Yes I do trust the statistics coming out of Ottawa. Like all governmental ( political ) things, they are skewed but not to the extent that I see coming out of down south.

While I am personally very affected by the state of the economy due to being semi-retired and heavily weighted with the stock market, most of my friends and aquaintances hardly feel the current state.

Sooo, Yes I do believe that things have not been as bad as painted in the press and I see things improving even locally.

That is partly why I posted, with you in mind BigPic. Good prospects will probably come from double directions for you. Cheers.