Financial security is a priority for most Canadians, ranking near the top of life goals along with good health and strong family ties. Individuals and families typically build up their assets over the course of their careers and then draw these down when they stop working. For most people, funding a comfortable old age with accumulated wealth depends on having few or no liabilities as retirement approaches.
Statistics Canada’s Survey of Financial Security provides valuable insights into the state of household finances across the country, with a particular focus on the mix of assets and liabilities among different demographic sub-groups.
The most recent survey covers the period ending in 2023. Several highlights emerge from the reported data.
Total household assets amounted to $19.2 trillion in 2023, with principal residences accounting for $7.3 trillion and pension assets for another $4.5 trillion. (Note that government pension schemes such as CPP and Old Age Security are not included in pension assets). Real estate other than principal residences chipped in another $1.8 trillion. The other asset categories tracked by Statistics Canada are non-pension financial holdings (bank accounts, mutual funds, TFSAs, stocks and bonds), business equity and some long-lived durable goods (such as vehicles).
For many people, owning a home and being part of an employer-sponsored pension plan — ubiquitous in the public sector, but increasingly scarce in much of the Canadian private sector — is foundational to growing the value of household assets over time.
Turning to the debt side of the household balance sheet, mortgages unsurprisingly dominate, representing more than 80 per cent of total debt in 2023. Four in 10 Canadian families had a mortgage in 2023. Lines of credit and various types of loans make up the rest of household debt.
Subtracting debt from assets yields an estimate of net worth. Statistics Canada pegs this at a lofty $16.8 billion in 2023. That is more than three times the figure 25 years ago — although this calculation ignores the effects of inflation and population growth, both of which tend to boost assets and net worth.
How does all of this play out for the “average” household?
To answer that, we need to measure median net worth for an aggregate of economic families plus individuals not living with families. The median or mid-point of the distribution is a better gauge of the wealth of a typical household than “average” net worth, which is inflated by small numbers of very rich people. In 2023, median net worth in Canada stood at $519,700 — up a solid 36 per cent from 2019.
Of interest, British Columbia households ranked first in median net worth at $773,500 — more than a quarter of a million dollars higher than the national average, and up sharply from $489,400 in 2019. On this metric, Ontario is the second-richest province (at $665,500).
The obvious reason for B.C.’s elevated net worth is the outsized role of real estate in the economy and the resulting structure of household finances. Principal residences plus other real estate holdings comprise 57 per cent of the assets of B.C. residents, fully 10 percentage points higher than the national benchmark. The relatively high cost of housing inflates both gross household assets and household debt. However, the total value of residential real estate in B.C. vastly exceeds the debt incurred to purchase it — real estate assets were worth $2 trillion in 2023, while total mortgage debt was $358 billion. Property is by far the most important contributor to British Columbians’ net worth.
Of course, real estate and other assets are unequally distributed across the population, notably varying with age. Households in which the primary income earner is at least 55 report net worth levels substantially higher than families headed by younger principal earners. Net worth also depends on other socio-economic characteristics, such as educational credentials and the occupations of the employed population in the different age cohorts.
At a time when B.C. is struggling with a stagnant economy and faces a looming fiscal crunch thanks to the provincial government’s epic mismanagement of the province’s finances, it is perhaps of some comfort to know that, collectively, British Columbians are wealthier than their counterparts in other parts of Canada and have enjoyed a significant bump in net worth since the late 2010s. •
Jock Finlayson is chief economist at the ICBA. Ken Peacock lives in White Rock and writes the BC Economic Brief (@kenpeacock on Substack).
