If you are considering moving to Canada as a permanent resident in 2022? If you are, you have likely wondered about what the cost of living in Canada is. Here, the immigration physicians at our Ottawa and Orleans clinics explain what to expect from the cost of living in Canada, and where some of the places with the lowest cost of living are.
Canada has a reputation for being a country that welcomes people from all over the world - more immigrants come to Canada each year to make the country their home than nearly any other country in the world! As much as the 'true north, strong and free' promises beautiful landscapes, multicultural cities, and vibrant culture to people that live there, there is also a cost to living in Canada too.
Bills like rent or a mortgage, groceries, electricity, water and general spending all add up and change depending on where in the world you live. In Canada in the year 2022, the cost of living is rising with inflation - just like it is in the rest of the world. But what actually is the cost of living in Canada in 2022?
The Average Cost of Living in Canada
It should come as no surprise that the cost of living in countries across the world varies. Different countries and regions of the world come with their own economies and their own unique expenses. For example, the cost of living in Canada will be partially affected by the price of heating homes in cold Canadian winters. This is something that you wouldn't necessarily have to worry about as much in Mexico, Australia, or even England.
With that being said, the average cost of living in Canada is:
- For an individual living in a 1 bedroom apartment, the average cost of living in Canada can range from $2262.00 to $3425.00 including rent
- For a family of 4 living in a 3 bedroom apartment or home, the average cost of living in Canada can range from $5887.00 to $6208.00 including rent or a mortgage
Based on these numbers, and depending on how the calculation is made, Canada generally falls within the top 30 most expensive countries to live in in the world, with some rankings placing it as high as number 16.
Cost of Living Across Canada
While the general average can be quite helpful for getting ready for what your expenses may be like once you begin living in Canada as a permanent resident, they don't give the whole picture. Canada is an enormous country with coastlines in the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This means that there is a lot of room of variety when it comes to the cost of living depending on where exactly you plant to move to in Canada.
As a general rule, in Canada, the cost of living is primarily influenced by the cost of your rent and/or mortgage payments. Because of this, places where property is more expensive will be more expensive to live - this includes cities and areas of the country where lots of people want or need to live.
In practice, this means that the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario are far and away the most expensive provinces to live in on average, with their provincial capitals - Vancouver and Toronto - consistently ranking as the top two places in Canada with the highest cost of living.
But the cost of living in Canada isn't only influenced by the cost of rent. Depending on where you live, the cost and quality of fresh vegetables and fruits at the grocery store will vary as will the cost of transportation depending on whether or not you need a car to get around or not.
Places With The Lowest Cost of Living in Canada
The cities with some of the lowest costs of living in Canada include Quebec City, Regina, Moncton, Windsor, and Saskatoon. Generally speaking the cost of living in the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec are some of the lowest in the country.
However, this doesn't automatically mean that you should uproot everything and move to one of these cities or provinces to pursue the lowest cost of living.
The Best Places to Live in Canada
Because of the factors that influence the cost of living in a given place includes the average salary of that area and its desirability, the best places to live in Canada for your pocketbook should actually be determined by how much spending power people that live there have.
Spending power is a comparison between the average salaries of those places versus their cost of living. The more money people on average have left over in a city or town have after covering their cost of living, the better a place will score for spending power.
Based on this, the best places to live in Canada include Calgary, North Vancouver, Surrey, Regina, Red Deer and Markham.
