Satire
It's Monday, October 1st.
Unlike the housing meltdown south of the border, Canada's real estate market is showing no similar signs of slowing down. Across the country, prices for two-story dwellings are up 13 percent from a year ago. A house in Edmonton now costs more than one in Tampa, Florida.
Currently, Americans are warning of Armageddon.
This is The Current.
Canadian Mortgage Market
There are those who feel a chill coming on and they're blaming it on loosening rules around the hot housing market. As you know, house prices have been shooting up across Canada. By some estimates up to twice as fast as the rate of inflation. And for some time, those swelling prices have had home buyer wannabes complaining they can't break into the market.
But now, some experts are saying buck up. Mortgages with easy terms and loose lending rules are now making it possible for people to take on 35, 40, and even 50 year amortizations. That's a shift that means people can now finance their homes over terms nearly twice as long as their parents. Sold! say some house hunters but others as old as those parents are cautioning restraint. Last week, Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge said these rules may help to overheat the country's real estate market.
The mixed mortgage and market messages have many wondering if and when to buy. We heard from some residents of Winnipeg and Halifax with their home truths.
Our next guest shares some of the concerns held by Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge. Ron Cirotto, runs a website called www.amortization.com.He gives advice to consumers who are buying homes or leasing cars.He was in Toronto.
Mortgage Market Follow
So while these new lending options have their critics, some economists argue consumers could benefit from the changes.
Benjamin Tal is a Senior Economist with CIBC World Markets.He is currently compiling a report on how the loosening rules are changing the market.He joined us from Toronto.
Listen to The Current: Part 1
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
The Current: Part 2
Homeless Education – Mother
It's a kind of Catch 22. For homeless children, many believe the only hope and the only escape from the streets, the shelters, the hunger and often the violence is to get an education.
But a new study released today shows the obstacles to getting that education are huge. Everything from the social stigma - of their transient lives to the institutional shortcomings.
The report is called, "Lost in the Shuffle." A study that's the first of its kind in Canada and it provides a grim picture of how quickly, and easily children fall through the cracks of the educational system.
For a first hand account of the kinds of struggles we're considering, we were joined by a Toronto mother named Heather who has raised her children partly while living in shelters. She's asked that we just use her first name only.
Homeless Education – Report Author
Ann Decter has heard from many homeless families. And educators. She is the author of the new report we mentioned earlier, "Lost in the Shuffle." It was done for the Aisling Discoveries Child and Family Centre and the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto. Ann Decter is the Interim Director of Social Reform at the Family Services Association of Toronto.
Homeless Education – Teacher
Taking the lessons from this report into the classrooms and hallways of busy and often under-resourced schools has many challenges. To talk more about that, we were joined by Julia Klingenberg. She is a teacher at Westhill Public School in east Toronto.
Listen to The Current:Part 2
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
The Current: Part 3
God & Country Documentary
There is a dark grey compound, a jumble of concrete buildings that sits on the outskirts of Baghdad. It has a twisted past.Abu Ghraib prison was well known among Iraqis - long before the U.S. invasion in 2003, as the place of choice for the torture of political dissidents - those who opposed Saddam Hussein's regime. Today the world knows it as the site the American military used to torture Iraqi men and women.
It's a grim place few would want to visit. But this morning we wanted to take you inside the thick walls of that prison through the penetrating words of a man who served there in 2004. An interrogator for the U.S. military.
Freelance documentary producer Tina Pittaway traveled to Iowa City, Iowa to speak with Joshua Casteel. To find out how a devout Christian with a love of literature and philosophy found himself in the dank and musty interrogation chambers of one of the world's most notorious prisons. To find out the price of patriotism and the cost to one man's soul.
Tina Pittaway is a freelance documentary producer based in Toronto.
Listen to The Current:Part 3
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
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