Household net worth declined by $72 billion, or 1.3 per cent, in the first quarter as falling real-estate values and stock market woes continued to erode assets.
Statistics Canada said, however, that the rate of decline has slowed from the last two quarters of 2008, in which cumulative losses totalled $438 billion.
The drop in Canada in the first quarter this year was only half the decline recorded in the United States.
National net worth -- the sum of non-financial assets plus net foreign assets -- declined for the first time since 1995, slipping 0.4 per cent, or an average of $1,200 for every Canadian.
A slowing growth of national saving and business investment contributed to this decline. On a per-capita basis, national net worth fell to $178,900 in the first quarter from $180,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008.
As a percentage of personal disposable income, household net worth has fallen faster in the United States than in Canada since the third quarter of 2007.
Canadians cut their borrowing in the first quarter -- especially in new mortgages -- and growth in debt slowed to less than one per cent.
The federal government's credit market debt, however, rose 10.5 per cent in the first quarter, after rising a record 14.2 per cent in the last quarter of 2008.
Other levels of government also borrowed more, but at a much slower pace. Overall, total government net debt as a percentage of gross domestic product hit 38 per cent, up from 35 per cent. That's far below the 92 per cent it hit in mid-1996.
Total household liabilities relative to net worth edged up modestly in the first quarter, to 24.9 cents of debt for every dollar of net worth, from 24.4 cents in the fourth quarter of last year.
Profits of Canadian corporations weakened again in the first quarter of 2009, under falling commodity prices and declines in manufacturing and wholesale trade.
However, non-financial private corporations' debt-to-equity ratio was largely unchanged in the first quarter.
