[LINK] "High household debt leaves Canada vulnerable, report warns"

[rfmcdonald]

The CBC carries a report suggesting Canada might be on the verge of its own debt crisis, containing within it a denial suggesting that Sweden and Australia are also at risk.

Canada is vulnerable because of its high levels of household debt and could face a crisis if the economy takes a sharp downturn, new report from McKinsey Global Institute says.

McKinsey studied debt levels in 22 advanced and 25 developing countries for its study titled Debt and (not much) deleveraging, released today.

It concluded household debt levels in Canada are higher than those in the U.K. and U.S. during the peak of the financial crisis in 2007.

McKinsey estimated the debt-to-income ratio in Canada at 155 per cent for 2013 and said it had risen by 22 points since 2007.

These figures suggest potential risk, but do not signal imminent crises, according to Susan Lund, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute in Washington, D.C.

"It's significantly higher than the U.S., which is now under 100 per cent, but it's not considerably different from countries like Australia or Sweden," Lund told CBC News.