CIBC Report: "Toronto Top Performing Economy Amongst 25 Canadian Cities"

Charles Hanes
January 26, 2012

I've been telling you that Toronto is on fire for quite some time now and a recent CIBC World Markets' report supports my argument saying that "Toronto continues to lead the country, thanks to steady growth in population, employment and housing starts".

This is the second time in a row that Canada's largest city and Financial core has topped CIBC's Canadian Metropolitan Economic Activity Index. "For the second time in a row, the city of Toronto emerged as the one to beat, with the city showing the fastest economic momentum as of the third quarter of 2011," said CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal.

He goes on to say: "What's so impressive about the ranking of Toronto in our current reading is not that the city is once again ranked first among the country's largest 25 metropolitan areas, but the fact that it has been in the top five for more than six consecutive years, with the only exception being the 2009 recession when Toronto's ranking slipped to seventh place."

The Report emphasizes that Toronto's index of economic momentum "is currently at its highest level in more than 10 years".

Toronto, actually bottomed out in the third quarter of 2009, but has seen its population rise by 3.9 per cent, much faster than the 2.5 per cent growth seen in the country as a whole. I've repeatedly blogged that Toronto is experiencing massive repopulation not only from new immigrants and national immigrants but also from people historically living in the suburbs relocating to the downtown core due to a lack of road infrastructure that has led to commuting chaos comparable to Hong Kong!

All of this immigrations (international, national and local) has led to the real estate market being well balanced, with housing starts rising year-over-year."

Being in southeast Florida and seeing the mess in which America finds itself, possibly we Canadians should start pronouncing Canada as the "best and most impressive country in the world"!  Canadians are known for not being boastful.  Like the Energizer bunny things "just keep on going" in Canada while the entire world is suffering from financial crisis!

I'm Charles Hanes