Statistics Canada's official wealth survey significantly underestimates wealth inequality. Canada’s wealth concentration is not as extreme as in the United States, but closer than official data suggest. This misleading portrait undermines Canadians’ ability to have an evidence-informed conversation about how to address growing wealth concentration and the threats it represents for economic resilience and democratic stability.

The report contains three recommendations for the federal government and Statistics Canada:

  • Ensure that the wealthiest Canadians – including its billionaires – are captured by creating new tiers of estimated ‘net worth’ that target the top 2-0.001% in all future SFS surveys, as done in the U.S.;
  • Modernize how wealth inequality data is published and displayed, including ways to track the wealth shares of the top 0.1% and 1%;
  • Treat the Statistics Canada Survey of Financial Security (SFS) with more seriousness by deploying it with greater frequency.

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Blame the denominator, not the economy

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Non-Permanent Residents and their impact on GDP per capita | Summary

New research by economist and SCP Fellow Gillian Petit estimates what Canada’s GDP per capita would have been over the past decade if Canada had kept our temporary resident numbers stable. She also estimates the expected impact on GDP per capita in the coming years due strictly to planned reductions in Canada's intake of non-permanent residents. Among key findings: Canada’s GDP per capita is misleading and should not be used as if it were the sole indicator of economic well-being. Plus, if we had maintained our temporary resident numbers at two percent of the population in recent years, Canada’s GDP per capita would look much more like our peer countries: a little bit ahead of countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia and a little bit lower than countries like Belgium, Sweden and France.

Non-Permanent Residents and their impact on GDP per capita | Report

New research by economist and SCP Fellow Gillian Petit estimates what Canada’s GDP per capita would have been over the past decade if Canada had kept our temporary resident numbers stable. She also estimates the expected impact on GDP per capita in the coming years due strictly to planned reductions in Canada's intake of non-permanent residents. Among key findings: Canada’s GDP per capita is misleading and should not be used as if it were the sole indicator of economic well-being. Plus, if we had maintained our temporary resident numbers at two percent of the population in recent years, Canada’s GDP per capita would look much more like our peer countries: a little bit ahead of countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia and a little bit lower than countries like Belgium, Sweden and France.

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