Is it record debt or record equity?

The Bank of Canada has expressed concern about the 'record levels of debt' that Canadians are taking on. It's not that Canadians are throwing money out the window, rather they are buying more houses, taking the homeownership rate to a record 70 per cent. Since very few homebuyers pay cash, the resulting indebtedness is hardly surprising.
About 40 per cent of homeowners have no mortgage, compared to 31 per cent in the United States, and given the fact that some 30 per cent of Canadians rent, about 58 per cent of households pay no mortgage interest. Coupled with that is the fact that the net equity of owners in their homes is "very high," more than 60 per cent, compared to 39 per cent in the United States.

 There are two ways to look at the numbers, sort of a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty kind of thing. Even with the rise late last year, growth in household credit is at it's slowest in seven to eight years.