trend

A record number of used-vehicle imports is undercutting prices, Scotiabank says. (CBC)

Used car prices will continue to weaken into the first and foremost half of 2009, the Bank of Nova Scotia forecast Wednesday.

The beam’s used car price index malignant seven per cent below its year-earlier level in the first quarter, led by some 11 per cent small quantity in prices for one-year-old models. It was “the weakest performance on record for data back to 1978,” the surround with a bank uttered in its Global Auto Report, released Wednesday.

“We expect used car prices to continue to soften through at the opening of day 2009, pressured by rising unemployment in both the United States and Canada,” Carlos Gomes, Scotiabank senior economist and auto industry specialist, said in a release. Vehicle sales in general are falling — into disrepute 11 per cent in March in North America from the year-earlier period, the report said — but the Canadian used-car market is facing several specific factors contributing to the weakness.

• Imports of used cars from the U.S. are undercutting Canadian prices.
• New car prices are falling, pushing down second-hand prices.
• More than 550,000 car and light-truck leases will breathe out in Canada this year, roughly 50,000 more than in 2007.

When a lease expires, it the automaker takes the instrument back, it then has to resell it to a dealer or by auction sale. As more leases expire, “obviously, it increases the supply in the used emporium,” Gomes said.

During the first quarter, used vehicle imports climbed to a remembrance 64,082, matching the total notwithstanding all of 2004. The bank is estimating that imports will hit 200,000 for the full year.

CUV sales bucking the trend

The bank report said that while vehicle sales are falling and used-car prices are dropping, Canadians love crossover utility vehicles, or CUVs.

Sales rose nearly 30 per cent in the first quarter, compared through the first quarter of 2007, and CUVs now show 20 per cent of integral new vehicle sales in Canada, increase twofold their share in 2004.

The vehicles consider be proper for so popular that Ford is hiring an additional 500 workers at its plant in Oakville, Ont., to make the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX CUVs, the rowing-beam before-mentioned.

Private woodlot owners repeat they hope a newly come three-year, $18-million agreement with the province desire make things better in New Brunswick’s silviculture industry.

There have been protests and predictions of prostration in the assiduity ago the government slashed the private woodlot silviculture program budget last month. Silviculture is the program that maintains forests in the province.

The latest budget tabled in March trimmed the New Brunswick government’s grant to thin trees and plant new ones on private woodlots from $8 million to $4 very great number.

Instead of paying 80 per cent of woodlot owners’ silviculture-treatment costs, the domain will now pay only 70 per cent, up from the 50-50 split proposed in the budget.

The province said it was able to earn $2 the great body of the people every year for three years through the novel national Community Development Trust after the budget was tabled.

“This government has always been supportive of private woodlot owners,” said Donald Arseneault, New Brunswick’s natural funds administrator, in a release Wednesday. “I’m obviously very pleased that we were able to be innovative in reaching an agreement that everyone can work by.”

The deal is still a divide, but it’s something the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners said it thinks it can manage.

“Our membership feels that this is a equitable agreement,” said Andrew Clark, the federation’s president. “We’re confident we can work with government to ensure that important silviculture work on private land can persist.”

Canada’s Olympic athletes will be sporting a tinge of green in their traditionally red and white uniforms at the Beijing Games — not only as a colour but likewise in the eco-friendly fabrics used for the garments line.

Models and Olympic athletes image the clothes that will have existence worn by Canada’s Olympic athletes in the athletes’ hamlet at the Beijing Games during a fashion appear in Toronto Wednesday. (J.P. Moczulski/Canadian Press)

The Hudson’s Bay Company unveiled the athletes’ clothing thread for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Toronto on Wednesday.

The outfits use such materials as bamboo, organic cotton and cacona, which is derived from coconut.

Designer Tu Ly aforesaid the influence to environmentally sustainable materials was made not straitened by a larger worldwide direction that increased the availability of such products.

“It was a real movement in every part of our lives, so it was obdurate not to be conscious of it,” Ly said in an parley Wednesday with Canadian Press prior to the unveiling of the clothing line.

Designers also adapted the clothing to the high temperatures expected in Beijing after consulting with athletes who took part in the 2004 Summer Games in Athens. Those athletes said they were unprepared for the heat in Greece.

With that in mind, the clothing for the Beijing Games was made using fabrics that provide UV protection, four-way hold out, odour resistance and wicking and cooling properties to help last athletes comfortable.

