Canadian households among the wealthiest, but debt a 'double-edged sword'
Luca Carusa-Moro reports on a Statistics Canada release that shows Canada has the highest level of household debt to disposable income of any G7 country. The agency wrote that its 2021 census survey revealed Canada`s debt-to-income ratio reached more than 180 per cent, up from 66 per cent in 1980. The rate of indebtedness is higher than the U.S. and Germany by a large margin. The agency attributed Canadians’ high levels of debts to homeownership, describing housing as a “double-edged sword” – a significant contributor to the overall wealth of the middle class while resulting in “imbalances between assets and debt.”
