CANADA GOES AHEAD

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6814, 18 January 1929, Page 3

CANADA GOES AHEAD

Great Building Boom Canada, states a special message to tlie New York ‘Herald Tribune,’ from Toronto, is in the midst of an unprecedented building boom. Every province shares in an industrial expansion which has caused the rush of new construction. In the larger centres an acute shortage of plasterers and carpenters exists. Toronto expects to double its building total of last year with a construction programme that, by the end of December, will total (30,000,000 dollars. Montreal has had to import workmen and steam shovels to keep pace with construction activities. Vancouver is growing so fast that it confidently expects to Tival Toronto in a few years for the title of second city in the dominion. All over the prairies there are signs that the industries of the east aro moving to the west. Even in the maritimes, long slumbering by the sea, the revival of trade has brought revival of building.

Feverish Pitch. Stimulated by the largest crop ever reaped in the dominion, construction activities are at feverish pitch to keep pace with the growth that bountiful money assures. The building boom is not a new thing. It has been coming for three years, each year gathering new momentum. It has been a steady growth with no evidence of wild speculating. This year it will set a peak far in advance of anything in Canadian history, and indications are that next year it will continue to a higher level. The pessimism of post-war year 3, which brought partial stagnation to industry and caused the exodus of many thousands to the United States, has been dispelled. Expansion greater than that of the United States, it is felt, is now taking place in Canada. The exodus is over, the return of Canadians has started. It is this more than anything else that has caused the acute housing shortage in Woodstock, London, Hamilton, Galt, and other Ontario cities.

Toronto’s New Skyline. The new era has already given to Toronto a new skyline. Bay street, the city’s financial centre, will bo entirely rebuilt within threo years. A dozen skyscrapers have gone up along this avenue within two years, and as many are projected. Increased assessments, brought chiefly by new buildings and added land values, have added a third to the city’s legal borrowing power. Construction is going so fast, that a shortage of building material is feared. Steel mills aro hard pressed to turn cut structural steel to supply the demand. Excavation for one Bay street building was delayed threo weeks because not a single steam shovel was available. Smaller Ontario cities reflect conditions in tho provincial capital. Hamilton already lias .more than doubled its building volumo for last year; and has work laid out for 1920 that will surpass this year. London downtown real estate has doubled in value in a few months. Windsor and adjourning towns almost suburbs of Detroit, soon will combine to form the second city in Ontario. All western Ontario larger towns and cities have reported record population increases.

Big Harbour Development Plan. To a less extent the same programme of expansion is under way in Quebec, Montreal already numbers more than a million population. Quebec, tho ancient capital, is rushing a tremendous harbour development scheme, and is planning new hotels to accommodate American tourists. In tho maritimes the complaint of poverty and demand for secession from Confederation so insistent four years ago has faded. The people by the sea are feeling, though to a less extent, tho same prosperity wave sweeping the rest of tho dominion. Perhaps the most spectacular change taking place in Canada is on the prairies. Industries are invading what long has been a purely agricultural section. Saskatchewan, tho granary of tho world, soon will bo the motor manufacturing centre of tho west. Manitoba already has been industrialised to a great extent. Exploration Reveals Niches.

Further explorations of the northern stretches of the prairies has revealed undreamed of resources. It is now known that iron ore of commercial possibilities exists north of tho Alberta coal fields. It is considered only a matter of time till the Turner Valley produces Canada’s gasoline supply. The tar sand of the Athabaska awaits only transportation to become the as* phalt substitute of the west, if not the paving material of tbe whole dominion.

Clays of all descriptions found in Saskatchewan already aro the basis of a growing cerumie industry. More and more of the west. is looking to the foothills of the Rockies for what is said to be tho dominion’s finest building stone. 4 The Hudson Bay railway will be a dream no longer. - Another twelvo months and this short- cut to the markets of Europe may mean far-reaching changes on tho prairies. A new outlet for grain, it may be a new outlet for Canadian manufacturers, and there are some who expect the Arctic route to create a new industrial area in the dominion. If navigation of tho straits proves feasible for a long enough period the cut in transportation charges to Europe will not only affect western Canada but Western United States. Railways Link up Country.

Railways aro rushing branches into undeveloped northern stretches. Tho Peace River country, greatest unsettled area of the dominion, is on the evo of its long awaited development. The C.'.P.E. proposes to connect it directly with the coast. All along the north lies the preCambrian shield—the same geological formation which has produced tho nickel and copper riches of Sudbury and the gold of Porcupine.. Copper to the value of millions is being mined in

Manitoba. Saskatchewan is still in tho pTosDccting stage. It is known that platinum exists, as well as copper, gold, and silver. British Columbia mining has attracted new attention in the last year, and has been one of the factors responsible for the huge growth in Vancouver. As .a harbour Vancouver now rivals Montreal for leadership in Canada; as a city it confidently hopes to be the future metropolis of the dominion. Vancouver’s growth depends on Pacific expansion, which seems bound to -come. Climatic conditions favour textile industries, anxl one British firm has moved its plant to British Columbia. This, Vancouver claims, is but the start.