While some of the designs exercise only the traditional red and white colours of the Canadian Olympic team, others feature a busy blend of symbols and patterns in a mix of muted tones.

Colour and design inspiration came in limb from the five aspects of Chinese astrology — earth, wood, fire, water and metal — the designers said in a press release.

Also used are of that kind Chinese symbols as the lucky number 8, represented both as a numeral and an octagon.Olympic rower Krista Gulien models one of the shirts featuring the colours of the five elements of Chinese astrology. (J.P. Moczulski/Canadian Press)

The line also includes a multi-functional piece called the B-tube, which designers say could have existence sported as a bandanna, hair band or even a mask to pass through a strainer smog while in China, where air pollution is a business for athletes.

“We felt that this time round, we wanted the athletes to make it their own,” Ly said of the piece.

Sports fans and style-watchers sanguine to see the other put into of Olympic clothing, which resolution exist donned by athletes during the Aug. 8 opening ceremony and on the medal podium will accept to wait until the Games for the unveiling.

Many pieces will be available for sale of the same kind with replica wear at the Bay, Zellers, on the Hudson’s Bay Company website, as well as during the Olympics at Canada House and the BC Pavilion in Beijing.

Each Olympic team member will believe 25 items, including jackets, pants, shorts, hoodies, T-shirts, shoes and traps, as easily as “team only” products such as the opening ceremony equipment and medal continuous pedestal jacket.

With files from the Canadian Press

The NHL’s most of all road team is going home to play at least one other game.

Milan Michalek scored his third post of the series to lift the San Jose Sharks to a 2-1 win outer the Stars in Dallas Wednesday night to stave off elimination.

The victory by the Sharks, who sported a league-best 27-10-4 record adhering the road during the regular season, was its first away from fireside since Game 4 of their first-round concatenation against Calgary.

Dallas leads the Western Conference semifinal 3-1, with Game 5 of the best-of-seven line slated for Friday night in San Jose.

More to come

The B.C. government is overhauling election rules which will hold new spending limits, a so-called “gag” on third party advertising and stronger voter identification requirements.

Attorney General Wally Oppal says the changes follow recommendations made by B.C.’s cardinal electoral officer in 2006, to clarify the transaction for voter registry, establish a more accurate voters’ list and give the electoral officer more power to enforce the rules.

Under the changes, harvested land party can spend up to $4.4 million put on the 28-day election campaign, and up to $2.2 million during the 120-day proposition before the campaign begins.

Restrictions on third party advertising, so-called discrimination gag laws, will see third parties limited to expenditure $150,000 during the entire 148-day period.

The new law will furthermore edict contributions from treaty political parties to prevent federal tax dollars from funding provincial campaigns.

In addition, door-to-door enumerations will resume after the 2009 preference, voter identification requirements direct be beefed up to reduce voter fraud, and more voters will be dexterous to register by telephone.

© The Canadian Press, 2008

Manny Ramirez, left, and Kevin Youkilis celebrate Wednesday’s 2-1 Red Sox win. (Winslow Townson/Associated Press)

Manny Ramirez slid in just ahead of the tag on Jason Varitek’s ingenuous in the ninth Wednesday night, giving the Boston Red Sox their second straight win in their last at-bat, 2-1 over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Ramirez barely beat the throw from centre-fielder Vernon Wells, who had thrown out Jed Lowrie at the plate on the anterior play, a single by Brandon Moss.

When arbitrator Sam Holbrook made the trusty call, Ramirez slammed his helmet to the ground and was swarmed by dint of. teammates.

The Red Sox had hackneyed the Blue Jays 1-0 on Tuesday night on Kevin Youkilis’s RBI single to centre in the ninth, which drove in Ortiz from second base.

On that play, the ball took a inflated spring that Wells couldn’t handle, and he didn’t shape a throw.

Jonathan Papelbon (2-0) won for the second perpendicular night as Boston took the lead in its last at-bat for the fifth era in its last six victories.

Scott Downs (0-1) had put runners at first and back with no outs in the ninth on a single by Ortiz and a walk to Ramirez.

Mike Lowell then struck through before Moss singled.

Ortiz had broken a scoreless tie with his fifth homer of the acclimatize in the seventh, breaking Dustin McGowan’s string of retiring 16 erect batters.

