebrating its 50th anniversary. It is open day and night, 24/7, and regularly wins the prize for best bagels in Montreal -- as much for the atmosphere as for the bagels themselves. You can see the flames coming out of the wood-burning brick oven, and watch the bagels being pulled out on a long-handled tray and then dumped into a long, sloping bin. They still use the same recipe from 100 years ago -- hand-rolling the bagels and dropping them into boiling water for five minutes before baking. And forget about cinnamon-raisin or chocolate-chip bagels: It's sesame or poppyseed, and that's it! For a completely different scene, head west out Côte St. Catherine Road to Snowdon, a neighborhood of duplex and split-level homes, where many Jews moved after the war. There, you'll find a small campus of Jewish community and religious organizations and cultural groups. The Segal Centre for Performing Arts at the Saidye Bronfman Centre mounts plays of both general and Jewish interest, including an annual play in Yiddish. Montreal has the largest Holocaust-survivor population in Canada; across the street from the Saidye Bronfman are the Jewish Public Library and the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, with 5,000 square feet of exhibit space. The library sponsors all kinds of lectures, readings, films, and live-music and other events for both residents and visitors. A few blocks south of Côte St. Catherine Road is the commercial Queen Mary Road, which feels something like the way Mile End must have felt a few generations ago. There are charcuteries (delis that specialize in meats) where everything is labeled only in Russian, with vats of sweet-and-sour cabbage and trays of whole smoked fish and caviar. There's Israeli fast-food at Chez Benny and kosher pizza by the Snowdon metro station. Cell phones ring, voices chatting in French and Arabic more often than in Yiddish. Yes, indeed, Jewish life in Montreal has changed, but remains alive and well. For more information, go to: www. tourisme-montreal.org.

I feel a bit nostalgic, last year in December I went to visit my home country for the first time since coming to Montréal. I was shocked the moment I entered the "International" Airport of Damascus, I knew right away I was in a different planet. I thought that my initial shock would pass away, but no, it went from one shock to another. When I left Syria I was 7 years old, and I remember barely anything from there, while being born in Aleppo (second largest city), I lived all my life in a small town (300k) by the name of Al Qamishly on the border with Turkey and near Iraq. That city became slowly invaded by poor and restless Kurds. Everyone was telling me that Damascus was beautiful, modern, etc... well I can tell you that after seeing what Damascus was all about, I was not so thrilled to see the smaller towns and villages. Oh well, here's the tale in pictures of a spoiled Montrealer in Syria: First signs of western influence, laughed my ass off:) It is believed there's something like 4000 mosque in Damascus alone... thats alot of highrises THis is the Parlimant of the Syrian Republic... I took the pic without being noticed by the secret service dudes near me in an unmarked white car:D A pedestrian only street, you can shop all you want My host, Roudain One of the most if not most important shopping streets in Damascus The almighty Ministry of Economy and Trade... aka Mafia ...err Club not Clup Steets in eternal old Damascus: In Montreal we call that a ruelle, but its almost ten time smaller... yes people do live here Notice the black exterior walls, they were white but because of the pollution they became black.... Satelite dishes paradise....... Notice the mountain in the background and the dark area at its bottom... the dark is in reality savage construction done everywhere without any control or restraint... sad, imagine the Mont-Royal like that... Commie blocks Thats inside a restaurant on top of the mountain, sadly its empty because no one goes out in "winter" The patio... Damascus at night from the mountain Day one is over, i will post more in the coming days...