A Look At the Cost of Living in Canada

One important factor that our every day lives is impacted it the price of simply living. Today, we decide to take a look at this.

When I covered the bad coverage of the World Happiness Report (which resulted in me actually filing a complaint to the CBC), I brought up the cost of living as a factor that would impact overall happiness. Of course, it isn’t just overall happiness that this impacts, but rather, affects a broad range of how people can choose to live.

So, for instance, if things are unaffordable, then purchasing things like a video game console or general software is also impacted. There’s also the ability to have time to learn and contribute to things in society. Indeed, when I set up my Patreon, I knew that it would be extremely to have anyone contribute to something like an actual news source that delivers high quality journalism. This isn’t necessarily because people don’t support news at all or people don’t see the value proposition that such a thing provides, but rather, more often then not, that disposable income is a very uncommon thing for people who would contribute. Believe me, I get that because I’m also living that life.

In fact, one of the things that has long frustrated me is how little this whole affordability crisis gets coverage among major outlets. Very often, when there is news about job losses and how it overwhelmingly impacts younger generations, the news is generally treated as a minor footnote rather than a major issue facing people today. Part of the blame, I believe, falls on the fact that traditional outlets typically only focus on older generations for their audience. As a result, the affordability crisis is not really a big issue because so many in those generations were able to take advantage of purchasing their home and having a nice nest egg. Through that lens, the coverage makes sense, but ignores the very real problem facing a huge portion of the population.

So, in response to all of this, and because I’m sure the concept of affordability is going to crop up again and again in the future, I thought I would devote today’s article to just giving the affordability issue a look. By no means is this comprehensive and there are a million directions to take things, but at the very least, I hope to offer a general idea of just how bad the affordability crisis really is.

Housing

It is often said (very accurately) that the place you live is generally the biggest expense that you make in your life. As someone who is among the “younger” generation, this is a very sore spot for me and, as I’ve known for years now, a very sore spot for a lot of people my age and younger. The very thought of affording my own place to live makes me want to emotionally vent while listening to Given Up. While some were able to scrape something together to get their own place to live, being house poor is likely a common problem among those that did afford something.

Indeed, once upon a time, the idea of buying your own place to live was simply a rite of passage. It was a sign that you are now a fully grown adult that is able to take on responsibility. If you didn’t move out of your parents place and live in your own place, then there is definitely something wrong with you. Maybe you weren’t mature and didn’t grow up or maybe you were just lazy and decided to simply mooch off of your parents out of personal laziness. Those were the stereotypes for anyone over the age of 21 at least once upon a time. It is also an attitude I’m very grateful has, at least in some places, died out when the realization set in that there are other factors involved that completely override this.

Personally, I’ve completely given up on the idea of ever affording my own place to live. It’s not from a lack of will or motivation, but rather, a lack of opportunity. Much like the prospect of marriage, these very basic things has always felt was simply denied outright rather than a simple choice. There’s no “holding yourself up by the bootstraps” and knuckling down and working hard that can ever change that. It’s not a case of simply making up excuses, but rather, an acknowledgement of the reality I, as an individual, face.

The statistics for this is absolutely disgusting. Take the cost of an average house in Vancouver. This can be found in the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation. In 1990, the lower end of your average house cost around $188,000. Fast forward that to February of 2026, that same kind of house goes for $1,500,000. An 87% increase by my math. That’s not even the most expensive it’s ever been. For instance, in December of 2025, those same houses were going for $2,197,000. If that isn’t enough to make you vomit, I don’t know what will.

Toronto is a very similar situation. In January of 1990, the lower end average price was $250,000. In February of 2026, that price became $950,000. A roughly 74% increase. December of 2025 saw the price hit $1,145,000.

How about Edmonton? There is also a considerable jump in price. In January of 1990, the lower end price was $110,000. In February of 2026, the lower end average went to $520,000. A roughly 78% increase.

While not all cities has this level of detail, it does give you a great idea of what the price of affording a place to live did. At any rate, for me personally, I witnessed the cost of housing going from potentially possible to a mere pipe dream.

