In 2016 I remember looking at buying an apartment for the first time in the city of oakville ontario. At this time I was working in toronto while also doing youtube on the side, and i thought that if I saved up for a few more months, i would go ahead and buy an apartment.

Funny enough, I remember the exact apartment I wanted to buy. It was on lakeshore, it had lake views, it was a one bedroom and a den, new construction, and was being sold for around $330,000.

Now, I ended up not purchasing that apartment. But i just checked at how much this 1 bedroom apartment is selling for now, 8 years later.

Want to take a guess?

Well, under normal, but still good circumstances, the value of this apartment would increase 3% per year, which would make it worth around $418,000 today.
However, today, this exact apartment is now selling for $730,000. For a 1 bedroom condo.
You would need $146,000 saved for the downpayment, and have a household income of over $150,000. That income would put you in the top 10% of all household earners in canada.

So think about this. In 2016, a single male, fresh out of university, could theoretically afford this place making an above average income and some good savings.

Now, it requires you to either be a top 2% income earner on your own, or a top 10% household income, to afford this 1 bedroom condo.

So, i know you have probably heard about canada’s real estate issue before, and all around the world this is happening, its just the worst in canada, by quite a bit.

But this video isnt just about housing. Its about canada’s economy. Its horrific economy. And how pretty much within the span of a decade, Canada has gone from one of the most prosperous countries in the world, to one that officially as of today, has gone through a lost decade.

Growing up in the great white north was great. The Canadian dream was alive and well, the economy was booming, it was one of the safest and happiest places on earth,

Hey you wanted to be a canadian astronaut, boom, chris hadfield played guitar in space. Want to be a professional hockey player, but you were only 165 lbs and from rural ontario? Boom wayne gretzky. And most importantly for this video, if you wanted to start a business from pretty much nothing, it was very possible in canada. I mean we had blackberry which was bigger than apple for awhile, we had lululemon, opentext, heck…we even turn the ultimate canadian nemesis, the canadian goose, into one of the biggest clothing brands in the world. And if that doesnt signal perseverance of the canadian people, i dont know what does.

However, over the last few decades, this spirit of entrepreneurship has faded dramatically.
In the year 2000, about 3 out of every 1,000 canadians were entrepreneurs. Today, despite all those people selling crystals with ‘entrepreneur’ in their bio, only 1.3 out of every 1,000 canadians are entrepreneurs according to BDC. thats a falloff of over 50% in 24 years. Infact, despite canada having 12,000,000 more people today than it did 24 years ago, there are actually 100,000 less entrepreneurs today than 24 years ago.

And is this a large reason why canada has been going through its worst decline in the post ww2 era? A lost decade.. Where real gdp per capita is in the exact same place where it was in 2015. Meaning that the average canadian is the same or worse off than they were 10 years ago.

There are so many stats that i can talk about that are at lows for he country. Gdp per capita has fallen, foreign investment has fallen off a cliff. birth rates are extremely low. Canada’s household debt to income ratio is 184%. One other interesting stat is that canada is the only country in the G7, that has a higher household debt than its total GDP.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-can…
Think about that. Just household debt, not government debt, is higher in canada than GDP.

And speaking of GDP, I think I have to briefly touch on a topic that i’ve mentioned in many previous videos, but the small GDP growth of canada is an artificially inflated number. You see, before the pandemic, canada had a law where if unemployment was above 6%, canada would not accept any temporary foreign workers to fill low wage positions. The purpose of this law is to make sure that when unemployment is high, canadians could still find work. Its also to ensure that wage growth happens, and that the labor market isnt to tilted towards large corporations.