The rich invest more, buy less, as inequality and tax risk rise for Canada’s wealthiest
Canada’s wealthiest households are sitting on cash instead of splurging – and that choice is shaping markets, policy risk and advice opportunities far more than a textbook “K‑shaped” recovery.
According to the Financial Post, the highest‑income Canadians increased their net savings by 6.7 percent in the third quarter, even as the average savings rate across all income groups shrank.
Statistics Canada’s latest wealth survey shows that this top income group had average disposable income of $195,337, controlled nearly two‑thirds of national net worth and held average net worth of about $3.5m per household.
Their investment holdings rose 10.6 percent in the quarter, while their average mortgage costs increased just 2.1 percent, the lowest of any wealth group.
By contrast, the next‑highest income group had nearly $110,000 in disposable income, and the lowest had $28,161.
Yet despite stronger income and wealth gains than other Canadians in recent years, spending among the wealthiest has remained “comparatively modest,” CIBC Capital Markets economist Andrew Grantham said in a note cited by the Financial Post.
Grantham described “seemingly cautious behaviour” among high‑income earners and argued that Canadian top‑end incomes have been “less pronounced than in the US” He pointed to three drivers:
-
A possible “timing issue” as Canadian equities only recently caught up after lagging US markets.
-
“Conservatism towards spending given ongoing trade uncertainty,” with room for pent‑up savings to be deployed if conditions improve.
-
Greater interest‑rate sensitivity, because Canadian mortgages typically reset every five years while many US borrowers lock in for 30 years.
It is estimated that about 60 percent of outstanding Canadian mortgages will be renegotiated at higher rates this year.
Grantham also cited Bank of Canada survey data showing that Canadians earning more than $100,000 fear they could miss a mortgage payment in the next 12 months.
He warned that Canadians should not expect top‑down, K‑style consumption to rescue growth.
He added that while Canadian high earners are not as extreme relative to other groups as their US counterparts, “it may not be OK that we aren’t seeing a ‘K’ in consumer spending here in Canada,” according to the Financial Post.
Bloomberg reports that Canadian households, last month, saw the value of their financial assets surge by $532bn in the third quarter as North American markets rallied, with the S&P/TSX Composite posting its strongest gain since the second quarter of 2020.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, the total value of financial assets on household balance sheets is up 56 percent, versus a 44 percent rise in land and dwelling values.
That performance highlights the opportunity cost of concentrating savings in property instead of a diversified public‑markets portfolio, even amid volatility and macro uncertainty.
However, the gains remain highly concentrated.
Statistics Canada has “repeatedly noted” that about 70 percent of financial assets are held by the wealthiest 20 percent of households, and even bank CEOs are now warning about inequality.
Overall household net worth climbed to $18.4tn in the third quarter, but debts continue to grow faster than incomes, pushing the credit market debt‑to‑income ratio to 176.7 percent.
At the very top of the distribution, wealth is expanding even faster.
A new Oxfam report, covered by CTV News, says global billionaire wealth jumped by US$2.5tn in 2025 to US$18.3tn, a 16 percent increase that Oxfam claims would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.
The same report says the number of billionaires worldwide topped 3,000 for the first time, and that the combined wealth of the 12 richest billionaires now exceeds the total wealth held by the poorer half of the world’s population – about 4.1bn people.
A sister report from Oxfam Canada, also reported by CTV News, estimates that Canada has at least 89 billionaires.
It says the wealth of the country’s 40 richest people grew more than 20 percent in 2025 to nearly $550bn, more than the GDP of Chile, South Africa or Finland.
Oxfam Canada calculates that the richest 1 percent of Canadians – those with at least $7m in net worth – now hold almost $1.25tn, nearly as much as the bottom 80 percent combined, and warns that poverty has been rising steadily since 2020, with about one‑quarter of Canadians living in food‑insecure households and regularly skipping meals.
“That isn’t a narrow wealth gap but a wide, expansive, echoing wealth chasm,” Oxfam Canada wrote, according to CTV News.
The group is calling for a federal wealth tax on the ultra‑rich and tighter controls on offshore tax havens.
