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 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, nine per cent for infant formula, seven per cent for meatless burgers and six 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 wellbeing 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 homeownership, 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.” C.D. 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 8 Tax Freedom Day in 2025 as 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, 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.
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. It has become so bad in this country that Canada’s prime minister 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. 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 we 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!
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
