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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9133399/Paris-to-trump-Londons-Shard-with-Europes-tallest-buildings.html Paris to trump London's Shard with Europe's tallest buildings The two skyscrapers will 40ft taller than the Shard, which is currently under construction in the British capital. Planning permission for the French project called Hermitage Plaza - designed by British artchitects Foster and Partners - was granted by Paris officials this week. The two buildings - which will house offices, luxury apartments, a shopping complex and a hotel - will dominate the skyline in the western business district of La Defense. Work began on the Shard at London Bridge in February 2009 and it is already Europe's highest construction project at a cost so far of around £450 million. The 87-storey building is due for completion in May this year, when it will stand at 1,017 feet tall and offer uninterrupted 360-degree views of London for 40 miles in every direction.

Je dois me charger de l'argent envoyé de l'étranger et je ne peux pas communiquer avec le contacter western union branche dans ma ville. Conseils?

From Canadian citizenship and immigration website at http://www.cic.gc.ca http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2006/permanent/21.asp Since 1997, Quebec's (90% of them settle in Montreal) immigration has increased by over 60%. For the year 2006, we had over 44,000 permanent residents added to Quebec's population, which is a record I believe. Here is the stat by city http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2006/permanent/18.asp Montreal beats Vancouver in terms of number of immigrants received. According to the website, Toronto is not getting the same volume it once received. Yet it still gets around 100,000 a year. Given our exodus of "cerveauxs" to the Western parts of the country, we need to increase immigration as our baby boomers are set to the retire within two decades. I hope this doesnt piss off the reasonable accomodations people.

(Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal)

(Courtesy of CTV Media)

Growth in mining sector reshaping Quebec economy BARRIE MCKENNA OTTAWA— Globe and Mail Blog Posted on Thursday, March 15, 2012 12:48PM EDT http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/daily-mix/growth-in-mining-sector-reshaping-quebec-economy/article2370299/ Think of the Quebec economy, and the traditional drivers are energy, forestry and manufacturing. But there’s a new engine in Quebec – mining – and it’s reshaping the economy of both the province, and the country. Investment in the province’s mining industry is expected to reach $4.4-billion this year, up 62 per cent from 2011. That’s nearly equal to the capital that will be poured into manufacturing ($5-billion), a remarkable 27 per cent of all business investment in the province and represents half of all mining investment in the country, according to a National Bank of Canada analysis of recent Statistics Canada figures. “That’s never happened before,” National Bank of Canada chief economist Stéfane Marion said in an interview. “It’s a huge growth driver for the province this year, and in the future.” It’s not the only first. Quebec will lead the country in mining investment this year, outpacing Ontario, Mr. Marion said. Mining investment is expected to hit $3.7-billion in Ontario, $2.8-billion in B.C. and $500-million in Alberta. For Quebec, the money pouring into dozens of iron ore, gold, copper and other mining projects could add a full percentage to GDP this year and cause an unexpected boost in royalty revenue for the cash-strapped government. It will also have spinoff benefits for Montreal-area manufacturers, who will help supply mining-related equipment. But Mr. Marion said there are broader implications. The Quebec economy is starting to look a lot more like the booming resource-rich provinces of the West. “This is a material change in the industrial structure of Quebec,” Ms. Marion said. “It brings the interests of Western Canada and Quebec into line. It’s not just a pure Western Canada story now. It’s spreading to Eastern Canada.” Quebec is also positioning itself to capitalize on the growing resource appetite in China and other fast-growing emerging economies, he said. And the good news: The mining boom is just getting started as Quebec plots its 25-year “Plan Nord” strategy.

