Here at StatCan, we now track cats! As for herding them—or letting them out of the bag—we’ll get back to you on that.
In the most recent cycle of the Households and the Environment Survey, we asked Canadians about their pet cats, including how many they have and whether or not they could venture outside.
Let’s paw through some of our recently released numbers.
One in five Canadian households has a cat
In 2023, one in five Canadian households (21%) owned at least one cat. Just over one in eight households (12%) had one cat, 7% had two, and 2% owned three or more.
If you lived outside a big city that year, you were more likely to have a furry friend. Compared with almost 1 in 5 households (19%) in census metropolitan areas (CMAs), almost 3 in 10 households (29%) in non-CMAs owned at least one cat.
Cats in those smaller-town households (45%) were also more likely to be let outside than those in CMAs (33%)—unsurprising, as there are probably some great barn cats and mousers out there. Also unsurprising is that pet cats have been linked to millions of bird deaths, especially in southern Canada.
Some CMAs were full of felines. For example, 1 in 3 households (33%) in Saint John, New Brunswick, had a cat, while 3 in 10 households (30%) in Sherbrooke, Quebec, did.
However, Vancouver (15%) and Toronto (14%) were on the tail end of CMAs where households were less likely to have a cat.
Pet food and supplies are cheaper than a year ago
Prices for pet food and supplies decreased by 1.6% from June 2024 to June 2025.
That’s welcome news for Canadians, who spend a lot on their cats and other pets. In the first quarter of 2025, there were nearly $2.1 billion in nationwide retail sales of pet food, supplies and accessories, up slightly from $2.0 billion in the same quarter of 2024.
Cat checkups
As of December 2024, there were 6,574 business locations across Canada in the veterinary services industry, which includes animal hospitals, vet clinics and surgery services. Most of them are small businesses, and more than half of them reported staff numbers. Of those, 3 in 10 had either 1 to 4 employees (29.6%) or 10 to 19 employees (29.6%). One-quarter (24.9%) of them had 5 to 9 people on staff.
There were also 6,687 locations nationwide in the pet care (except veterinary) services industry, which primarily offer grooming, boarding and training for pets. They were also largely small businesses.
Cat care in the future
In the 2022/2023 academic year, 1,773 students were enrolled in veterinary medicine, 714 in veterinary biomedical and clinical sciences, 204 in veterinary administrative services, 4,017 in veterinary/animal health technologies/technicians, and 144 in agricultural and veterinary sciences/services/operations and other related fields.
Every graduate will help! In the first quarter of 2025, there were 750 job vacancies for veterinarians, up from 570 in the same quarter of 2024. The 790 unfilled positions for animal health technologists and veterinary technicians were little changed from 780 a year earlier.
Daisy, the famous Statcat
Did you know that back in the 1940s, Statistics Canada (known then as the Dominion Bureau of Statistics) had a cat on staff?
Daisy was the only cat on the payroll, drawing a salary of $1 a month (for milk and chopped liver) as an “exterminator grade 2” to clear out rats from the library at the Ottawa headquarters.
Remembering Coal
Coal, the last surviving cat from the famous cat sanctuary on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, died on July 9, days after his 17th birthday on Canada Day.
Dedicated volunteers and regular donations kept the sanctuary going from the 1970s until it was disbanded in 2013. Its furry residents amused and delighted everyone from tourists to prime ministers.
Similar to Daisy, there were cats on the Hill in its early days to deal with rodents.
International Cat Day
August 8 is International Cat Day, a day to encourage anyone with an appreciation for cats—including cat owners, veterinary professionals and people who work with cats—to take a moment to celebrate the species and the unique bonds we share with them.
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Contact information
For more information, contact the Statistical Information Service (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).