Sophie Chen, 36, and her husband had been toying with the idea of moving to the suburbs for years. But it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic hit that they finally did it.
Pregnant with her second child and eager to find a larger home, Chen, a real estate agent, was initially hesitant to leave the couple’s Toronto residence as the housing market froze in March amid Ontario’s COVID-19 lockdown.
But when Chen, who previously worked as a financial analyst, started analyzing market data from April and May, she says she realized activity was quickly picking up pace.
Before the lockdown, the real estate market had been off to a roaring start in January and February, Chen says, recalling a condo in Scarborough, just east of Toronto, that attracted around 20 bids from buyers.
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Chen says she was worried home prices would spike again as COVID-19 restrictions loosened and more families like hers would feel the need to leave the city in search for more bedrooms and backyard space.
4:26 Canadians prepare for rock bottom mortgage rates and increasing grocery bills
Canadians prepare for rock bottom mortgage rates and increasing grocery bills – Dec 10, 2020
In May, Chen and her husband bought a home in Aurora, a 50-km drive north of Toronto, upgrading from their small three-bedroom home in the city to a 4,500-square-foot house with four bedrooms, four bathrooms and a finished, walk-out basement.
In the following months, scores of urban dwellers who’d been stuck at home working from the kitchen table, their kids’ bedrooms or impossibly small condo dens made a similarly quick decision to flee the big city and relocate to small towns, the country or, in some cases, a different province.
Statistics Canada data shows that between the beginning of July 2019 and the start of July 2020, a period that includes the early months of the COVID-19 emergency, Toronto saw 50,375 more people leaving the city for other areas of Ontario than making the opposite move.
Montreal experienced a similar net outflow of 24,880 people, although both cities still saw overall population growth thanks to international immigration. And the data suggests some homebuyers looking to stretch their dollar went as far as the Maritimes, with Halifax, for example, seeing a net inflow of 1,584 people from other provinces.
But anecdotal evidence shows not everyone who staged a move during the pandemic checked in with their boss before packing up. That’s a problem employers and HR professionals are now grappling with.
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Employers are laying out their post-pandemic work-arrangement plans, and for most companies, it’s not going to be 100-per cent remote work, says Allison Venditti, a career coach and HR expert and founder of CareerLove in Toronto.
The mismatch between employees’ hopes and employers’ expectations is “the biggest issue that we’re seeing right now,” says Julie Labrie, president of BlueSky Personnel Solutions, a bilingual recruitment staffing firm.
“Many employers of workers currently doing their jobs solely from their homes expect them to go back into the office full time after the pandemic is in the rearview mirror. Not two days a week. Not three days a week. Full time,” CIBC economists Benjamin Tal and Royce Mendes wrote in a recent report citing Statistics Canada data.
While some workers moved beyond commuting distance in an act of faith that current work-from-home arrangements would last, employers have a right to demand that employees go back to the office once conditions allow, both Venditti and Labrie say.
If you haven’t discussed your relocation with your employer yet, you should get that conversation started as soon as possible, says Venditti and Labrie say.
It’s helpful to articulate why you thought the move was necessary, Venditti says. For example, if you wanted to be closer to aging parents, your employer may view some kind of permanent remote work arrangement as a form of family accommodation, she adds.
Even if you got the green light from your employer, if you’re going to be remote for the long term, you’ll have to put in an extra effort to stay connected with your manager and colleagues, Venditti says.
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Employers with whom Venditti has been consulting have been establishing regular team meetings, one-on-one Zoom calls and professional virtual coffee dates to ensure remote workers stay connected to both their own departments and parts of the company they don’t normally interact with, Venditti says.
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But maintaining that connection is a two-way effort, Venditti says.
If you’re working from home and the rest of the office isn’t, you’re going to miss Friday drinks and the company’s Christmas party. To continue to grow your career, it becomes very important to find ways to maintain and expand your professional network remotely — whether it’s via phone-call check-ins or social media — both within your organization and your industry, Venditti says.
