When it comes to the housing market, E-town still rules.

That’s the word from Don Campbell, president of Canada’s Real Estate Investment Network.

The popular author, consultant and public speaker says Edmonton remains the best place on the continent to invest in residential real estate. It’s a claim he first made last August, shortly after oil prices peaked at$147 US a barrel, and Alberta was rolling in energy riches.

Despite a sharp drop-off in oil and gas prices since, and a big slowdown in new oilsands projects, Campbell hasn’t flinched. He insists Edmonton will emerge from the recession stronger than ever.

“According to our research, Edmonton is still the No. 1 place for long-term investing in real estate in North America, absolutely,” says Campbell.

“Edmonton has the potential, it has the job growth. We know that when the recovery comes–and it will come, we just don’t know when –Edmonton is going to be able to provide fuel and fertilizer, which is exactly what the world is looking for. So that’s a pretty good basis for job growth.”

When Campbell speaks, others tend to listen.

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“Generally we’re following the recession script,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Companies at first cut back hours worked and defer hiring before they actually slash their payrolls.”

As of January, 41% of Canadian companies had imposed or were contemplating salary freezes and 74% were in the same stage of enacting hiring freezes, a survey of 246 Canadian firms by professional services firm Towers Perrin showed. The survey found 79% of businesses planned to cut spending on travel and entertainment, while 70% would reduce spending on employee events and 49% would make cuts to staff training costs. In comparison, only 7% of firms had made significant reductions to employment, although 18% were considering staff layoffs.

Despite the difficult circumstances, 61% of companies were considering retention awards, salary increases and higher bonus payouts as a means to retain high-performing staff and people in pivotal roles.

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Canadians tend to let payments on their plastic slip before falling behind on other loans including mortgages and car payments, and lenders see a spike in credit card delinquencies as the “canary in the coal mine,” advisory services firm Deloitte said in a report released Tuesday.

“I think it’s an early indicator. But I also think that by acknowledging it and getting ahead of the curve, we can address the situation,” said Pat Daley, partner at Deloitte.

As the economy deteriorated, credit card delinquencies spiked by 5 to 10 per cent in October and November of 2008 from the same period the year before, according to interviews Deloitte did in December with a range of lenders. These included large chartered banks, regional banks, and foreign and single purpose lenders.

Losses related to writeoffs of unpaid customer debt rose from between half to a whole percentage point, which could represent up to $800-million for the industry as a whole, the report said.

In Canada the loss rate resulting from unpaid credit card bills has typically been in the 3 to 4 per cent range, lower than the rate of more than 6 per cent in the United States.

As of February, 2008, outstanding credit card balances in Canada were at more $80-billion, Deloitte said, citing newsletter The Nilson Report. Since 2004, credit card balances have risen by 40 per cent.

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Canada’s share of vehicle production in North America is holding steady but may deteriorate in the years ahead because the country is too dependent on output by Detroit’s struggling automakers, according to an analysis by a leading consultancy.

Auto assembly factories in Canada last year cranked out just over 2 million vehicles, down nearly 1 million units from their peak in 1999.

Total output was the lowest year since 1992, falling 19.4% from 2007.

Canadian plants nevertheless pumped out about 16% of all auto output in the United States, Canada and Mexico, new figures from Richmond-Hill, Ont.-based DesRosiers Automotive Consultants show. Given that Canadian auto sales represent only 8% of the North American total, its manufacturing output remains healthy, said Dennis DesRosiers, president of the consultancy. Canada’s auto output jumped from 7.7% of North America’s new vehicles in the 1960s to 15.9% in the 1990s.

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Real estate offers greater profit potential, compared to other forms of investment. Not every piece of land will always turn out to be a winner. Despite the great potential in profit, some cases are high risks. So you will want to be sure to carefully research and study your real estate investments.

Cast around for countries which are unlikely to suffer water shortages over the next few decades and will not therefore need to upgrade their infrastructure

The first that springs to mind has to be Canada. Fly from Toronto to Vancouver and you look out on lake after lake. Canada is one of the most water-rich countries in the world: when, in 2025, 30% of the world’s people face a water shortage, as is forecast by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, none of them will be in Canada.

Water isn’t the only thing that Canada has in abundance: it is sitting on huge reserves of gold, timber, uranium and nickel. It also has the second-largest reserves of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia.

The province of Alberta, once thought of as just a nice place to hike, turns out to have oil reserves equal to an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels in the form of tar sands covering an area larger than England.