Andrew Bell

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“A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” 
― Roald Dahl (1916-1990), The Twits

The author – famed most of all for children’s classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) – was born in Cardiff, U.K. on this day 100 years ago. The BBC says school kids across Britain are marking Roald Dahl Day “by dressing up as their favourite villains and heroes, with an Enormous Crocodile bench to be unveiled in Cardiff Bay.” 

Dahl drew on his brutal treatment at a British boarding school to produce stories that often had an air of menace.

Brad Wall's warning on pipeline politics

Our Top Line on BNN this morning is the looming threat to national unity, according to Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, if pipeline approvals are stalled. “I worry about unity in the country, because I think in western Canada there is frustration that we can’t get our goods to market,” he told BNN in an interview.

We take up the pipeline theme on Commodities at 11:20 a.m. ET when we hear from Ram Vadali, an energy watcher with  DBRS. The debt rater warns that “Canada’s energy resources will remain landlocked if pipelines are not built” and that for energy firms “credit ratings could come under pressure for companies with deteriorating business risk profiles because of slower growth and diminishing market share.”

We're also following up on yesterday’s mega-merger announcement in fertilizers. Some farmers have expressed concern that the Agrium-PotashCorp tie-up will reduce competition at their expense.

At 11:10 a.m. ET, we’ll be joined by Terry Boehm, former president of the National Farmers Union, who has said consolidation means “the ability for farmers to negotiate has been minimized time and time again … Railways, grain companies, on and on it goes. If we don’t have legislated protection, really every cost is passed on to a farmer.”

Introducing BNN’s new show, ‘House Money’

Meanwhile, make sure to tune in to BNN at 5:30 p.m. ET today, when our new real estate show, 'House Money', makes its grand debut.

Here’s the word from House Money’s anchor, BNN real estate reporter Greg Bonnell:

Real estate is one of those rare business stories that almost every Canadian is passionate about.

For most Canadian home owners, that home is their most important financial asset and they want to know where prices are headed. As for those on the outside looking in, they’re wondering whether they’ll ever see an opening.

These are among the big themes we’ll explore on “House Money,” BNN’s new weekly national real estate news program launching Tuesday Sept. 13 at 5:30 p.m. ET.

When I started covering real estate for BNN two years ago, there were three “hot” markets – Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. The crash in crude oil showed us how a housing market comes under strain when fundamentals are eroded, when an economy shrinks and the jobless rate soars.

Now the Vancouver market is facing what could be a transformative challenge – a new 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers at a time when affordability is at crisis levels.

The next several months will be critical for the city’s real estate market. What effect will the tax have? Will the rapid decline in home sale transactions be followed by a correction in prices? How influential is foreign money?

In short, has the Vancouver market peaked?

Vancouver at a crossroads is the focus of our first installment of “House Money.” Among the highlights of Tuesday’s show, we’ll hear from a Vancouver native who was planning a return with her British husband only to have the new foreign buyers' tax price them out of the market.

While Vancouver promises to dominate headlines, “House Money” will also bring you stories from across Canada’s housing market.

We hope you join us as “House Money” digs for a deeper understanding of a key economic pillar of Canada’s economy – your home.

Protecting introvert workers

Speaking of real estate, the Economist magazine says introverts are all-suited to today’s “open” offices in which employees are exposed to their colleagues’ conversations and general noise. And that means companies are at risk of losing the talents of talented but self-effacing workers.

The piece doesn’t seem to mention involuntary proximity to each other’s food. Why yes, that is a giant blue cheese sandwich I’m scarfing down.

Every morning Commodities host Andrew Bell writes a ‘chase note’ to BNN's editorial staff listing the stories and events that will be in the spotlight that day. Have it delivered to your inbox before the trading day begins by heading to www.bnn.ca/subscribe