Unifor head says industry on the cusp of rebuilding, plays down Trump concerns + MORE Feb 18th

Toronto SunFinancial fraud detector accused of cashing in on hundreds of phony credit cardsToronto SunA woman whose job is detecting financial fraud has been busted along with her husband for allegedly cashing in on phony credit cards, fake ID, and bogus cheques. Toronto Police announced Friday last weekend's arrest of the Ajax couple when cops raided …and more »

CALGARY — A small green power company says it has closed a deal to buy a half-built oilsands power plant in northern Alberta halted 16 months ago by international oil giant Royal Dutch Shell.
Kineticor Resource Corp. says it has partnered with Ontario pension fund OPTrust to buy the 690-megawatt plant, one of the remaining vestiges of an Alberta oilsands building boom stalled by crashing global oil prices and doubts about pipeline access to markets.
CEO Andrew Plaunt says Kineticor plans to finish and repurpose the facility, which will use natural gas, as a standalone power plant to help replace coal power that the province has vowed to phase out by 2030.
The Calgary-based company says OPTrust _ the pension plan for unionized Ontario public sector and Crown employees, with $18 billion in assets _ has agreed to invest $125 million in Kineticor.
Neither Shell nor Kineticor would provide a price or other details of the agreement. A spokesman for Kineticor wouldn’t say when construction to complete the facility is expected to begin…

TORONTO _ The head of Canada’s auto workers union says the country is on the cusp of building its industry again and shouldn’t be concerned with the protectionist policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Unifor president Jerry Dias said the automotive industry is in an opportunistic time because of a recent commitment by the so-called Detroit Big Three automakers to invest about $1.5 billion in their Canadian operations after weeks of collective bargaining.
All three automakers said Thursday their commitment to those investments has not wavered.
Ford will still inject $700 million into its Ontario facilities, said Mark Buzzell, head of the automaker’s Canadian operations.
General Motors is busily implementing projects across its Ontario operations in Oshawa, St. Catharines and Woodstock with its promised $554 million investment, said Stephen Carlisle, president and managing director of GM Canada.
Fiat Chrysler remains committed to its $325 million of funding in Brampton, Ont…

If you live in Toronto you realize you’re in the center of the Canadian real estate universe these days. While the last few months have seen Vancouver housing sales decrease and prices stabilize, Toronto’s real estate market has been catching fire. And of course, economists and bond rating agencies have noticed, too.
Just this week Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets wrote in a commentary, “The Toronto market—and the many cities around it—are in a bubble,”  meaning prices are becoming dangerously detached from good financial and economic fundamentals, mainly because people in Toronto believe there is so much demand that it will cause prices to keep rising strongly, thus encouraging more people to buy—and adding fuel to the growing bubble.
The facts appear strong. Prices in Greater Toronto have risen 22.6% in January from a year ago. And while price increases across Canada are expected to slow this year because of tighter restrictions from new federal home financing rules that aim to make it harder to get a mortgage, BMO’s Porter believes that Toronto and any city that is within commuting distance is in a dangerously overheated housing market…

What is the best way to describe a Tax-Free Savings Account or TFSA? It sounds like such a simple question, but only one in five people taking our online quiz knows the answer.
Our query about TFSAs was of 20 questions we put to readers in an online quiz aimed at beginners in January. More than 2,600 attempted this question, but only 21% got it right. To put that in context the average score on our beginner quiz was 76%. No other question scored lower than 55%. What’s most surprising—at least to us—is that it wasn’t meant to be a trick question.
.cbR{box-sizing:border-box;display:block;width:100%;margin:1em 0;border:1px solid #bbb;padding:.5em}@media (min-width:480px){.cbR{width:250px;margin:0 0 1em 1em;float:right}}The ultimate guide to the Canadian Couch Potato Portfolio
The result supports what the financial advisors have long said about the TFSA: that a large number of people still don’t fully understand what they are or how to use it.
What’s in a name?
MoneySense has long argued that TFSA is a lousy name…