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Canada is very much a "let someone else do it" kind of place. You see that in politics, you see that in business, you see that in government.

A lot of that though is simply not wanting to be rich. Americans truly want lambo type wealth. I can't say I have met someone born here who wanted that. We are content to own a house and go to Mexico.



> We are content to own a house and go to Mexico.

But isn't housing ridiculously expensive in the parts of Canada where jobs are concentrated (which I'm pretty sure are around Toronto and Vancouver)? Pardon me if wrong, I'm American ;)

For the record, I want those things too, it's just that housing in California is ridiculously unaffordable


Depends on who you are.

For most people, yes it is quite expensive. If you are looking at techies specifically, it is still affordable.

For typical knowledge jobs or skilled labour jobs, it is affordable as well if you pair up with someone.


Average house price in Toronto $1.3 million.

Average SW developer salary 95,000

I would say yes.... this is very unaffordable.

The current mortgage on a house of that price is around $8,500 per month


I frequently travel to Toronto and the number of people driving Teslas there has increased 10X in the last 5 years. This could be a result of new Chinese money though and not native Canadians.


Many Canadians became wealthy via the housing market. Effectively drawing wealth from the mortgaged future potential income of Canada's young first time home buyers.

Or, just running STRs in the big cities.


Dunno about other cities, but City of Toronto proper didn't add any net new hotel rooms from 2000 - 2015. And only up 22% in the "Greater Toronto Area", which is way less than that area's pop'n growth. I doubt things improved as airbnb became a thing.

p. 10 here: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2016/ed/bgrd/backgroundf...

When your residential construction market is so on fire that you don't even build hotel space, you end up with STRs as a symptom.


> I can't say I have met someone born here who wanted that

Possibly because the ambitious people moved to the US.


USA also has a significant amount of generational wealth to go around. Canadas is isolated to a few dozen families in Montreal and Toronto. Canada is at its core, a resource extraction economy. Generational wealth doesn’t really come from that these days.




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