FORT ERIE, ON, Dec. 15 /CNW/ -

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    Event:     Completion of Canada's third safer living home
               Media conference and open house

    Date:      Wednesday, December 17, 2008
    Time:      11:00 am - 11:45 am
    Location:  2185 MacDonald Drive
               Fort Erie (Ridgeway), Ontario
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    Members of the media are invited to learn about the third safer living
home to be built in Canada - a house designed to be resilient to the
increasingly destructive weather we are experiencing as a result of climate
change.
    After the original house in Fort Erie (Ridgeway) was destroyed by fire, a
new home was built to "better than building code" standards under Designed...
for safer living, a program of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
(ICLR), an independent, not-for-profit research institute. The program is a
first-of-its-kind partnership seeking to raise awareness of the need for safer
living standards. The house was specially engineered to withstand high winds,
rain and severe winter weather.
    Join Paul Kovacs, executive director of the ICLR, Kathy Bardswick,
chairperson of ICLR and CEO of The Co-operators, and others to learn about the
challenges of climate change and how this home's design concept and special
construction make it more resilient to storms.

For further information: Leonard Sharman, The Co-operators, Toll-free:
1-877-795-7272 ext. 2707, Cell: (519) 820-4133; Glenn McGillivray, ICLR, Cell:
(416) 277-5827