The debt load held by Canadian businesses increased for the third straight year in 2006, and again larger borrowers were mostly responsible for the gain, Statistics Canada reported today.

Commercial suppliers of financing, including banks, finance companies and insurance companies, report Canadian business clients owed them about $444.3 billion, 10.7% more than in 2005.

StatsCan reports about 2 milion business loans were outstanding on Dec. 31, 2006, up 85,300, or 4.4%, from the previous year.

The largest businesses, those with authorization levels of $5 million or more, accounted for 57% of outstanding debt in 2006.

In contrast, businesses with authorization levels of less than $1 million, generally constituting small-and medium-sized enterprises, had outstanding debt that accounted for 21.4%.

Outstanding debt among the largest businesses amounted to $253.1 billion, up 15.3% from 2005.