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Catch up: A skyrocketing price gap in Toronto and other stories you may have missed today
Kat Sieniuc

This article was published more than 10 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Busy day? Here are five stories to help you catch up.

Price gap between condos and new houses in Toronto soars

The Toronto housing market has broke a fresh record: The gap between the price of a new house and a new condo in Toronto skyrocketed to nearly $300,000 in February, Tamsin McMahon reports.

A sign of what’s to come this spring, sales of newly built single-family homes jumped 17 per cent in February from a year ago, while condo sales were up 8.6 per cent.

The numbers reflect the shifting preferences of buyers in the region, who have become increasingly willing to bid up prices on the dwindling supply of single-family homes even as a glut of high-rise housing has given condo investors an abundance of choice.

Condo sales actually fell 6 per cent within the City of Toronto from a year earlier, although they rose in the suburbs.

Canadian drug trial could be pivotal for stroke patients

A potentially historic clinical trial for a stroke drug will begin rolling out in some Canadian ambulances this week.

Beginning Monday, emergency medical services will administer the Canadian-made drug NA-1 or a placebo to 558 patients across Peel, Toronto and Vancouver, Craig Offman reports.

The hope is that NA-1 can contain the stroke’s toxic damage to the brain, which would significantly improve the quality of life for a patient.

The trial also represents a high-stakes risk for the small Canadian company, NoNO, which discovered NA-1. The drug is a neuroprotectant, a class of stroke medication that nearly every major pharmaceutical company has tried to launch and failed.

The final results will emerge in two years.

Why Canada’s ‘bloated’ public sector is a good thing

Canada’s small and medium-sized businesses are calling the public sector “bloated.”

In a provocative study released today, the Canadian Federation of Independent business says workers in the private sector earn $8,150 a year less than their public sector counterparts, and work six hours more per week.

Well, thank goodness for that, Michael Babad writes.

Unlike private employers, the public sector is the only one creating jobs. In February alone, Canada lost 29,000 jobs among private employers and gained more than 24,000 on the public side.

And with unemployment spiking to 6.8 per cent - and expected to hover there at least through the end of next year - that’s something Canada desperately needs.

Grass grows up around the windows of an abandoned restaurant in Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick. Before the construction of the Confederation Bridge Cape Tormentine was home to a major ferry terminal that connected Prince Edward Island with the mainland. (Nathan Rochford For the Globe and Mail)

The shrinking Maritimes

After decades of declining fortunes, the Maritime provinces now find themselves trapped in “a perfect storm” of economic and demographic decline.

The cause of that storm is no mystery, John Ibbitson writes. Because of their fading economies, PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are running out of people.

But the real problem is the makeup of the population that remains. Every year, there are fewer workers to pay taxes and more older people in need of government services.

Disaster looms unless Maritimers work together to reverse the slide. This means:

  • Aggressively recruiting immigrants
  • Encouraging private sector business
  • No longer relying on federal support
  • Investing in its cities
  • Eliminating non-tariff barriers to the free movement of people and goods throughout the region

(Netflix/Associated Press)

Five fictional TV presidents more popular than Barack Obama right now

Americans just might prefer television presidents to their real-life POTUS.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll taken this month found just 46 per cent of Americans held a favourable opinion of President Barack Obama. That’s compared to 57 per cent for House of Cards’ Frank Underwood and a whopping 89 per cent for 24’s David Palmer.

Here’s how Obama compares with some of his notable fictional counterparts (% favourable):

  • Barack Obama, POTUS: 46 per cent
  • Frank Underwood, House of Cards: 57 per cent
  • Fitzgerald (Fitz) Grant, Scandal: 60 per cent
  • Laura Roslin, Battlestar Galactica: 78 per cent
  • Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing: 82 per cent
  • David Palmer, 24: 89 per cent

But with Americans sharply divided along partisan lines, it’s unlikely that any real-life president could achieve sky-high favourability ratings.


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