Toronto tied it in the eighth on Alex Rios’s sacrifice fly against Hideki Okajima after Adam Lind singled off Manny Delcarmen and took third when Gregg Zaun doubled.

Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up two hits in seven scoreless innings and has allowed just 20 hits in six starts case 35 2-3 innings this season.

It was his first brave in 12 days, approach after he missed a scheduled start April 23 because of the flu.

McGowan allowed single in kind run on four hits in seven 1-3 innings and left with runners at first and third after Coco Crisp doubled and Julio Lugo walked.

Jeremy Accardo came in and Dustin Pedroia good stroke a fly out that sent Crisp to third, but Youkilis ended the menace by grounding into a necessitate through at second.

The Red Sox started the day through 12 hits in their previous three games, all singles.

Ortiz’s homer snapped Boston’s streaks of 39 innings without an extra base hit and 44 innings without a homer.

Lowell doubled later in the seventh before Crisp’s double in the eighth gave Boston three extra-base hits in six at-bats.

&imitate; The Canadian Press, 2008

A group of artists has come up with a creative way to recycle scrap metal and provide cheap housing and workshop space.

The Council for the Arts in Ottawa is eyeing shipping containers, which are frequently discarded as soon as they have been emptied of their cargo, as the Chinese make no doubt of it is cheaper to build unaccustomed ones than ship the empties back, said ministry spokesman Peter Honeywell.

The containers would be stacked and arranged into a pavilion next door to the Arts Court, close to the Rideau Centre, in an effort to address Ottawa’s shortage of studio, living and display interval for artists.

“They’re a certainly interesting prefab space that is actually quite large — 40-feet long,” he reported. “There are crowd houses that aren’t 40-feet long.”

The containers cost as little taken in the character of $2,500, enchant only days to set up, and solve a growing environmental problem, he added.

“The overarching concept here is that we have a high opinion of the environment — the shipping containers will be recycled containers.”

Similar structures have been built around the nature.

Ottawa city staff are supportive of the project, which would require to be paid less than $150,000 and could be up by cataract of next year.

Kate Shaw, an urban studies professor from the University of Melbourne, by-word the plan while visiting Ottawa for a conference on ways to build more spaces for culture.

She said she has mixed feelings approximately the idea, even allowing she thinks it’s a good the same.

“In one way, it’s great — we’ve got … public space and temporary spaces in which to furnish our artists,” she said. “On another level, it’s fairly tragic that it’s come to this.”

Colorado Avalanche forward Paul Stastny is public for the rest of the Detroit series. (Tom Olmscheid/Associated Press)

If the Colorado Avalanche are to write themselves into the NHL record books, they’ll have to do it without Paul Stastny.

Colorado coach Joel Quenneville said Wednesday that Stastny, the club’s governing scorer in the regular season with 71 points, is out for the rest of the series and probably yonder that with a knee injury suffered in the first period of Game 3 on Tuesday, which Detroit won 4-3.

The Avalanche lost the rudimentary three contests of their Western Conference semifinal to the Red Wings, which doesn’t bode well for Colorado because only two teams in the history of the NHL possess erased 3-0 deficits to win a playoff course: the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs and the 1975 New York Islanders.

Aside from Statsny, the Avalanche have other hurt problems to bestow through.

Left-winger Ryan Smyth (foot) is doubtful and Peter Forsberg (groin) is questionable for Game 4 on Thursday.

Forsberg, who didn’t attend practice Wednesday, missed the opening couple games of the series before returning for Game 3.

“Hopefully, everything will be all becoming for him,” Quenneville said of Forsberg.

The odds are against a Colorado comeback, end Avalanche warrior Joe Sakic isn’t ready to concede the series just yet.

“It takes four games to win a concatenation, not three,” Sakic said. “Our design right at present is just to win one bit of strategy.”

Daniel Briere scored the final design by 3:38 remaining as the Philadelphia Flyers dumped the Montreal Canadiens 4-2 in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal on Wednesday night.

R.J. Umberger scored twice, Scott Hartnell had the other goal, and Martin Biron made 36 saves as the sixth-seeded Flyers took a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven order, putting them within one win of going to the meeting for consultation final for the first time in four years.

Tomas Plekanec and Saku Koivu scored 37 seconds apart and Jaroslav Halak faced 26 shots in a rare start with the top-ranked Canadiens, who volition host Game 5 on Saturday (CBC, 7 p.m. ET).

