There is a lot more to us. Canadian prairies are the breadbasket of the world with our endless farms with wheat, chick peas, canola alone plus other crap. We are a resource based economy overall so it doesn't do us any favors. Our tech industry is lacking and we can't attract big firms. I'm sure your not far off tho with oil and real estate being big. Oil is going going gone while they import from the saudies for canadian consumption while trash and defund our own.

That's why the cracks are showing now because our industry has been under attack and projects stunted by shitty constantly changing gov regulations (some projects tried for 10 year to comply with regulations to be shut down with new ones once they put shovels in the ground). We have a bunch of half abandoned projects and mines. We are tapped out. We didn't care that they bitched and moaned about us while we footed them with a lofty socialist lifestyle if they left us do our thing but if we are not rolling in the dough, there is nobody paying the tab, just accumulating debt.

The issue with our "budding" real estate market, a lot is from money laundering from massive drug and gambling rings or Chinese or other controversial foreign gang related activities trying to hide assets from their government but nobody ever lives there but it drives up property value pricing out locals meanwhile wages can't even come close to keeping up like Toronto or Vancouver. I think AirBnb has a part to play with that too because now everyone and their grandmas want to be a part time hotel and make more money renting to occasional users than long term tenants driving up prices further for renters.

You don't know how much you need from week to week. There are ways of shopping cheaply if you know the tricks by checking what's cheap where and the miss-shaped produce story is like 1/3 price of the supermarket price most people don't want to do the running around to save. I clued in quick when I saw it started a few years ago. I'm not even sure what causes these price fluctuations besides supply and demand dynamics. I know our currency stinks but it's not all over the map either.