I see no evidence that Canadians are more frugal than their US counterparts, and there's data to back that up - there's been a lot of press here lately about how Canadian household debt-to-income levels have exceeded their US counterparts.
I agree that there are plenty of spendthrift Canadians (especially in money-hose places like Fort Mac), but there's also some evidence that Canadians tend to the cheap... you might enjoy Michael Adams' _Fire and Ice_ for a sociological look at that (and a bunch of other stuff). Or if you really want an earful about cheap Canadians, talk to some waitresses in Florida. :-)
wrt debt-to-income, a lot of that's just because we can, right now... credit didn't dry up in Canada post-recession, the way it did in the US, and our continuing high housing prices make it easier for people to borrow against their homes.
I'll try to read a copy of Fire and Ice as soon as I can get ahold of it in english. If nothing else it's good to read things that are contrarian to your own thinking, which at the moment is that Canada and the US are about as similar as two countries can be, with some minor differences.
Regarding your reply about Debt-to-income, your response makes no sense to me. How can "because we can [buy things on credit]" be used to defend the frugality of Canadians? Whether someone can buy something on credit is irrelevant - if someone is buying on credit, and extended credit exceeds annual income... in my book that's the opposite of frugal. Availability of credit has nothing to do with it.
Also, you can compare the debt-to-income levels in Canada today to those from the US in 2007. Availability of credit wasn't a problem then.
Another metric I find useful for comparing frugality is the savings rate - and currently both the US and Canada sit at around 5%. Currently Canada sits at 4.9%* and the US at 5.3%†)
If we are talking about frugality as the ability to spend less than one earns, then on average I can't find any statistical difference between the two countries in the last decade.
*source: Statistics Canada (
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/indi02a-eng.htm)
†source: US Federal Reserve Economic Research (FRED): (
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/indi02a-eng.htm)