More to come

With files from the Canadian Press

An ex-commando was arrested just 24 hours before the release of his open memoir about life in Canada’s elite Joint Task Force 2, leading his co-author to suggest authorities are hard to bear to discredit the book’s claims.

Denis Morisset was preparing to do publicness in the place of his book detailing secret missions in Afghanistan, Peru and even an Ottawa bank, when he was arrested Tuesday and charged with contacting two minors with the intent of committing sexual crimes.

Morisset appeared in court on Wednesday as his French-language book was released in Quebec stores.

The soldierly says the volume is a threat to national ease while Morisset’s publishers called it the only public, first-hand account on the eve the inner workings of the JTF2.

Morisset, who says he was a member of the special forces unit for eight years, was preparing to do publicity for his book Nous Etions Invincibles (We Were Invincible) when he was arrested.

“The identical size is strange,” Morisset’s ghostwriter, Claude Coulombe, told the Canadian Press. “Why do this on the edge of the book’s publication?”

Book alleges firefights, soldier suicides

The book traces Morisset’s ambitious beginnings with the JTF2 from its inception in 1993 to his disillusioned transfer in 2001.

Though vague on dates, the main division contains startling revelations about the obscure unit’s purported activities at home and abroad.

Morisset claims JTF2 was called as backup in a hostage-taking at an Ottawa bank in 1994.

The force’s commanders informed them it would be a good chance; fit to entice their training into practise and ordered them to “eliminate” the hostage-takers.

In Morisset’s telling, the commandos entered the building, shot the suspects, in consequence left — leaving Ottawa police to take like of the hostages.

Jean-Claude Larouche, the book’s publisher, said he admitted a letter Monday from the Department of National Defence caution the main division’s blazon could threaten general security.

A spokesperson for the department echoed the concerns expressed in the note.

“Mr. Morisset’s book is an unlawful registry of debt and credit of the Joint Task Force 2,” reported Lt. Isabelle Riche.

“Such publications have the potential to endanger the safety of JTF2 members and their families. They can also jeopardize the effectiveness of operations by disclosing sentient and classified complaint.

“In order to mitigate those risks, everything members of JTF2 token a non-disclosure agreement upon leaving the unit.”

In his book, Morisset says the unit helped take out more than a dozen Shining Path guerrillas in Peru after they took a host of dignitaries hostage on Dec. 17, 1996.

All the militants and one hostage died in the raid 126 days after the standoff began.

Morisset relates a mission in Afghanistan, conducted sometime preceding to 2001, that he says was ordered by CSIS without government approval.

The deputation was aimed at gathering information here and there a ceasefire agreement along Tajikistan border, but ended when the soldiers were caught in a firefight betwixt the two sides.

Morisset claims he was shot in the knee during the incident.

One of its greatest in number damning allegations may be that six JTF2 members consider committed suicide over the years.

Morisset has faced legal trouble before. In 2003, not long after he left the military, he pleaded guilty to sex charges and served a 14-month prison sentence.

He claims in his book that at the time he was conducting an investigation for CSIS into body politic employees using the internet to adit pornography.

Morisset says he was ordered to take for granted the crimes, goal maintains today he did nothing wrong.

Quebec police wouldn’t comment on their inquisition, but Coulombe raised the contingency that it was a rush job.

“One of the accusations says he was on the Internet at 6:35 (Tuesday) morning,” said Coulombe. “But at that time he was giving a radio interview … he can’t be at two places at once.”

Not a book of revenge, publisher says

Morisset’s publisher was taken backward by the author’s sudden arrest Tuesday.

“I am surprised, disappointed and pained,” said Larouche, the head of Les Editions JCL.

Coulombe insists there are few details in the work that were not before that time available in previous books about the unit.

Coulombe, who has known Morisset since 1993, says the book was a way for the one-time commando to deal with his concede severe case of post-traumatic stress produce disease in.

“It’s not a volume of revenge,” he said. “It really was to lift a weight not on his shoulders.”

Morisset’s friend and co-writer is worried about how he will cope in the meantime.

“He told me (from jail) that ’six members desire killed themselves so far and they want a seventh one,’” Coulombe declared. “I am really worried about which will happen nearest.”

© The Canadian Press, 2008