Canada housing starts, permits rise again

Ottawa

CANADIAN housing starts inched higher in February from the previous month, and building permits rose in January as the long housing boom continued to defy expectations of a slowdown, separate reports showed on Wednesday.

Groundbreaking on new homes climbed to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 210,207 units from an upwardly revised 208,934 in January as robust activity in Ontario offset cooling in British Columbia, data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp showed.