Earnings

Of course, looking at the average cost of housing is only one piece of the puzzle. There’s also the factor of wages. If wages at around that same time period went up by about 80%, this wouldn’t be a big deal. The problem is, it did no such thing. According to Statistics Canada, the average personal yearly income was $22,184 per person. In 2023, according to Statistics Canada, the average ended up being $74,200. That is barely a 70% increase. This is not even keeping up with the cost of housing and this is including high income earners skewing the data upwards.

Of course, when you dig further into the details, as per Statistics Canada, you’ll see that age group has also been greatly impacted. In 1990, the average income for people ages 25 to 34 fell to 94.2% of what they were in 1981. In 2024 (which is as recent as the statistics go, that same age group saw the wage go up to 105.2% compared to 1981. It was only a recent trend that this age group managed to get back past to break even. Similar age groups have a similar problem. All of this is to say that wages simply aren’t keeping up.

The Price of Fuel

A major factor in the cost of a lot of things is the price of fuel. According to Statistics Canada, the prices did vary in 1995, but in Vancouver, the price was 58.4 a litre. Edmonton was 47.6. Toronto was 52.4. Montreal was 56.8.

Now look at the prices today. According to Statistics Canada, the average cots of fuel in Canada for February was 134.9 a litre. In Vancouver, the price was 171.3. Edmonton was 118.5. Toronto was 132.2. Montreal was 150.0. Worth noting is that this isn’t even touching the very recent price spikes with the increase in oil prices lately.

So, this works out to an increase of about 66% increase in Vancouver, a 60% increase in Edmonton, a 60% increase in Toronto, and a 62% increase in Montreal respectively.

Inflation

Unsurprisingly, inflation is also a pretty gloomy picture. According to the North West Territories Bureau of Statistics, Canada’s yearly inflation in 1990 was 78.4. In 2024, it was at 160.9.

The Price of a Car

Then there’s the cost of a vehicle. Here’s some data gathered by Yahoo! Finance:

1990-1994

1990: New, Chrysler New Yorker, $15,586. Used, Dodge Caravan, $9,500.

1991: New, Chevrolet Astro Van, $19,811. Used, Ford Escort, $5,850.

1992: New, Oldsmobile Supreme, $15,895. Used, Dodge Dynasty LE, $12,591.

1993: New, Chevrolet Lumina, $12,599. Used, Ford Mercury, $5,990.

1994: New, Dodge Intrepid, $17,477. Used, Chrysler New Yorker, $15,777.

2020-2024

2020: New, Kia Forte, $16,678.

2021: New, Toyota Corolla Hybrid, $21,790.

2022: New, Nissan Versa, $18,262.

2023: New, Hyundai Elantra, $24,204.

2024: New, Honda Civic, $24,635.

Judging by those statistics, whoever was looking at the prices was looking for some bottom of the barrel cheap vehicles because I know you can easily spend far more than that on a vehicle.

Conclusions

There is a reason why people are struggling these days. People are working 2, 3, and in some cases, 4 jobs to make ends meet. People, generally speaking, are absolutely cash strapped. You want to ask why people aren’t having kids any more, well, this is a pretty big factor as to why.

A number of years ago, I squared away as much spare income as I could into investments. I was under the idea that I could actually try and catch up to the cost of living by squirrelling away huge chunks of money into stock market based investments. After several years, I can definitely say that, even before the terrible idea of the Iran war, my investments didn’t even come close to keeping up with just housing alone. Yes, the boost of income was absolutely massive and it made me feel like maybe I can afford to partially live, but in terms of trying to afford to place, that truly fell short. If I put my entire income into investments with the hopes of staying afloat, it would not have made it to getting me to that goal. Generally speaking, my crazy strategy of putting all of my money into investments would’ve meant that I would have fallen short by about 27%. Thanks to the recent volatility, that gap is only increasing thanks to he massive losses in recent weeks.

At any rate, if you want to look at why “younger” people are feeling hopeless about things and are feeling like giving up on things, this is why. I’ve heard plenty of bright people say the same thing over and over again, “the math is not mathing”. We are already witnessing the damaging effects of all of this and it’s only going to get worse from here on out.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.