The swelling Canadian pride helped sell out those cute HBC red maple leaf mittens and made other olympic clothing items as scarce in The Bay and Zellers as snow on Cypress Mountain. But while many of those mittens are now being put away for next winter, the Go Canada spirit has yet to fade.

A commentary from Scotia Capital entitled “Own Canada: The Northern Tiger”, lists 20 reasons the world should invest in Canada. The list was compiled by Scotia economists Derek Holt and Karen Cordes.  In no particular order, I reproduce here 10 of their points:

1) The Bank of Canada will be the next major central bank to raise interest rates.
2) The Canadian dollar is going to parity and beyond against the U.S dollar, and ” the economy will not only survive in this climate as it has before, it will generally thrive”.
3) The Canadian dollar has the edge over the Australian dollar as the Australian central bank is close to finishing its tightening cycle, while the Bank of Canada hasn’t even begun.
4) Canada has the commodities the rest of the world wants.
5) Our country has excellent nonfinancial corporate balance sheets with low leverage and high coverage.
6)  Canada has a universally recognized best-in-class banking system.
7)  Low political risk
8)  No sovereign default risk
9)  Strengths in diversity with a high foreign born population share and strong market ties.
10) A highly educated workforce

Holt and Cordes point out they haven’t always been bullish on Canada but for most of the past year they have recommended over-weighting Canada in portfolios, and the case for over-weighting is still compelling. They say the strengths they list show, in fact, “the country has much of what one would want in both a global portfolio and a physical presence.”  Not that we needed it, of course, but now we have more evidence that Canada is truly gold-medal worthy.

Just as you’ll want to protect your home from an unwanted chill, it’s important to make sure you have the proper financial insulation for your family as well. Insurance providers have coverage for everything you can think of, but there are essentials that should be reviewed from time to time.

I asked Sue Neal, Toronto regional director with Investors Group, for a list of the basics. She says in addition to life insurance, we should look into having insurance to cover our mortgage in the event a family income is gone or is reduced significantly; we should look into having a plan in place for replacing income in case of disability, and critical illness protection would cover a situation where there was an illness requiring alternative treatment in another country.

Reviewing your will is a good plan as well, and it’s probably best not to go cheap. Neal says while there are plenty of will kits out there, in her experience, every client who has had one has then taken it to a lawyer in case they missed something, so why not start there? She says that way, the document will automatically include Power of Attorney. “With today’s second and third marriages … and all the dynamics of satellite families, my opinion is that it makes sense to pay a minimal cost and have a lawyer word things properly for not much more than what it would cost for a will kit. Then you could have it specifically worded for your unique situation.”

The start of a new year seems like a good time to make sure you are well-covered, and warding off financial troubles will make sure your loved ones aren’t left out in the cold.

In its semi-annual report, the Bank of Canada says while Canadian household debt as a share of personal disposable income may be lower than in the United States and the United Kingdom, “its upward trend implies that households have a growing vulnerability to additional adverse shocks.” In other words, we could get swamped by the additional debt we’ve taken on when interest rates eventually go up.

The debtload is most evident in the housing market, where the average price of a home is up 21 per cent from a year ago and sales volumes are up 41 per cent.

On a lesser scale, my financial restraint has been tested by the temptation to take on beautification projects around the home, the rationale being a tax refund in the spring. The government’s intention with the Home Renovation Tax Credit has been to spur consumer spending to warm up a chilly economy, and I’ve certainly been doing my part. Encouragingly, though, it appears only a minority of us have dipped into the line of credit or credit cards to fund the work.

A survey this fall by RBC finds a majority of Canadian renovators plan to take advantage of the tax credit this year and close to half have done more renovations because of the tax break. The survey also found that three in four Canadians who are planning to renovate will pay for most or all of it with cash or savings, compared with 70 per cent in 2008. Only 24 per cent of renovators, plan to use a credit card to finance their renovation this year, compared with 32 per cent in 2008.

Around here, the kids’ education fund may be in need of some sprucing up, but gee, the kitchen looks great!

Royal Lepage says prices have increased the past two months in a row and a shortage in housing supply is leading to bidding wars in several cities, including Toronto, Montreal, St. John’s, Saint John, Moncton, Edmonton, Calgary, North and West Vancouver, and Victoria.

In its report on home prices and sales, Remax says the bounce-back that began in early spring has made this recession one of the shortest on record for real estate, saying “low interest rates, pent-up demand, and improved affordability levels have all played a role in the recovery now under way”.

Our Central bank’s rock-bottom rates have helped spur to action first time homebuyers, and homeowners who were putting off selling their homes in the midst of the downturn are now polishing countertops and putting that home renovation tax credit to work to compete with a new crop of houses for sale. 

