StatsCan says 18.7% of Canada’s assets were controlled by foreign enterprises in 2011. Not surprisingly about half of these entities are based in the US 🙂 The UK and Dutch-controlled enterprises held the second and third highest spots respectively. No other country had more than 5% of foreign-controlled assets. The shares of foreign-controlled assets and revenues declined from 2010, while the share of profits under foreign control was up over the same period.
I’m glad that over 80% of our country’s assets still belong to Canadians 😀 Despite what we hear in the news, it doesn’t appear that we’re completely selling everything we have haha. But this study is a couple years old and doesn’t account for more recent takeovers like the record breaking $15 billion CNOOC/Nexen deal last year. There is obviously not enough data here to extrapolate a trend, but it would be interesting to see the updated 2013 numbers, which probably won’t be released until 2015 😆
The U.S., Spain, and many other countries around the world experienced a housing market crash in the last recession. Japan, the 3rd largest economy in the world is undergoing a frustratingly stubborn secular bear market in its equities for over 2 decades now. In other words people who have used the popular buy-and-hold strategy to invest in the Japanese stock market index would have lost a lot of money, even with dollar cost averaging 🙁 China, the 2nd largest economy, is laden with highly volatile asset prices and opaque regulations. Many people in Hong Kong literally went from millionaires to filing for bankruptcy when the local real estate bubble popped in 1997/1998, and home prices fell by over 50% on average 😕
For better or for worse, I expect foreign interests to grow in Canada as entrepreneurs, sovereign wealth fund managers, and investors from abroad look for a relatively safe and financially stable place to find prosperous opportunities 🙂
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Random Useless Fact: 
It would indeed be a blow if you’ve found out that most of yours don’t even belong to you. That really takes something out of you, not only individually but as well as a nation speaking.
I’m glad that we have ownership laws here that are enforced 🙂 Certain other countries don’t even allow people to own land or homes.
What about RIM? You win some, you lose some…
Their stock price just hit a 10 yr low 🙁 Major management issues, they have.
*Pitchforks and fire* what about all those Coal Harbour condos that sit empty because of foreign investorzzz??? *Pitchforks and fire put away*
The accuracy of these kinds of study are questionable. There are probably tons of property being bought by Canadian immigrants, but the money is actually derived from their families and relatives from other countries. That’s part of the reason for higher real estate prices despite stagnant incomes.