Out come the housing stats for the month for both new and resale housing and up comes the media curtain that everything is bad, things won’t be the same anymore and how are we going to make it to the next month? It’s like the old days when we waited for the car stats from the East on how many cars and trucks had been built in the month. The end of the world came many times.

Yes, it has slowed down, those peaks needed to level off and get us as close to normal as can be. It is still robust out there and over the last ten years of growth in this valley it is still moving in the right direction and it is positive if you will let it be. I don’t think I have been anywhere this week where I wasn’t in a line up, so something good is happening. The market is reasonably healthy. “It is re-adjusting to where a healthy market should be,” said my bank contact.

The Construction Sector Council just released a report that stated the province remains at the front of construction and employment growth in Canada. They predicted that we would need 47,000 workers from now through to 2016. The number breaks down like this 26,500 new workers to replace the retiring baby boomers and 21,000 to just keep pace with the projects in British Columbia. With provinces like Saskatchewan in boom times it is competitive for skilled workers and that is right across the West. In every province there is also challenges while employers try to keep some of the skilled workers getting nearer to retirement to think about remaining on the job. The year 2010 will see many non-residential projects in the province slowing down and that will be the first time since 2000. Canadian housing construction is at a gentle pace and remains healthy was the word from BMO Capital Markets.

There was worry from both Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney about the number of forty-year mortgages that have been written in the last twelve months. Forty two per cent of all mortgages are aimed at the forty-year period according to some sources. The announcement from CMHC was well timed to ensure Canada’s housing industry remains strong and reduces the risk of a U.S. situation developing in Canada.

Soaring energy costs are certainly a developing problem for disposable incomes. It isn’t just gasoline for our vehicles but natural gas and very shortly electricity as the hydro companies go for an increase in electricity prices. I look at the gasoline prices across the country and the difference in pricing stands at about six cents to ten cents from the East to the West. I was sitting in front of Cavell Tire on Springfield Road last Saturday waiting for my car and traffic at ten o’clock in the morning was horrendous. The streets were full and the vehicles for the most part were gas burners and I thought to myself when does it get to the price break when the vehicles leave the streets and are parked in our garages and driveways?

However, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, also an economist, doubts that will happen.

"All the evidence indicates that in the long term there is going to be strong upward pressure on the price of oil," Harper told reporters at the G8 Summit in Japan. "That doesn't mean it can't go down in the near future but over time there is going to be upward pressure because the pace of demand growth is outstripping supply, particularly low cost supply."

But Harper played down the inflationary threat posed by high oil prices.

"I'm not sure we'd say inflation is the major concern," he said. "I think that danger exists elsewhere. In Canada it is contained."

We have many manufacturers in the valley that need some help in presenting their products to new markets. We can’t depend on the American market alone to be the customer of choice, because as we are seeing now what happens when you have one customer. China has to be a customer of the future. Will free trade be an issue with the new U.S. president next year? Right now it is a talking point but when it comes time to look at NAFTA they will see that 7-million jobs in the U.S. are tied to the NAFTA agreement.

International Trade Minister Michael Fortier, on CTV’s Question Period, said Canada has a "good" relationship with China, adding that Canadian businesses need to take better advantage of the "tremendous opportunities" in Asia.

"China's economy is booming, as you know. They're creating almost 30 million jobs a year -- that's the entire population of Canada," said Fortier, who took over the trade portfolio from David Emerson in a cabinet shuffle several weeks ago.

"We need to encourage more Canadian companies to look at China, to look at India. I think we've been very lucky because of the attractiveness of the U.S. economy, a massive 330 million-plus people right there at our doorstep. At the same time we need to start looking at the tremendous opportunities in Asia."

With the North American economy stagnating, Canadian companies, long dependent on exports to the United States, must seek growth opportunities in other international markets.

The Thompson-Okanagan economy continues to be robust, attracting record numbers of new residents, according to the BC Check-Up, by the Chartered Accountants of British Columbia.

According to the CA report, population growth in the region was the highest in the province in 2007 at 2.5 per cent. Over the last five years, the region saw an influx of 35,000 new residents, an increase of 7.1 per cent and the second highest growth rate in B.C.

The strong population growth reflected the region’s strong job market. Last year, the region created 3,000 new jobs, and 48,600 jobs have been created over the last five years. The 23.4 per cent increase in jobs over the last five years is the best job creation performance of any region in the province.

Looking ahead, there are positive signs about the investment climate in the region. According to the BC Major Projects Inventory, there was a total of $24.5 billion worth of capital projects either proposed or under construction as of December 2007. The majority of this investment was residential/commercial development, mostly oriented to either the retirement or tourism markets.

The Thompson-Okanagan accounts for about twelve per cent of the provincial population.

Last week seven thousand people in Canada turned 60 years old. 1000 people a day. That will happened every day for the next eight years.