Canada to feel impact of European financial turbulence
Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said Monday that even if the Canadian economy is improving, Canadians would still feel the impact of the global recession.
He cited particularly the European financial turbulence which is a reminder that the crisis is not over yet, but only entered a new phase.
Carney told the Economic Club of Canada it would take years to fix the balance sheets of banks, households and countries as the different economic units of society address their debt problems.
He also warned that Canadian households’ debt-to-income ratio has overtaken Americans’ for the first time in more than a decade. This places federal policy makers such as the Bank of Canada in a bind because they have to put brakes on spending and risk the recovery or risk another financial failure.
Carney said that if government agencies would drastically alter policies such as large drop in house prices or hike in key lending rate, many homeowners would be unable to keep up with payments and result in personal and corporate bankruptcies.
According to Statistics Canada, the ratio of household debt-to-disposable income for the third quarter is at 148.1 percent, which went up by 6.7 percent from a year ago. The U.S. household debt-to-disposable income ratio went down by 1.5 percent to 147.2 percent for the same quarter.
The Bank of Canada has stated that it will not likely increase key lending rates until middle of 2011.
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