2016-12-15bloomberg.com

The appetite for bank borrowing remained unabated in the third quarter, setting fresh records for total credit and mortgage borrowing, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday. The widely-followed ratio of household debt to after-tax income rose to another record high of almost 167 percent.

The numbers will intensify concern among policy makers the economy has become over-reliant on bank borrowing, and is vulnerable to a housing downturn and rising interest rates. The latest report covers the three months before Finance Minister Bill Morneau tightened mortgage lending rules again in October, a move designed to discourage Vancouver and Toronto home buyers from signing larger mortgages than they could handle.

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Total consumer debt exceeded the size of Canada's economy for a second straight quarter, accounting for 101.2 percent of gross domestic product in the July-to-September period.



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