Housing Ownership, 2006

View this map

Abstract

According to the 2006 Census, 68% of households owned their home up from 66% in 2001. In 2006, households in the Atlantic provinces continued to have the highest homeownership rates in the country, with Newfoundland and Labrador ranking first, at 78.7%. Households in Quebec had the lowest, at 60.1%. The map shows the percentage of households in each census division and census subdivision that own or rent their dwelling and the percentage of households that live in band housing.

According to the 2006 Census, 68.4% of households owned their home in 2006, up from 65.8% in 2001. The increase in condominium owners between 2001 and 2006 accounted for more than one-quarter of the increase in the number of Canadian households that own their dwelling. The term owned dwelling refers only to owner-occupied private dwellings, which do not include dwellings situated on farms, but can include owner-occupied dwellings situated on rented or leased land or part of a condominium. At the same time, the proportion of Canadian households that rented their home declined, from 33.8% in 2001 to 31.2% in 2006. Roughly 0.4% of households in both census years lived in band housing.

Homeownership rates are traditionally higher in Canada's countryside. About 85.1% of households who lived in rural areas owned their home, as opposed to 64.5% who lived in urban areas. Rates of homeownership in the territories were lower than the national rate. In the Yukon, 63.8% of the households owned the dwelling they lived in and for the Northwest Territories it was 52.9% and for Nunavut, 22.7%.

Atlantic Canada continues to have the highest rates of homeownership in the country, according to the 2006 Census. One big factor is that more than 40% of households in the Atlantic provinces are in rural areas, compared with less than 20% for Canada as a whole. Rural households are more likely to own their home than their urban counterparts. Overall, homeownership rates were high in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, even though they had relatively low urban homeownership rates, compared to the other provinces.

Quebec has traditionally had the lowest rate of homeownership among the provinces. The 2006 Census showed that this continues to be the case. Of the 3 189 345 households in Quebec, only 60.1% owned their dwelling, compared with 57.9% in 2001. In Ontario 71.0% owned the dwelling they lived in, an increase from 67.8% five years earlier, the second largest proportional jump among the provinces. In Manitoba 68.9% owned the dwelling they lived in. This was a slight increase from 67.8% five years ago. In Saskatchewan 71.8% owned the dwelling they lived in, a slight increase from 70.8% five years earlier and in Alberta 73.1% owned the dwelling they lived in, an increase from 70.4% five years earlier. In British Columbia 69.7% owned the dwelling they lived in, up from 66.3% five years earlier.

The Daily is Statistics Canada's official release bulletin. The Daily for September 12, marked the public release of this census variable. Technical notes for this variable can be found at Housing and Dwelling Characteristics Reference Guide, 2006.

The text was adapted from Statistics Canada, Changing Patterns in Canadian Homeownership and Shelter Costs, 2006 Census, Catalogue number 97-554-XWE2006001. Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada. Information on the availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from the Statistics Canada's Regional Offices, its World Wide Web site at www.statcan.gc.ca, or its toll-free access number 1-800-263-1136.