Canadian hotels still aren’t making the Dean’s list for investment performance, but market analysts appear confident that rallying conditions are pushing the sector in a positive direction.

Ontario’s civic building inventory has fallen the farthest behind on capital repair among seven categories of municipal infrastructure assets scrutinized in a newly released report from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario.

Market analysts anticipate more capital flowing into the sector as vacancies tighten and rental rates rise, and they warn that available space is nearing depletion in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal if leasing continues at the recent pace.

Removing landlords from the application process hasn’t necessarily made the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) more accessible for commercial tenants experiencing pandemic-related financial stress.

Retrofit proponents unable to contribute at least $6.25 million in equity capital will have to look to third-party interveners in order to tap into the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s $2-billion fund for commercial buildings.

Securities regulators wish to confirm that the representations registrants are making about the incorporation of ESG principles in their investment decision-making processes are consistent with their actual policies and procedures.

Economic fallout from COVID-19 is shifting more of the tax burden to this flourishing group of assets via the mill rate, while also driving up the tax rate, for a double-whammy of consequences in jurisdictions that update valuations annually.

Reflecting on a year in which the pandemic unsettled market fundamentals to the east and to the west, Calgary-based analysts focus more on tangential circumstances than the COVID-19 outbreak itself.

Women were jettisoned from 14,300 of the roughly 16,000 positions Ontario's real estate, rental and leasing sector shed last year.

Newly released 2020 investment results find industrial and multifamily assets on the positive side of the national average total return for 2,356 directly held standing assets, which registered -4.1 per cent.

A new slate of conservation and demand management (CDM) programs allocates $456 million for commercial, institutional and industrial consumers over the four-year period from 2021-24.

For now, residential and small business customers enrolled for either time-of-use (TOU) rates or tiered pricing under the provincial regulated price plan will be charged the off-peak TOU rate of 8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for all electricity consumption.

Resident British Columbians own about 30 per cent of the properties subject to the speculation and vacancy tax, but account for just 6.6 per cent of collected revenue.

Industrial availability tightened from the third quarter in eight of the 11 surveyed markets, ending the year at well below 2 per cent in Vancouver and Montreal and below 1 per cent in Toronto.

The commercial real estate, facilities management and construction/retrofit sectors appear poised to capture a share of the spending announced in the Canadian government’s fall economic statement.

Beyond stores selling essential goods, bricks-and-mortar retail is reeling from COVID-19-triggered public health controls and watching its already gaining competition grow even faster than projected.

CERS will deliver direct rent support to qualifying tenants without the need to work though their landlords. As a direct subsidy, unlike CECRA, no loan agreement is required.