The grand plan by Prime Minister Mark Carney is to make Canada’s economy the best in the G7. King Charles said so; his delivery of Tuesday’s Speech from the Throne was quite the spectacle.
But before we get carried away with our future selves, we need to focus on the here and now of Canadians being carried off by indebtedness. The federal government may be mapping out plans to lead the G7 in prosperity, but here in British Columbia, many households are struggling to stay upright.
The latest Equifax data on consumer debt tells the story plainly and paints an unpretty picture: we are not in a cycle of manageable discomfort, but on the cusp of structural instability.
Let’s start with mortgages. The “Great Renewal” of pandemic-era borrowing has arrived painfully for many British Columbians. Homeowners at historically low rates face increases of hundreds of dollars a month. In the first three months of 2025, B.C.’s 90-plus-day mortgage delinquency rate jumped by one-third year-over-year. Only Ontario fared worse.
When mortgage payments jump, discretionary spending falls. That has downstream effects: on local businesses, on job creation, and on overall consumer confidence. This isn’t just about personal financial pain. It’s about macroeconomic drag.
The real gut punch is in the non-mortgage data. The average British Columbian now carries $22,631 in non-mortgage debt, among the highest in the country. Delinquency on that debt—credit cards, vehicle loans, lines of credit, buy-now-pay-later schemes—rose 12.6 per cent in B.C. in the first quarter of this year.
Younger British Columbians are bearing quite the brunt. Those under 26 had a 5.38 per cent delinquency rate on credit card debt, a 21.7 per cent increase over the past year. On vehicle loans, their delinquency rate jumped 30 per cent. These aren’t simply consumers spending irresponsibly. The debt stress now visible in these numbers reflects the cumulative effects of stagnant incomes, housing scarcity and financial tools poorly adapted to the complexity of modern life. Perhaps in some cases it’s a character flaw. More probably it’s a system failure.
And the implications are more broadly felt. These young adults are not entering the housing market. They are not launching businesses. They are not saving for retirement. They are not, in many cases, even spending in our storefronts. If we continue expecting individuals to use the personal ledger as the backstop for structural shortcomings, insolvency is not a risk—it’s more of a destination.
Mortgage renewal data tells its own story. Across all ages, nearly 28 per cent of Canadian renewals are switching lenders entirely, and nearly half of those are shuffling among the Big Five banks. While that might look like healthy market competition, it’s equally a sign of strain. These aren’t only savvy borrowers chasing better rates. They’re often borrowers in distress.
For lenders and credit unions in B.C., this is a moment that demands more than interest rate adjustments. It calls for sharper risk awareness. Are we underwriting loans based on outdated assumptions? Are we accounting for the realities of gig work, volatile housing costs, and uneven regional income? Is the structure of vehicle lending quietly inflating financial risk, particularly among younger borrowers?
The data hints at some “positive shifts in consumer behaviour”—less credit card usage, and early signs of delinquency stabilization in some regions. But Rebecca Oake, Equifax’s vice-president of advanced analytics, notes the overarching context is one of fragility—that “headwinds will likely persist, such as rising unemployment and rising food prices in already strained regions.”
The big challenge, she says: “Uncertainty.”
Consumer debt hit $2.55 trillion nationally by the end of the first quarter. That’s not a typo. That’s a red flag requiring practical responses. Financial literacy programming in schools and workplaces isn’t any longer a nice-to-have—it’s infrastructure. So are stronger consumer lending protections. And we need upstream relief mechanisms (flexible repayment deferrals, hardship clauses or automated risk flags) that activate before full-blown defaults—stronger early-intervention tools that give borrowers room to maneuver rather than letting them fall.
Which is not to absolve personal responsibility. Oake puts it well: “It’s important that you understand your own finances… and ask yourself: ‘What is my financial situation?’” But we also need to be honest about what has made those situations harder to understand, and harder still to manage.
British Columbia cannot afford to treat this debt burden as a niche concern or a generational fluke. It is now a competitiveness issue. When consumers are collapsing under the weight of their monthly bills, the economy contracts.
If we pride ourselves on being a province of promise, that promise needs new footing.
Debt doesn’t crash loudly. It accumulates, silently, until it can’t.
Kirk LaPointe is a Lodestar Media columnist with an extensive background in journalism. He is vice-president in the office of the chair at Fulmer & Company.
