Canadian building permit data for June shows that residential construction continues to roll on, defying any suggestion of slowdown.

“Even as almost every other sector of the North American economy is slowing sharply, the Canadian construction industry has barely missed a beat,” says BMO Nesbitt Burns. Today it was reported that building permits edged up 0.2% in June, and May’s result was revised up significantly to a gain of 3% from the initial report of a 0.6% decline. In the past 12 months, permits are up 5.7%. For the first half of the year, permits were up 12.4% from the similar period in 2000.

Residential permits rose 6.5% in June, with most of the gains in the volatile multiple-unit group, pushing June housing starts to a ten-year high. For the first half of the year, residential permits rose 9.1% from the first half of 2000.

The activity in the non-residential sector has cooled. Permits for each of commercial, industrial, and institutional fell in June, as the entire group dropped 7.6% in the month. Even so, non-residential permits were still up 16.6% from a year ago over the first half of 2001.

Among the provinces, Quebec, P.E.I., and Newfoundland all recorded first-half increases of more than 20%. B.C. saw an 18.7% gain.

“There are no real signs of weakness here,” says BMO Nesbitt Burns. “While non-residential permits have tailed off following a strong start to the year, housing activity has stepped into the gap.”