Snapshots of Canada and (sad) Canadians

A Globe and Mail editorial this week was foreboding: “Canada, prepare for a decade of thrift and lower living standards.” It leads with, “We are poorer than we think” and comments on a recent household debt survey that is leaving many Canadians “anxious, fearful and sad about their finances.” The point is established that “there is not one survey indicator to suggest Canadians have made financial progress in 2025 compared with 2024.” As a consequence, the editorial concludes, “Today’s Canadian dream is to make the next mortgage payment without having to borrow it.”

Today, most Canadians believe the country is in decline, according to a new Ipsos poll. A majority (56 per cent) recognize a deteriorating state of affairs, while there is only one in five (19 per cent) who reject this notion. Two in three Canadians (62 per cent) believe that the present economy is working against them, “rigged to benefit the rich and powerful.” Two other surveys (here and here) found that more than four in five (83 per cent) of Canadians plan to change their money habits due to stressing about uncertainties, and nearly 60 per cent of working Canadians believe they will never be able to retire. There is no longer any thought, any hope of “Freedom 55.”

The growing anxiousness Canadians are experiencing is akin to the frog in the pot: things have become hot all of a sudden. What is occurring has been forecasted many times over with data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that showed Canada will be the worst-performing advanced economy through the 2020s -- and for the following three decades. Growth in Canadians’ living standards will be “the worst” of all developed OECD member countries through 2060.

And there is a growing gap in productivity between Canadian and American or EU workers, signaling Canadians’ standard of living falling even further behind our neighbours to the south and within Europe. As it is, the disturbing disparities are becoming more evident: for example, Ontarians have become less prosperous, now living a life similar to their American cousins in the poorer southern state of Alabama. The comparative international data demonstrates that Canada’s decline is not something that is occurring worldwide, as is often heard by our political leaders and in legacy media. It is a Canadian problem – wholly a result of Canadian governments’ incompetencies and their policies such as unchecked spending, mass migration, and scandalous mismanagement of government programs.

Current snapshots of the nation and its citizens suggest that there is now a slow rolling boil in the pot called Canada.

According to official government data, one of four Canadians (25.5 per cent) are now facing food insecurity because they simply do not have the money to spend on their groceries. The average Canadian household spends one-third less on groceries per week than a similar household in the U.S. ($179 vs $277), according to a Leger survey. The Leger report concludes that “The 35 percent budget disparity suggests that Canadians are responding more stringently to escalating food prices.” Consider these Statistics Canada data: in the first five months of 2025 Canadians have experienced grocery price increases of 34 per cent for beef striploin, 26 per cent for oranges, 14 per cent for white rice, 9 per cent for infant formula, 7 per cent for meatless burgers and 6 per cent for chicken breasts.

Record levels of Canadians now rely on food banks. Food Banks Canada reported in March 2024 there were more than two million food bank visits, a 90 per cent increase compared to five years earlier. It’s a national epidemic, to the extent that 30 per cent of Canadian food banks reported in 2024 of running out of food. In Toronto, one in ten individuals regularly rely on their local food bank. Consider that last year one in three (32 per cent) of food bank clients were newcomers to Canada, one in five (18 per cent) were employed (up from 12 per cent employed in 2019), and 70 per cent of food bank clients live in market rental housing.

Royal LePage’s 2025 Canadian renters report disclosed that more than one-third of renters (37 per cent) spend between 31 and 50 per cent of their net income on monthly rent costs -- one in seven (15 per cent) spend more than half their income. Two in five renters (40 per cent) are now foregoing food to afford rent and one in five (20 per cent) have taken on a second job to afford rent. In Toronto, average rent for a one-bedroom is now $2,302; to afford this cost safely, a person must make at least $78,926 a year.

Canadian home ownership expenses will average more than half (52.5 per cent) of a household’s income in 2025. This startling figure is up from 38 per cent in 2015. A federal department of housing document states, “Canada is facing a housing crisis,” as first reported in Blacklock’s Reporter earlier this month.

According to a new CivicAction report examining the financial well-being of middle-income workers in the greater Toronto and Hamilton areas, people making $125,000 a year cannot afford to live in Toronto -- they are being labelled “the invisible poor.” The report notes that essential workers like nurses and teachers are being priced out of home ownership, with many spending over 60 per cent of their income on housing.