The Reserve Bank of Australia recently became the first major central bank to raise interest rates since the financial crisis, citing among other things, rising home and stock prices.

TD Economics suggests that increased supply will likely cool the market here somewhat. The question, Deputy Chief Economist Craig Alexander asks though, is what if it doesn’t? He’s suggesting the Bank of Canada might just give interest rates a jab higher sooner than expected if this keeps up.

It may be floating like a butterfly now, but let’s hope the housing market doesn’t end up stinging like a bee.

Instead of the traditional lazy, hazy trading we might expect to see this time of year, the summer has been marked by heightened investor sensitivity.  According to Kate Warne, Canadian markets strategist with Edward Jones in St. Louis, “Investors are trying to read a lot into every indicator that comes out, and a lot more is being interpreted into every announcement than what we typically see during the summer, or any other time, because people are so nervous about what happens next. ”

She tells me that while many of us have the sense that the market doesn’t do much during the summer, “This summer what we’ve seen is a lot of news coming out that has been positive for stocks, as well as investors wondering, ‘is this what we are going to continue to see, or are the markets going to pull back?’. We’ve had a lot more attention paid to economic news, which usually doesn’t get a lot of attention, and also a lot more movement in the markets than we typically see.”

Statistics from the Toronto Stock Exchange show there’s been plenty of movement lately, with trading volume in July higher than it was in July of last year.  Volume year to date on the TSX is up 22%, although the value of transactions is down 27%.

Adrian Mastracci, portfolio manager with Vancouver’s KCM Wealth Management, says the market action has been all over the map, and what is clear is that we are no longer enjoying quiet summers. “Two years ago in August we had the big fall of some 500, 600 points [in intraday trading] in one day on the TSX. Last year, of course, we had the prelude before the fall session which decimated a lot of portfolios, and this year we’re sort of trying to inch our way back. I think we have digested a lot of information over the summer.” But he warns there’s plenty to brace for. Says Mastracci, “I do think there are a couple of lines in the sand that are coming up, the back to school season, and putting in the orders for Christmas. Both of those will be very telling, very soon.”

As the summer draws to a close, the best advice for both pipsqueaks and investors may be to buckle up and be patient.

Because it takes so long to plan a wedding, the cutbacks will likely be even more apparent next year.  A study conducted by the Jewelry Consumer Opinion Council, a jewelry survey website, finds that 25 per cent of American couples who had planned to marry, have chosen to postpone their plans because of the recession. In June, due to plunging diamond demand, retailer Harry Winston, which also owns a chunk of the Diavik diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, reported a quarterly loss compared with a profit a year earlier. Its CEO, Robert Gannicott, commented that while since May there has been improvement, the company began the quarter “with a rough diamond market that could see no bottom and retail sales effectively stalled.” To Reuters, he described last year as “terrible.”

A spring survey by wedding website theknot.com found 40 per cent of brides have reduced their budgets, by an average of 16 per cent, and the site’s editor-in-chief predicts that as more couples start planning their big day, those figures will rise.

The economy can scale back the party, but it can’t stifle the love behind it. Our own newsroom newlywed, 680News film critic Leslie James, says that while most of their wedding planning was in place before recession worries really hit, he and his bride did quite a few things on their own to prepare for the big day, including invitations, reception gifts and decorations, and, he says, it was not only fun, but it brought them even closer together.

What was it some other guy once said? All you need is love? The Big Fat Wedding may not be gone for good, but this year, it has certainly slimmed down.

A report by TD Bank Financial Group Economist Diana Petramala shows over the five years leading up to the current recession, Canadians were shopping hell bent for leather.  “Households,” she notes, “bought new cars, fancy home furnishings, the latest fashions, and ate out at their favourite restaurants… [They] overspent relative to their income, became over extended with debt and saved too little. Now, with the Canadian economy in recession, it is of no surprise the period characterized by consumerism has ended.” Petramala figures thanks to the shift to thrift, our personal savings rate will remain elevated in the coming years, averaging 6-7%.

Our budgets may now be more befitting of roadies than rock stars, but even the rock stars are finding themselves unable to act like rock stars. They are looking for as many ways as possible to attract fans who have become increasingly reluctant to part with their money. Bands are heading out on tour; it seems as if a growing number are re-uniting; and more and more are getting involved in the gaming industry — not Caesars Palace, but the kind you don’t have to leave your couch for: Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Samantha Stevens from our sister station, JACK FM, tells me, “Some [musicians] are getting really creative in an effort to forge a connection with the fans… The bands have to tour to make the money, they have to sell merch, get signed with video games and land on movie soundtracks.  The gaming industry is huge for rock bands. The Guitar Hero franchise has added a new dimension to the industry.”

