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Can the news get any worse for this City? Check out the story below.

First we rank at the top of the Jobless rate. Now we rank at the bottom of the list of the house price gains in cities across Canada.

Thank goodness the Mayor told us yesterday on CKLW, in answer to an anonymous but "astute" listener who sent in an email, about those several confidential companies that are bringing all of those jobs to Windsor. The Mayor, and all of us, welcome the day that they will tell us about their investments publicly.

I wonder if that listener was actually the clever Councillor Ken Lewenza Jr who was just kidding around with us. Why don't you remember that he and the Mayor made "the announcement of a "significant investment" by a company they would not name...that will create 200, 250 jobs producing high- tech products." That was back on November 11, 2005. It was "a new autoparts plant in the Twin Oaks industrial park ." Did we ever learn who that company was yet?

Home prices skyrocket
TAVIA GRANT, 11/04/06

Globe and Mail Update

Canadian house prices were 7 per cent higher in February than a year ago, rising at the fastest clip in 16 years, Statistics Canada said Tuesday. For the fourth month in a row, Calgary led the pack.

Higher costs for construction materials and labour were the main reasons why national prices rose, Statscan said. Strong demand in some cities also contributed to the gains.

The 7-per-cent annual gain may put pressure on inflation, said Ted Carmichael, chief economist at J.P. Morgan Securities Canada Inc.

“New house price gains are moving up toward levels not seen since the real-estate boom of the late 1980s,” he said in a note. “The rise in new house prices will gradually feed into the consumer price index for shelter, putting steady upward pressure on core services inflation.”

While prices continue to streak higher, the pace of growth seems to be moderating. February prices were 0.7 per cent higher than in January, down slightly from January's increase of 0.9 per cent.

On a year-over-year basis, prices in Calgary jumped the most, rising 22.8 per cent. “Higher material, labour and land costs, combined with good demand and increased architectural costs, were behind the increases,” the report said.

In Edmonton, prices are 12.5 per cent higher than a year ago. Winnipeg is also seeing a hefty gain, at 9.6 per cent.

The smallest year-over-year gains among the 21 metropolitan areas in the survey occurred in Windsor, where prices were up a scant 0.7 per cent from a year ago.