With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1441359
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 BCBUSINESS 19 NBC, PLENTY OF FISH, SAFE, ELITE SINGLES, ADP, OKANAGAN EDGE, SWOON, IPSOS; ILLUSTRATION: ISTOCK Canadians said they planned to spend an average of $74 on Valentine's Day last year, j 20.4% from $93 pre-pandemic $149 Price tag for a typical date night in Vancouver (including a mid-range dinner, a bottle of wine, movie tickets and a cab ride), according to a 2019 study by Elite Singles 12% HIGHER THAN VICTORIA 17.3% HIGHER THAN THE CANADIAN AVERAGE 58% of Canadians say they go dutch on the bill during a date G O F I G U R E 35% of British Columbians have been in a workplace relationship, 12% with someone senior to them 69% of BCers agree that a workplace relationship will have a negative impact on work after it's over $30 Cost of a deck of Penticton-developed Swoon conversation cards–featuring questions ranging from "Where is your happy place?" to "Would you rather be hideous or illiterate?"–inspired by an academic study that identified the 36 questions that can make people fall in love Asked what they most looked forward to doing again after the pandemic, only 4% of Canadians listed dating or meeting new people as their first priority ♥ L inda and Patrick Power looked at downsizing from their Burnaby house a few years ago as they were approaching their 65-year marks. The four flights of stairs were just going to get harder to navigate. And taking care of the gardening on their 8,000-square-foot lot was starting to feel like nonstop farm work. "We realized we could not keep up with that house," says Linda, a retired flight atten- dant who still sounds like she has enough zest in her to keep 350 cranky passengers in line at a moment's notice. So they bought…another house in Coquitlam with about the same 2,600 square feet, but on only two levels and on a slightly smaller lot that required less work be- cause it had a big pool in it. Not a condo. "Stratas are ridiculous, the rules you have to live by." And definitely not a retirement complex. The Powers are far from the only people I know who feel like they need just as much house space in retire- ment as they did all the other years. "We need a place to have all the kids and their kids over," say some. "We need even more room when we're retired because we need to be able to get away from each other when we're both at OK, Boomers? Predictions that older homeowners will crash the real estate market by downsizing and cashing out have yet to come true. In Vancouver and elsewhere, don't look for them to call the movers anytime soon by Frances Bula L A N D VA LU E S home all day," say those who are in couples. "I worked all my life for this much space, and I'm going to enjoy it here until I croak" is another take. That's all very different from the predictions of 25 years ago made by demogra- pher David Foot in Boom, Bust and Echo, which called for the real estate market to crash as all the boomers downsized and cashed out en masse. It's a prophecy that was popular for a while, then got pooh- poohed extensively. But it's back again. Last spring, the City of Toronto issued a planning bulletin forecasting that some of the city's housing problems would