Canadians are the most indebted in the world | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

This is a huge problem, but it will be more useful if there are information on provincial basis. As this will tell us more about the causes of increasing debt. (high housing cost vs cannot reduce spending quickly after getting lay off from oil related worked)

Jon said

Pretty much depends on do you count debt from Hydro Ontario (or whats left of it) as public debt, or as corporate debt that are pay by user. It can work both ways as there are intrinsic government gareentee, but the debt are not serviced from general tax revenue.  

Good point, not sure how much of Ontario's debt actually belongs to Hydro One. I suspect it's a good chunk but you also have Ontario Power Generation. Does Hydro One also handle high voltage transmission or does it just do distribution? If the latter, there may be another Crown corporation doing transmission. Orng or whatever probably has a fair bit of debt as well as whatever your regional health authorities are called, the OPP, regional police services, the health care system, the transportation network, Metrolinx, etc. 🙂

Also, Hydro One is legislatively prohibited from selling less than 44% to the public shareholders and it's currently around 46-48% owned by the Province of Ontario so, in effect, about half its debt is the responsibility of the province. 🙂

Related: Anyone here think that the City of Toronto should either IPO Toronto Hydro or sell it, at the top of the market, to either Hydro One, Fortis or Emera? Realize the windfall and reinvest those proceeds into public transit projects (think: new subway and light rail transit lines, rapid bus connections to the "burbs" and GO trains, etc.).

Cheers,
Doug

I don't know if it's true but the media gives me the impression most of my neighbours and acquaintances have too much debt, so it makes perfect sense to me that they would vote for politicians that do the same. Don't see that changing anytime soon.

Yatti420 said
Ontario has more debt then California.  

The net debt is not important, what matters is the change in the ratio between debt and GDP of the jurisdiction.