Many Metro Vancouver residents have good reason to feel they're drowning in debt.

That's because their liabilities compared to income are more than twice as high as people living in Saint John, New Brunswick.

That's according to a chart released today by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

In fact, Vancouver leads the country in this dubious category at 242 percent, followed by Toronto at 208 percent.

In third and fourth place are Victoria and Hamilton.

Metro Vancouver residents' mortgage debt-to-interest ratio is 178 percent and their home-equity-line-of-credit debt is an additional 31 percent.

Together, these two figures are more than three times the level recorded in Saint John.

"Households with elevated levels of debt are more vulnerable to increases in interest rates," CMHC states in a commentary on its website. "With interest rates on the rise, highly indebted households could see their increased required payments exceed their budgets."

Nationally, Canada is near a record high at a 170 percent debt-to-income ratio. In Saint John, however, it's only 106 percent.

"Even though mortgage debt has risen, the share of household income needed to service mortgage debt has not varied dramatically over the last several years," CMHC notes.

That's in part because the interest portion of mortgage payments has been trending lower in recent years.