Prices in Canada 🇨🇦
What 7 everyday items cost in Canada, shown in US dollars, in CAD, and as roughly how long someone earning the average local wage works to buy one.
Canadian dairy sits under a supply-management system that sets production quotas and import tariffs, holding milk prices notably above US levels. Most other groceries track the US closely, which makes the dairy gap stand out in the table.
What things cost
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $5.54 | 7.7 CAD | 15 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $1.79 | 2.49 CAD | 5 min |
| Cappuccino | $3.80 | 5.33 CAD | 10 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $2.22 | 3.11 CAD | 6 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $3.54 | 4.96 CAD | 10 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $4.11 | 5.76 CAD | 11 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $1.17 | 1.64 CAD | 3 min |
Local-currency figures are converted from US dollars at recent exchange rates, except the Big Mac, which is published in local currency by The Economist and converted the other way. Work time divides the dollar price by an estimated average hourly wage — the roughest number on this page. See methodology.
How Canada compares
Relative to the rest of the game, Canada is most expensive for milk, where it ranks 4th out of 32 countries at $2.22 — against a global median of $1.54.
It is relatively cheapest for gasoline at $1.17, which is 24th of 32 — only 8 countries in the game are cheaper.
Measured against local earnings rather than dollars, the item that takes the longest to afford here is big mac, at roughly 15 minutes of the average wage. Dollar prices and work-time prices often rank countries very differently — that gap is usually the more interesting number.
Play a puzzle
Canada comes up in the daily puzzle roughly once every 33 days, paired with a different item each time. Play today's puzzle or browse the archive of past rounds.