TORONTO – There’s some good news for Canada’s wealthiest individuals; they’re feeling better off than they did before the 2008 economic downturn.
The study, conducted by the Bank of Montreal and released Thursday, found that 54 per cent of Canadians with a high-net worth (which the study deems to be those people with investible assets of $1 million or more) feel more secure about their financial well-being.
And 47 per cent of Canada’s wealthiest are optimistic about the future of Canada’s economy, according to the report.
The study asked people from six Canadian regions various questions to gauge their feelings toward Canada’s economy.
In all questions, Ontario ranked among the lowest, which BMO-Harris spokesperson Nini Krishnappa characterized as a left-over scar from the 2008 recession.
“No question that Ontario has been going through a tough time over the last five years,” he said. “Largely because the manufacturing sector, which is such a large part of Ontario’s economy hasn’t been doing too well.”
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He added that Ontario’s financial and automotive sectors also took a significant hit in 2008.
“So this confluence of sectors not performing well over the last few years has really taken a toll,” Krishnappa said.
Ontario’s struggling decade is even more evident, he suggested, when compared to Alberta’s or British Columbia’s booming resource-based economies.
“If you look at the Ontario economy over the last six or seven years, Ontario has had a challenging decade and I think that’s kind of being reflected,” he said, adding that western economics have done “relatively speaking, better than Ontario’s.”
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