credit rating in Canada

Unlike Japan, Canada has a tax-number system. That is, a single number against which your income, taxation, and finances are identified.

I'm not sure why Japan doesn't have one, but in Canada you need one if you want to work. It's also now given rise to a credit rating system. On the one hand, it's not hard to wind up with a poor credit rating: you can have too many credit instruments, too few long-time instruments, or miss payments on things like a car lease. But if you have a good credit rating you don't need a co-signer, so that's a big plus over Japan's system of "we don't care how well you manage your money, find us someone senior to you who can sign for your lease."

Knowing that I'll soon be applying to lease an apartment and possibly a car, I decided to check on my credit rating beforehand so I could take care of any problems that might have cropped up since I last looked into it.

Happily, there are no such problems. In fact, the automated system congratulated me on my score.

P.S. In a related note, I learned that St. Catharines is too small a place for the banks to change foreign money like Japanese Yen. Wow.