2022 Honda Civic vs. 2022 Toyota Corolla – Canada's Two Best-Selling Cars Square Off

The summer of 2021 is a big deal at Honda. The launch of an all-new, 11th-generation Civic is a very, very, very big deal. The Honda Civic has been Canada's best-selling car for 23 consecutive years, a streak that began in 1998.

But the Civic is actually even more dominant now than it was back when the streak began. Over the last decade alone, the Civic's market share in the Canadian market soared from less than 8% to more than 13%. And in Prince Edward Island? Here, the Civic's dominance rises to another level entirely. In 2020, 25% of the passenger cars sold in PEI were Honda Civics.

Now there's a new one, which is most definitely a very, very, very big deal. Do you have a neighbour who's car shopping this year? He's probably coming home in a Civic. Do you have a cousin looking for recommendations on what her next new car should be? It's probably going to be a Civic. Whether it's your parents or your children or your coworkers or your friends, anybody and everybody who's interested in a new car has to sit up and pay attention when there's a new Civic. 

So, why are they going to choose the 2022 Honda Civic over the competition? We plucked a Toyota Corolla out of the crowd for the sake of comparison. It seems fair at first. They're both big sellers. They've both been around for decades. They both have a solid reputation for reliability and resale value. But to say there's no difference would be to miss the point entirely. 

Yet according to Motor Trend, it's not actually a fair fight. "This isn't a close comparison," Motor Trend wrote in their recent comparison test. "One car is clearly better than the other, and the only thing to do is tell it to you straight."

We took some time to get a grip on the Canadian-specific model lines in order to clarify just what makes the Civic so hard to beat. But it's not just one thing – it's everything: performance, efficiency, space, features, and technology.