Freelancers who moved to smaller communities will also need to put in more legwork to maintain and grow their networks remotely, Venditti says. She recommends that her clients who work independently devote 15 per cent of their time to connecting with former and current clients to make sure they remain top-of-mind for them.
“Even if you’re living on a farm, you need to set up those Zoom phone calls and actually make a really concerted effort,” Venditti says.
And while the pandemic has created many more remote or partially remote job opportunities, moving away from a big city may come with an earnings penalty in many industries, according to Venditti.
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For one, job candidates based in smaller or remote communities may have fewer opportunities to choose from. Labrie says her firm is now frequently dealing with job-seekers who will turn down jobs simply because they don’t allow for remote work.
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But even when employers allow full-time work-from-home, they may adjust salaries down for workers based in lower-cost locations, Venditti says. A broad survey of North American companies by Willis Towers Watson, for example, found that 20 per cent of employers are taking into consideration an employee’s geographic locations when setting pay levels.
If you’re contemplating ditching the city, Venditti recommends discussing the possible financial pros and cons with a financial planner.
Perhaps selling your downtown home and buying a cottage will leave you mortgage-free and able to work part-time or go freelance and pursue a passion project, Venditti says. But maybe you’ll also lose your health benefits and pension, she adds. You should look at the whole picture before making a decision, she says.
Three employers for whom Venditti consults have made financial planners available to employees during the pandemic, she says.
Chen, for her part, isn’t worried about her family’s post-pandemic work arrangements. Her husband’s job in marketing is tied to an office in downtown Toronto, but he will still be able to commute a few days a week when he’s back from parental leave after the birth of the couple’s second child.
And Chen said she decided to choose to her new Aurora neighborhood in part because she believes the local housing market has strong appreciation potential, which will benefit both her family’s net worth and her real estate business.
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Plus, she notes, with so many bedrooms in her new home, “I don’t have to rent an office anymore.”
Braxton Whitehead said Friday he has verbally committed to Arizona State, making him the first member of a Canadian Hockey League team to attempt to play the sport at the Division I U.S. college level since a lawsuit was filed challenging the NCAA’s longstanding ban on players it deems to be professionals.
Whitehead posted on social media he plans to play for the Sun Devils beginning in the 2025-26 season.
An Arizona State spokesperson said the school could not comment on verbal commitments, citing NCAA rules. A message left with the CHL was not immediately returned.
A class-action lawsuit filed Aug. 13 in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, New York, could change the landscape for players from the CHL’s Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League. NCAA bylaws consider them professional leagues and bar players from there from the college ranks.
Online court records show the NCAA has not made any response to the lawsuit since it was filed.
“We’re pleased that Arizona State has made this decision, and we’re hopeful that our case will result in many other Division I programs following suit and the NCAA eliminating its ban on CHL players,” Stephen Lagos, one of the lawyers who launched the lawsuit, told The Associated Press in an email.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Riley Masterson, of Fort Erie, Ontario, who lost his college eligibility two years ago when, at 16, he appeared in two exhibition games for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. And it lists 10 Division 1 hockey programs, which were selected to show they follow the NCAA’s bylaws in barring current or former CHL players.
CHL players receive a stipend of no more than $600 per month for living expenses, which is not considered as income for tax purposes. College players receive scholarships and now can earn money through endorsements and other use of their name, image and likeness (NIL).
The implications of the lawsuit could be far-reaching. If successful, the case could increase competition for college-age talent between North America’s two top producers of NHL draft-eligible players.
“I think that everyone involved in our coaches association is aware of some of the transformational changes that are occurring in collegiate athletics,” Forrest Karr, executive director of American Hockey Coaches Association and Minnesota-Duluth athletic director said last month. “And we are trying to be proactive and trying to learn what we can about those changes.
Karr was not immediately available for comment on Friday.