Discard your stereotypes: people in the U.S. own fewer passenger vehicles on average than in almost all other developed nations. Americans love cars. We pioneered their mass production, designed iconic autos from the Model T to the Deville to the Corvette, and are a major exporter as well as importer. It's practically a part of the American national identity. But it turns out, according to a new paper from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on worldwide car usage, that American per capita car ownership rates are actually among the lowest in the developed world. The U.S. is ranked 25th in world by number of passenger cars per person, just above Ireland and just below Bahrain. There are 439 cars here for every thousand Americans, meaning a little more than two people for every car. That number is higher in nearly all of Western Europe -- the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, etc. -- as well as in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. It's higher in crisis-wracked Iceland and Greece. Italians and New Zealanders have nearly 50 percent more cars per capita than does the U.S. The highest rate in the world is casino-riddled Mediterranean city-state Monaco, with 771 cars per thousand citizens. America actually starts to look unusually auto-poor when cars per capita is charted against household consumption per capita, which the Carnegie paper explains are two typically correlated variables. That is, countries where household spend more money on average tend to also own more cars. The countries on the right side of the line are where people own fewer cars than you might expect. The developed countries on that side of the graph include the super-dense Asian city states (Macao, Singapore, Hong Kong) where car ownership is tightly regulated to keep traffic down, and the United States. The countries far to the left of the line own more cars than expected: car-crazy Italy, for example, and sparsely populated Iceland. I found this really surprising -- I'd always associated the U.S. closely with car culture, an impression anecdotally enforced by my interactions with non-Americans. So what explains the American outlier? The Carnegie paper explains that car ownership rates are closely tied to the size of the middle class. In fact, the paper actually measures car ownership rates for the specific purpose of using that number to predict middle class size. Comparing the middle class across countries can be extraordinarily difficult; someone who counts as middle class in one country could be poor or rich in another. Americans are buying fewer cars -- is it possible that this is another sign of a declining American middle class? Even if Americans are on average richer than Europeans, after all, U.S. income inequality is also much higher. According to the Carnegie paper, about 9.6 of Americans' cars are luxury cars, an unusually high number; but it unhelpfully defines "luxury" as "Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Lexus" (no Cadillacs?), which may help to explain why Germany's "luxury car" rate is 26.6 percent. Still, it's also possible that the answer has less to do with Americans adhering to Carnegie's thesis about car ownership predicting middle class size and more to do with other, particularly American factors. Young Americans are spending less of their money on cars, as Jordan Weissmann explained, as they get driver's licences at lower rates and spend more of their money on, say, high-tech smart phones. Amazingly, Americans still manage to suck up far, far more energy per person than do the people in those Western European nations with so many more cars per capita. Our oil usage per capita is about twice what it is in Western Europe, and here's our overall energy usage: Whatever the reason for America's comparatively low car ownership rate, it may be time to update our stereotypes. The most car-obsessed place in the world isn't the nation of Detroit and Ford and Cadillac. It's Western Europe, the land of Peugeot and Smart Cars and Ferrari, where cars are most common. L'article avec les graphiques mentionnés plus haut: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/its-official-western-europeans-have-more-cars-per-person-than-americans/261108/ L'étude: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2012/07/23/in-search-of-global-middle-class-new-index/cyo2

Read more: http://www.westislandgazette.com/news/32005 Got to love election time Aren't these the same people that said we would get trains in the West Island?

(Courtesy of the Guardian UK)

(Courtesy of Daily Markets)

I just returned from my annual vacation on Prince Edward Island. One thing that strikes me every time is the sheer time it takes to get from Montreal to PEI. IMO, this could be significantly shortened if Quebec Autoroute 10 were to be extended through Maine (passing adjacent to Bangor) and connecting with New Brunswick Highway 1. This would allow for a quicker passage from Montreal, Ontario and Western Canada to the Maritimes. The proposed divided highway would be about 400 KM (250 miles) in length, and would be significantly shorter than the alternate route by way of the TransCanada/Autoroute 20/NB Highway 2.

