Ontario government reaches deal with some public workers

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ontario's government said on Wednesday it reached a deal with public employees to freeze wages for two years as part of a broader and contentious push to rein in the budget deficit.
The tentative deal with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union covers more than 35,000 workers, including government staff, a relatively small group of workers compared to some of Ontario's larger unions.
"This deal will help us meet our fiscal targets and it shows how everyone has a role to play to help Ontario eliminate the deficit," Ontario's Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said in a statement.
Last week, Ontario imposed new labor contracts on some 130,000 teachers, despite job action that included one-day strikes and teachers' refusal to carry out extracurricular activities.
Ontario's minority Liberal government reached deals with doctors and other teacher groups, but failed to agree terms with the larger group of elementary and secondary school teachers.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who said late last year that he would resign once the Liberals elect a new leader later this month, vowed last March that the government would reduce its C$14 billion ($14.18 billion) deficit by standing firm on public sector wages.
Credit rating agencies have repeatedly warned that Ontario needs to stick to tough austerity measures to curb the deficit. ($1 = $0.9872 Canadian)

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Canadian housing starts slow in December

10, 2010. REUTERS/Shaun Best
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian housing starts slowed in December but more gradually than expected as an increase in single-family starts in urban areas softened the sting of a slowdown in multiple-unit and rural ground-breakings, a report on Wednesday said.
Figures published by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp provided further evidence that Canada's long housing boom had ended, although activity remained robust in the cities of Ontario, the country's most populous province.
Seasonally adjusted, the annual rate of housing starts was 197,976 units in December, down slightly from 201,376 in November but above an average forecast of 195,000 among analysts polled by Reuters.
"Although today's numbers look a bit better than expected, they mark the fourth straight month of slowing in homebuilding activity, suggesting that Canada's once-bustling homebuilding sector is cooling," Emanuella Enenajor, an economist at CIBC World Markets, said in a research note.
The November figure was revised up from the 196,125 units reported previously.
The December numbers capped a strong 2012, with annual starts hitting 215,200, a 11.4 percent increase from 2011 and the third straight annual gain since the recession low in 2009, according to Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
"However, the year was marked by starkly different performances in the first and second halves — starts surged above 230,000 annualized in the second quarter before falling in five of the last six months of year after stricter mortgage rules weighed on demand," Kavcic said in a research note.
Fearing a bubble after three years of strong growth in sales and prices, the Canadian government tightened rules for mortgage lending as of July 2012, and home sales have begun to slow in many markets.
More slowing in housing starts is expected in 2013, though economists said historically low interest rates may limit the decline.
"If the preliminary evidence that the tighter mortgage regulations introduced in July has slowed demand is sustained, construction activity will slow further heading into the New Year," David Tulk, chief Canada macro strategist at TD Securities, wrote in a research note.
"If instead low interest rates continue to provide an irresistible incentive to prospective buyers and builders, construction will continue to run ahead of demographically supported levels (estimated to be around 185,000). In weighing the balance of risk around these two outcomes, we are biased to see starts remain close to 200,000 units in 2013 before dipping to 185,000 in 2014," Tulk said.
The CMHC said December housing starts were below the six-month trend.
The decrease recorded in December reflected a decline in rural starts, while urban starts remained stable. Housing starts were below their trends in all regions except Ontario, Mathieu Laberge, deputy chief economist at CMHC, said in a statement.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts dipped 0.1 percent to 178,870 units, with single urban starts climbing 8.6 percent to 67,419 units and multiple starts -- typically condominiums -- dropping 4.7 percent to 111,451 units.
There was a broad disparity in activity across the country, with Ontario urban starts up 33.4 percent but all other regions down. Urban starts fell 23.9 percent in the Prairies, 11.8 percent in Quebec, 8.2 percent in British Columbia and 1.6 percent in Atlantic Canada.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of rural starts fell 14.3 percent to 19,106 units from 22,298 units in November.

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Canadian hopes to make fantasy sports TV channel a reality

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's fantasy sports geeks may soon have a cable channel to call their own, thanks to Leonard Asper, former head of a newspaper dynasty that fell victim to the rise of online media.
"The League - Fantasy Sports TV" will not feature real sporting events. Instead Asper's proposed channel will air call-in programs and talk shows that cater to the millions of North American sports fans who are now participating in virtual baseball, football and hockey leagues.
Canadian media regulators gave Asper's Fight Media Inc the go-ahead on Wednesday to operate the channel, provided it can find a distributor.
Since timely information is crucial to any fantasy player's success, Asper is betting that The League will have a hungry niche audience.
In fantasy sports, "owners" assemble their teams by drafting and trading real-life professionals, essentially betting the players they select will get hot.
Statistics from real games - say, batting average in baseball, points scored or rebounds in basketball or touchdowns and interceptions in football - go to the virtual team that "owns" each player and aggregate to form the basis for the virtual league's standings.
In Canada, fantasy ice hockey pools are particularly popular, pitting coworkers or friends against each other for cash or bragging rights.
Starting in the 1990s, the Internet made game results more accessible, and virtual leagues easier to manage - Yahoo runs one popular service. Fantasy sports enthusiasts have become a key demographic for sports networks and leagues.
According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, there were 34 million players in the United States and Canada in 2010, up from 9 million in 2005.
Closely held Fight Media already operates Fight Network, a specialty channel devoted to "combat sports" such as mixed martial arts. The company is controlled by Leonard Asper, former chief executive of Canwest Global Communications.
The Asper family founded Canwest Global, once Canada's biggest media company, which crumpled under C$4 billion in debt, filing for creditor protection in 2009, and sold assets to Shaw Communications Inc and others.

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