34,278,400

That’s Canada as of December 31, 2010.  Almost exactly 1/10 of America’s population!  The two largest provinces Ontario and Quebec account for 39% and 23% of Canada’s total population.  In 2010, about ¼ of million people emigrated to Canada – not huge but it adds up.

Speaking of growing population an interesting observation was made by a fellow blogist talking about house statistic.  Unlike the rest of the OECD, Canada (and Australia) saw virtually no dip in the value of their housing stocks – partly due to different lending rules in Canada (far more conservative with full lender recourse), but also a result of the strength of Canada’s resource based economy that has powered on.  So this blogist wrote about a commonly used statistic for determining whether housing is over or under priced:  price divided by the median income; generally speaking excessively high prices (aka bubble) are reached when the ration exceeds 400%.  Below are the figures for the period ending December 31, 2010:

Vancouver and Victoria are in a special hell, and many of my friends who live there complain about the cost of housing, partially because these two cities are seen as “haven” or bolt holes for rich Chinese (mainland or Taiwan and Honk Kong).  But across the nation, there is a clear reality that although income has been rising, housing prices have been rising even faster.  Moreover, whereas Canadians used to be spendthrift, statistics are showing that the level of debt (home, credit cards and personal loans) now puts Americans to shame… not good statistics.

A lengthy period of low interest rates has prompted Canadians to rack up debt faster than their disposable income is growing. For the first time in 12 years, Canadian households now have a higher debt-to-income ratio than those in the United States. It hit a record 14 per cent in the third quarter, new Statistics Canada data show.

(Source:  Nicolas Van Praet, National Post, December 2010)