May 20, 2008 Lodging Econometrics Reports Canadian Construction Pipeline At a High in Q1 2008 with 265 Projects/33,964 Guestrooms The Pipeline Has Now Begun to Unfold in Earnest USA – Lodging Econometrics (LE), the Global Authority for Hotel Real Estate, announced that Canada’s Construction Pipeline totaled 265 projects and 33,964 guestrooms at the end of Q1 2008, a high for the cycle. Hotel construction in Canada has been solid. The total number of guestrooms in the Pipeline grew for an eighth consecutive quarter, and is up 14.2% year-over-year. All projects included in the LE Pipeline have dedicated land parcels, are being actively pursued by developers and have been verified by the brands. The total Pipeline appears to have reached its peak, as project and room counts have held steady for the past three quarters. Those to Start Construction in the Next 12 Months, 93 projects/11,649 rooms, and those in Early Planning, 83 projects/9,975 rooms, are at highs for the cycle. Meanwhile, the totals for Under Construction, 89 projects/12,340 rooms, are down from the cyclical peak established in Q2 2007.” Several Factors Have Developers Becoming Cautious Certain dynamics have aligned to cause developer caution. The Bank of Canada instituted three consecutive decreases to its key interest rate since December 2007, down a quarter-point in both December and January, then a further half-point in February, indicating concern about a slowing in the economy. Hotel operating statistics were strong in 2006 and 2007, however, a continued decline in visitors from the United States due to the low US Dollar, higher gasoline costs and reductions in discretionary spending, along with indications that domestic travel is apt to decline as well, mean that guestroom demand is likely to soften moving forward. With these emerging concerns, it appears that hotel developers are taking a cautious approach for the moment. The number of New Projects announced into the Pipeline, 15 projects/2,038 rooms in Q1 2008, represents a 58.3% decrease from Q4 2007 for both projects and rooms. It is the smallest count seen in over three years. Construction Starts for Q1 2008 totaled just 9 projects/1,329 guestrooms. Although first quarter Construction Starts are historically slower than the rest of the year, the counts for Q1 2008 are at a very low level. Projects already in the Pipeline are proceeding at a sluggish pace, with projects backlogged in the Scheduled Starts and Early Planning stages, suggesting that developers are more conservative and taking a wait-and-see approach. LE’s Forecast for New Hotel Openings LE’s Forecast for New Hotel Openings estimates that 82 projects having 9,554 rooms will come online in 2008, while 88 projects/10,807 rooms are slated for 2009, with 12,340 rooms already Under Construction. This represents a gross growth rate of 3.5% and 3.8%, respectively, before any guestrooms are removed from inventory. Net New Supply grew 2.0% in 2006 and 1.9% in 2007. Currently, The Pipeline, growing throughout the decade, is beginning to unfold just as demand is modestly starting to soften. Development is Concentrated in Key Markets Of the 33,964 rooms in the total Pipeline, only 16% of those rooms are full-service, with 57% in the select or limited service segments. Another 27% is currently designated as Independent. Approximately 70% of those rooms in the Independent segment will choose a brand prior to opening, mostly in the select and limited service category. The bulk of hotel development is in the Central and Western regions. Ontario leads the Central provinces in terms of pipeline counts, with 94 projects/14,072 rooms, while Quebec has 25 projects/3,800 rooms. In the Western Region, Alberta, with 61 projects/6,457 rooms, and British Columbia, with 44 projects/5,430 rooms, have the largest provincial pipelines. Ten markets have the significant share of the Pipeline. In these markets, there are 123 projects/18,902 rooms, or 56% of the total Pipeline. In Ontario, Toronto leads with 34 projects/5,946 rooms, with Niagara Falls second at 13 projects/3,013 rooms. In Quebec, Montreal’s pipeline stands at 11 projects/1,786 rooms. For the Western Region, Vancouver, at 19 projects/2,628 rooms, Edmonton, at 13 projects/1,526 rooms, and Calgary, at 10 projects/1,486 rooms have the largest pipelines. All other markets have six or fewer projects. Global Brands Lead the Way Global brands currently make up 72% of projects within the total Pipeline. InterContinental leads with 55 projects/5,626 rooms, with 40 Holiday Inn Express’ and 9 Holiday Inns. Marriott International has 28 projects/4,115 rooms under development, 15 of which are Residence Inn and Fairfield Inn properties. Hilton Hotels follows, with 24 projects/3,701 rooms, then Starwood Hotels & Resorts with 15 projects/3,021 rooms. Super 8 accounts for 31 projects/2,184 rooms of Wyndham Worldwide’s total pipeline, most of which are being developed by master franchisor, Superior Lodging Corporation. It’s a Time of Transition After rapid growth mid-decade, the Construction Pipeline may be at its cyclical peak. The economy appears to be moderating and lodging demand slowing, yet New Openings flowing from the Pipeline will be accelerating throughout 2008 and 2009. Developers have sensed the economic transition and turned cautious, as both New Project Announcements and movement within the Pipeline are slowing. It’s early in the transition. More time will be required to assess trends for the near term. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: This info comes from http://www.lodgingintelligence.com/2008/Canada%201Q08/1Q08CanIndustry.htm

that's an interesting line and i agree that both of these areas could use better access to rapid transit. that said, you've probably already seen my take on it, as seen here in it's latest revision (!!!!) : the white line forking off of the green routes north of frontenac serves to irrigate the eastern end of the plateau area, connecting the nord-east of montreal-north & rdp through pie-ix. oh and wouldn't you know it, there is a subway+tram station just east of d'Iberville of course this doesn't do much for the western end of the plateau / mile-end district, but i do believe that both the parc avenue & st-joseph blvd tram routes proposed on my plan would more than bridge the gap between the different subway routes surrounding the area (and you can count 5 of them, which isn't bad at all). they'd also promote short distance commuting within those neighborhoods. rosey12387, got more routes? i'm always curious to see the works of others

Announced new routes: Toronto-LA, Toronto-Nashville and Calgary-Thunder Bay. No new routes in Montreal, no new growth in frequencies despite considerable cuts in Western Canada

Article Western Australia = B.C / Alberta Victoria = Quebec NSW = Ontario Doest that seem right?