Canada’s debt is primarily owed to investors who purchase government bonds and bills, with roughly 75% held domestically by Canadian banks, pension funds, insurance companies, and individuals. The remaining debt is held by foreign investors, including international portfolio investors and foreign governments.
At ~$6.1 trillion, the par value of all Canadian debt securities exceeds 190% of GDP. A major slice of Canada's debt pie, nearly $2.4 trillion, has been served up to foreign investors.
Canada holds 328 billion in US debt. They owe Canada.
Of course, Canadians are ultimately responsible for financing this debt. Indeed, governments, like households, must pay interest on their debt, and taxpayers fund these debt interest payments.
Public debt, which accounts for roughly 80% of the total, is owed to investors. Those investors include foreign governments, mutual funds, pension funds, and individuals among others. The Federal Reserve owns part of this public debt. Intragovernmental debt accounts for the other 20%.
1 United States 21,764,799 2 Euro area 18,075,643 3 United Kingdom 9,837,535 4 France 7,368,685 5 Norway 7,110,029 6 Germany 6,6,91,139 7 Japan 4,687,815 8 Netherlands 4,197,719 9 Luxembourg 3,965,300 10 Italy 2,749,75 https://www.ceicdata. com/en/indicator/norway/external-debt--of-nominal- gdp https://www.gfmag.com/ ...
The U.S. owes its roughly $36 trillion national debt to a mix of domestic and foreign investors, including American individuals, banks, mutual funds, pension funds, the Federal Reserve, other U.S. government agencies (like Social Security), and foreign governments, with Japan and China being major foreign holders. The debt is mainly in the form of Treasury securities, essentially IOUs for cash borrowed to fund government operations.
Despite any federal assurances, the federal deficit is still projected at $78 billion for 2026, narrowing only to $57 billion by 2030, and leaving Canada exposed to higher debt costs and weak growth.
During Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's tenure, federal per-person debt increased by 35.3 per- cent between 2015 and 2022.
The United States has the largest total government debt by dollar amount, exceeding $38 trillion, followed by China and Japan. However, when debt is measured as a percentage of the country's economic output (GDP), Japan often leads among developed nations (around 230% of GDP), while countries like Sudan have even higher ratios (over 250% of GDP) due to extreme economic challenges.
Faced with a debt that just keeps on growing, it is young people who, sooner or later, will pay the price. Interest alone on the debt is set to hit $76 billion in 2029-2030, which is $10 billion more than what the Quebec government spent on healthcare in 2025.
Adding to this concern is the ownership structure of Canada's federal debt, especially since non-resident investors own approximately 36 per cent of Government of Canada debt as of May 2025, which is far above the long-term average of 23 per cent.
The United States is Canada's chief trading partner, constituting more than two-thirds of all Canadian trade; exports account for a larger share of trade than imports. The dependence on U.S. trade is not just a technical matter of market shares in imports and exports.
The top three estimated foreign holders of federal debt by country, ranked in descending order as of December 2024, are Japan ($1.1 trillion), China ($0.8 trillion), and the United Kingdom ($0.7 trillion).
Among the provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador ($20,544) recorded the highest net debt per capita in 2024, followed by Manitoba ($19,327), Ontario ($17,961) and Quebec ($17,856). The lowest net debt per capita was in Alberta ($1,972), followed by British Columbia ($2,871).
Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio is about 42%, compared to over 100% in the U.S. Canadian borrowing costs are 1.2% lower than U.S. costs, the widest gap since 1870.
To pay for this deficit, the federal government borrows money by selling marketable securities such as Treasury bonds , bills , notes , floating rate notes , and Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) .
39% of Canadians aged 55-64 have less than $5,000 in savings (-5 pts); 73% have $100,000 or less in savings. More than one in three (36%) women aged 55-64 have no savings at all, compared to one in five (22%) men.
“Deep recession” is another name for an economic depression, which is an unusually severe recession. There's no formal definition, but some people define a depression as a recession where GDP declines 10%. Depression in Canada in 2025 is highly unlikely but not impossible.
The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, the Southern Cone, Western European countries and other allies represented the "First World", while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and their allies represented the "Second World".
Jérôme Kerviel is learning one of life's harsher lessons: It stinks to be $6.3 billion in debt. That's how much his fraudulent trades in 2007 and 2008 cost French bank Société Générale, and how much he has been ordered to pay in restitution -- after he gets out of jail in three years.
Over the 12 months from the close of trading on Jan. 17, 2025, to the end of day Jan. 15, 2026, the federal government added approximately $2.25 trillion to the national debt, according to calculations shared exclusively with Fortune by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.