As well, she says, tons of older bands are out on the road: Aerosmith, ZZ Top, ACDC, Whitesnake, Judas Priest, Elton John/Billy Joel, Def Leppard, John Fogerty, KISS, The Moody Blues, Pearl Jam, The Eagles, and Kid Rock among them. Some of the tours are in support of a new album, but most are not.

So how long will the rock world be trying to win us back as we put our spending on “mute”? In a note to clients, Economist David Rosenberg, formerly with Merrill Lynch, and now chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates, says “Attitudes towards credit, discretionary spending and homeownership have changed, and the change is secular in nature, not merely cyclical, meaning that this shift towards frugality is going to last for years.”

I guess it’s time — metaphorically speaking — to re-examine the contents of our back-stage candy bowls. Maybe the rockers, and the rest of us, should develop a taste for no-name M&M’s.

The advance has many people scratching their heads, and others holding their breath, but market watchers believe that while it is likely to give back a sizeable chunk of its two-month Spring Fever rally, the Toronto market has found a bottom and is on its way back up.  Why? The dribs and drabs of far from positive, but increasingly acceptable, economic numbers — a sign that investors are looking ahead to better things. Instead of thinking about how much worse things could get, the market is betting on how much better they could become.

The most recent report to catch economists off guard, the April employment report, which tallied 36,000 new jobs in Canada, when it was expected to show the economy lost 50,000 jobs.  On the surface, the report appears to reflect our positive attitude. It demonstrates that if Canadians can’t find work, they’ll darn well make their own jobs, as self-employment was responsible for the job creation.  The report may well be an aberration, as Derek Holt, Vice President at Scotia Economics, and others believe. We’ll know as subsequent data is released. Hopefully the report hasn’t raised our expectations for a still heavily pressured job market.

In the meantime, the experts say some sideways movement for the market would be more than just fine. The market has gone from “down 100 points is the new up” to “flat is the new up” to “up is too far up”! Much as I like a good party, it looks as if this time we should party on — in moderation.

According to the National Gardening association, this year, about 43 million U.S. households plan to grow their own fruits, vegetables, berries, and herbs – up nearly 20 per cent from last year. Saving money on bills was the number two reason they gave for the increased interest in gardening. Better tasting food was number one.

Those household plans are taking root. George Ball, head of privately held seed retailer and wholesaler Burpee, tells Reuters vegetable seed and transplant sales were up about 30 percent in March of this year, compared with March 2008.

Of the White House gardening effort, Linda Nazareth, author of The Leisure Economy, tells me, “I think it illustrates a nice mix of trends that the boomers are concerned about right now — nutrition (i.e. they are not going to live forever), thrift (a new one for them) and the need to have a ‘life’ — do something that isn’t about work.”

For those of us who grew up with more experience with canned peas than peas on a vine, gardening can be an exotic adventure. In her book, Nazareth predicts that the time-crunch society we live in now will develop into a leisure economy, as boomers turn their attention to arts and crafts, cooking, and yes, gardening. The activity at the White House may be demonstrating that the shift is underway.

Lucky Michelle Obama with a garden that warms up in early March. Here, the plans have been underway for weeks but the planting is just beginning. My potatoes last year were, frankly, an unexpected success — and the best part was when my family and I feasted on them on the back deck, not ten feet away from where they had grown.

It may be tempting when what’s in the renovation budget falls well short of the cost of your dream improvements, but unless you’re tight with Mike Holmes, the renovating saviour from Holmes on Homes, it can be no deal at all if you get stuck when something goes wrong. No paperwork means no way to track that the job has been done and money has exchanged hands, and you are potentially liable if the workers aren’t licensed or covered by insurance.

The size of the underground economy is unknown, but recently the Financial Post estimated the figure for Canada to be somewhere between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of GDP.  Huge business, but the Feds may be putting a dent in the practice, thanks to The Home Renovation Tax Credit. Now that customers want receipts to take advantage of the tax credit, many of the disreputables in the industry are having to clean up their act, provide customers their GST numbers, and forward taxes collected to the government.

Doug Simpson, President & CEO of the Canadian Council of Better Business Bureaus says asking for cash only is just one of the red flags to watch for when hiring a contractor. He advises consumers do their homework. He says reputable contractors would never pressure customers to make snap decisions, nor would they ask for money under the table. He tells me references are essential, and he always tries to get from three to six for a project. ”I’m always interested in finding out how the contractor handled problems that inevitably arise in every renovation,” he says. “That can tell you a lot about how a contractor is going to treat you.”

Prep work can help make sure your home improvement dreams don’t turn into renovation nightmares. I’m starting mine with a handful of glossy brochures.

For more on the renovation tax credit, visit the government’s website: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/hrtc/