So, in Toronto they may be called “the invisible poor” but across the nation all hard-working-tax-paying-Canadians have become the proverbial “working stiffs.” CD Howe economist Don Wright released data that demonstrates over the past three decades, blue-collar and low wage Canadians’ pay has barely budged -- in fact, non-management employees would require 71 years to double their wages, which underlines how far behind workers are slipping when taking into account the rise in the cost of living and inflation. The Fraser Institute declared June 8th Tax Freedom Day in 2025 as the Institute documented families have paid this year nearly half (43 per cent) of their income to taxes. Given the combined burden of taxes and home ownership or monthly rental costs -- and food -- there is precious little left for anything else.

Canadians debt-to-household disposable income is near 200 per cent and this sky-high ratio places Canada the most indebted among G7 countries. According to Statistics Canada data, the country’s specific ratio is 185 per cent compared to an average of 125 per cent for all G7 countries. Canadian households collectively owe about $3 trillion, and almost three-quarters of this is mortgage debt. Today, Canada ranks the highest for household debt in the world’s 10 largest economies.

The country’s decline can be readily seen in the streets of our cities. National homeless population rises 12% in one year (2022 to 2023) reports a new federal government study. These figures are the latest available for Canada’s homeless population. “On an average night, approximately 16,627 people were staying in shelters,” the update stated as stated in Blacklock’s Reporter. Plastic tarp encampments are common place in urban centres across Canada. Remarkably, cities like Hamilton have become meccas for homeless people looking for relief from their overcrowded camps in Toronto.

An international report, 2025 Global Peace Index, was released last week which showed Canada dropping to 14th among the world's most peaceful countries. The Institute for Economics and Peace commented that, although Canada remains the most peaceful of North American countries, Canadians had experienced the continent’s “largest deterioration in overall peacefulness over the past year” citing a rise in violent crime, including incidents of extortion, robbery, and assaults involving weapons. On this point, in the last day of parliament, Conservative MP Larry Brock ran through the rising violent crime rates since 2015, according to Statistics Canada: violent crime is up 50 per cent, firearm offences up 116 per cent, sexual assaults up per cent, extortion up 357 per cent, and auto theft up 46 per cent.

Food insecurity and threatening streets are taking a toll on Canadians – including our youth. The international relief agency, UNICEF, released a report looking at the state of child and youth well-being across high-income countries. Canada ranks 19th out of 36 countries, and this is “far below the top tier expected of one of the world's the wealthiest nations” states UNICEF. Canada ranked 13 for “life satisfaction” among children; the country ranked a very troubling 33rd for its rate of adolescent suicide (here).

CBC News publicized a 2024 RCMP report that paints a bleak picture of what Canadians could have to face over the next several years. One factor that was identified is “political polarization and resentment, coupled with the threat of an economic recession.” The report states, “The coming period of recession will also accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations. For example, many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live. The fallout from this decline in living standards will be exacerbated by the fact that the difference between the extremes of wealth is greater now in developed countries than it has been at any time in several generations.”

As these snapshots are pieced together they provide Canadians with an unnerving thought of a country in steady decline. This is best captured by the international Quality of Living Index that has traced Canada’s fall from fifth in the world for its quality of life to an ugly 33rd position worldwide in 2024. It has become so bad in this country that, since the re-election of the federal Liberals, more than one in four (28 per cent) of Canadian millionaires are looking to exit the country, scared away by economic worries and a disbelief with the failing quality of life (here and here). It has become so bad in this country that Canada’s PM advised his company to move to New York; he holds his wealth portfolio in some tax haven outside of Canada; and, his family members work and school abroad.

There has been much written in the last few months about “Canada’s Lost Decade” and the shattered Canadian dream. It’s all so sad -- and this sentiment too has been measured. The international “World Happiest Report” documents Canada sliding down the countries’ rankings to 18th place -- among the “largest losers” in the world. In 2015, Canada was perched near the top in fifth position. For Canadians it has proven to have been a miserable decade.

Happiness researchers at the University of Toronto pursued a line of questioning on Canadians’ sad disposition. They found that it came down to individual expectations of their lives not measuring up to the reality of their life experience in Canada. There is an antsy feeling that has grown in the last decade and is manifesting, especially in young Canadians under 30 years of age, that we are not living our best lives in this country.

Could it be that our frog is cooked -- that Canadians have been too slow to realize what has been happening? That, perhaps, for the first time in Canada’s history our children’s life opportunities for success will not exceed those of their parents? And according to the Globe and Mail, with the country’s economy as it is, we must face the reality of another decade of decline?

This July 1st, force a smile. Embrace family, friends, community. Wishing you a happy Canada Day!

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The article was published this morning in The Niagara Independent. The By George Journal version above includes additional text, quotes, and links to source media materials.

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