Earlier this year, Karr established two committees — one each overseeing men’s and women’s hockey — to respond to various questions on eligibility submitted to the group by the NCAA. The men’s committee was scheduled to go over its responses two weeks ago.
Former Minnesota coach and Central Collegiate Hockey Association commissioner Don Lucia said at the time that the lawsuit provides the opportunity for stakeholders to look at the situation.
“I don’t know if it would be necessarily settled through the courts or changes at the NCAA level, but I think the time is certainly fast approaching where some decisions will be made in the near future of what the eligibility will look like for a player that plays in the CHL and NCAA,” Lucia said.
Whitehead, a 20-year-old forward from Alaska who has developed into a point-a-game player, said he plans to play again this season with the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League.
“The WHL has given me an incredible opportunity to develop as a player, and I couldn’t be more excited,” Whitehead posted on Instagram.
His addition is the latest boon for Arizona State hockey, a program that has blossomed in the desert far from traditional places like Massachusetts, Minnesota and Michigan since entering Division I in 2015. It has already produced NHL talent, including Seattle goaltender Joey Daccord and Josh Doan, the son of longtime Coyotes captain Shane Doan, who now plays for Utah after that team moved from the Phoenix area to Salt Lake City.
A community legal clinic in Kingston, Ont., is denouncing the mayor’s calls to clear an encampment and close a supervised consumption site in the city following a series of alleged assaults that left two people dead and one seriously injured.
Kingston police said they were called to an encampment near a safe injection site on Thursday morning, where they allege a 47-year-old male suspect wielded an edged or blunt weapon and attacked three people. Police said he was arrested after officers negotiated with him for several hours.
The suspect is now facing two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
In a social media post, Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson said he was “absolutely horrified” by the situation.
“We need to clear the encampment, close this safe injection site and the (Integrated Care Hub) until we can find a better way to support our most vulnerable residents,” he wrote.
The Kingston Community Legal Clinic called Paterson’s comments “premature and misguided” on Friday, arguing that such moves could lead to a rise in overdoses, fewer shelter beds and more homelessness.
In a phone interview, Paterson said the encampment was built around the Integrated Care Hub and safe injection site about three years ago. He said the encampment has created a “dangerous situation” in the area and has frequently been the site of fires, assaults and other public safety concerns.
“We have to find a way to be able to provide the services that people need, being empathetic and compassionate to those struggling with homelessness and mental health and addictions issues,” said Paterson, noting that the safe injection site and Integrated Care Hub are not operated by the city.
“But we cannot turn a blind eye to the very real public safety issues.”
When asked how encampment residents and people who use the services would be supported if the sites were closed, Paterson said the city would work with community partners to “find the best way forward” and introduce short-term and long-term changes.
Keeping the status quo “would be a terrible failure,” he argued.
John Done, executive director of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic, criticized the mayor’s comments and said many of the people residing in the encampment may be particularly vulnerable to overdoses and death. The safe injection site and Integrated Care Hub saves lives, he said.
Taking away those services, he said, would be “irresponsible.”
Done said the legal clinic represented several residents of the encampment when the City of Kingston made a court application last summer to clear the encampment. The court found such an injunction would be unconstitutional, he said.
Done added there’s “no reason” to attach blame while the investigation into Thursday’s attacks is ongoing. The two people who died have been identified as 38-year-old Taylor Wilkinson and 41-year-old John Hood.
“There isn’t going to be a quick, easy solution for the fact of homelessness, drug addictions in Kingston,” Done said. “So I would ask the mayor to do what he’s trained to do, which is to simply pause until we have more information.”
The concern surrounding the safe injection site in Kingston follows a recent shift in Ontario’s approach to the overdose crisis.
Last month, the province announced that it would close 10 supervised consumption sites because they’re too close to schools and daycares, and prohibit any new ones from opening as it moves to an abstinence-based treatment model.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
