Quebec isn’t the first place you’d think of when it comes to the ultra rich, but a recent report puts it higher up the list than you might expect. The province is home to an estimated 27 billionaire families, and the distance between them and everyone else is hard to fathom.
Those numbers come from Canadians for Tax Fairness (C4TF) an advocacy group that campaigns for higher taxes on the wealthy. Its latest report, published last month, looks at where extreme wealth sits across the country, and Quebec turns up near the top of several of its rankings.
Along with those 27 billionaire families, the province is estimated to be home to roughly 590 families worth more than $100 million, and close to 20,000 worth more than $10 million. Only Ontario, with 38 billionaire families, ranks higher.
Who these families are
The largest of these fortunes belong to names most Quebecers would recognize. At the very top sits the Desmarais family, the power behind Power Corporation of Canada, whose combined wealth Maclean’s has estimated at $12.7 billion. That makes them the richest family in the province and the tenth-richest in the country.
Others were built in more familiar corners of daily life. The Saputo family made its money in dairy and sports franchises like CF Montréal and Bologna FC. Their fortune is estimated at around $5.9 billion.
Meanwhile, Jean Coutu’s family, whose pharmacies are a fixture throughout the province, is worth roughly $3.7 billion.
A lopsided split
The wealthiest 1% of families in Quebec are estimated to control 24.6% of everything in the province, the second-highest share in the country behind Alberta, and higher than in either Ontario or British Columbia. The pattern continues further up the ladder, where Quebec’s top 0.1% and top 0.01% hold some of the largest shares found anywhere in Canada.
The figures at the top are difficult to picture. The wealthiest 0.01% of Quebec families are estimated to hold around $408 million each. The bottom half of the province, by comparison, holds about $89,000.
Why Quebec ranks so high
It’s worth noting that Quebec’s richest families aren’t actually the richest in the country. Ontario’s top 0.01% average $546 million, and British Columbia’s average $501 million, both comfortably ahead of Quebec’s $408 million. So the province’s high ranking has less to do with its billionaires than you’d assume. A great deal of it comes down to housing.
For most families, the bulk of their wealth is tied up in the home they own. In provinces like Ontario and British Columbia, where real estate is expensive and ownership rates are high, this pushes the typical family’s net worth upward. Quebec, where more people rent, has the opposite outcome.
The report puts the median Quebec family’s wealth at $286,000, compared to $500,000 in Ontario and $632,000 in British Columbia.
So, when the middle holds less, the share sitting at the top grows by comparison, even when the fortunes themselves are smaller.
You can explore the entire C4TF report here.