It's time to carefully consider all of thetired and endless cliches you've heard over the years referring toour neighboring Great White North. In fact, I would highlyrecommend that you summarily jettison them. (You can start bylosing the "eh" after every sentence, for example.)

Why? Because it just so happens that Canada is spawning some ofthe top institutional investors in the current-day genre.

A full 45% of Canadian pension plans plan to add real estatewithin their alternative asset mix in the next 12 months, accordingto a recent study by RBC Investor Services. And 88% of Canadianplans with more than $1 billion in assets under management say theywill increase their allocation to alternatives. Not surprisingly,they cite the continued low-interest-rate environment as thereasoning behind their moves in search of higher yields.