What’s ahead for the next two years?
The BC economy will
continue its strong pace into 2008. Employment growth
will be bolstered by investment in non-residential
construction, while increased purchases of machinery and
equipment signals business confidence and future
productivity gains. Consumer spending, underpinned by
wage growth and low unemployment, is on track to equal
last year’s strong performance.
Interest rates are
facing downward pressure, but expect both the Bank Rate
and fixed mortgage rates to remain flat this year. Bond
yields will edge up in 2008, impacting fixed mortgage
rates, and further eroding housing affordability.
Home sales in BC
are forecast to dip another two per cent in 2007.
While the robust
provincial economy continues to stimulate housing
demand, affordability constraints will keep some
would-be home
buyers on the sidelines. As a result, home prices will
rise more moderately this year, five-eight per cent on
average, but still several times the rate of inflation
Major
newspapers
The Vancouver Sun has a good coverage of what is
going
on in the lower mainland (in and around Vancouver).
The electronic version has headline stories and you can
subscribe too, if you want access to more.
The Globe and Mail is a national Canadian paper,
so doesn't cover local stories quite as much as some of
the
other papers. Electronic addition has subscriber only
elements,
but you can get headlines by e-mail.
The Province is another Vancouver center newspaper.
The Times Colonist is a Victoria based newspaper.
Victoria News is another Victoria based newspaper
Other regional papers:
There are a huge number of
regional and community papers.
See a list at:
BC Newspaper Group
Other
papers:
The Georgia Straight is Vancouver's art and
lifestyle weekly free paper. Worth a read to see what is
happening from a slightly left wing perspective. Good
for restaurants, movies, theatre, music, books and bars.
Has back issues online and is searchable
Radio stations
When we were waiting to
go to Canada, we sometimes enjoyed listening to some of
Vancouver’s radio stations. Again you can get a feel for
a community from some of the DJ's banter or the calls
that come in.
Here are a small
selection of radio stations to choose
from:
CBC Radio
BC (news
and talk from BC, Vancouver and Victoria)
Vancouver
CKNW
(News, talk radio)
Jack FM
(Playing
what they want in Vancouver)
Rock
101 (Rock
station in Vancouver)
Z
95.3 (Pop station in Vancouver)
There are many other
radio stations with web sites (e.g. see the Jim Patti
son Broadcasting group’s
station
list) but
we haven't found any that we can recommend.
