Number of millionaires in Ottawa is going up
But six other Canadian cities have more
Often derided as a cold and lifeless backwater populated largely by sleepy-headed civil servants, it turns out that Ottawa has become the stomping grounds of the nouveau riche, according to a recent British study.
From 2007 to 2012, the number of high-net-worth individuals in the nation’s capital increased by 11 per cent, easily outperforming both Calgary’s second-place increase of eight per cent and the country’s overall growth of two per cent.
The study, titled Canada — 2013 Wealth Book: Land of the Tar Sands, was completed by WealthInsight, a London firm that tracks the world’s wealth sector. It defines an HNWI as someone whose liquid assets, not including their primary residence, total at least $1 million US. Ottawa’s expansion, from roughly 9,000 millionaires in 2007 to more than 10,000 last year, was assisted, the report noted, “by strong growth in the hi-tech sector in the city.”
But with just 2.4 per cent of the country’s millionaires, Ottawa ranks seventh among Canadian cities. Toronto’s 116,500 millionaires last year represented slightly more than a quarter of the country’s total, while Montreal was second with just under 53,000 HNWIs. Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton and Mississauga filled the next four spots. Ottawa’s density of millionaires, meanwhile — 1.1 per cent of our residents are HNWIs — is also low, comparable with Winnipeg’s and under the national average of 1.3 per cent. Toronto, at 4.5 per cent, leads Canada’s cities.
Vancouver and Mississauga experienced declines in their numbers of millionaires over the five-year period, with each losing about 2,000 HNWIs.
Overall, there were 422,200 millionaires in Canada last year, enough to fill nearly 47,000 Bombardier Learjet 45 business jets, a collection that, laid nose to tail, would stretch from Ottawa to Windsor.
But Ottawa might want to hold off changing its official motto from “Advance” to “Bling City.” For while the report predicts that Ottawa will enjoy a 12 per cent growth in HNWIs from now to 2017, that increase will lag far behind the national average of 29 per cent forecast for the period.