Number of personal bankruptcies in Toronto up by 22.2% in three months

Number of personal bankruptcies in Toronto up by 22.2% in just three months

Bankruptcies across Canada have seen quite the spike, but things are looking particularly bad for the residents of Toronto this fiscal year.

New bankruptcy and insolvency data released by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada (OSB) shows that Torontonians filed 666 personal consumer bankruptcies and 2,834 debt settlement proposals in the second quarter of 2022.

This type of proposal denotes an offer to creditors to settle debts under conditions other than the existing terms. As per the OSB, this proposal is a formal agreement under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

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These stats are especially worrying considering that only months ago, during the first fiscal quarter of 2022, these numbers stood at 545 and 2,554 respectively.

This means personal bankruptcies spiked by a whopping 22.2% and proposals went up by 11%. The total number of insolvencies rose by 12.9% over two quarters.

Compared the second quarters of 2021 and 2022 shows an interesting pattern — personal bankruptcies have fallen by 7.5%, but debt settlement proposals have gone up by 22.8% in Toronto.

For more context, Q2 2021 saw a higher number of personal bankruptcies (720), but fewer proposals (2,307).

When you look at the bigger picture, these stats track with the fact that Toronto was declared the most expensive city in Canada in late June.

Provincially, the rate of personal bankruptcies was up 12.8% between Q1 and Q2 2022 in Ontario. But it looks like we stand somewhere in the middle.

Yukon and Nunavut took the biggest hit, with total consumer insolvencies rising to double between the quarters.

The Northwest Territories and Quebec were the only two provinces to see consumer insolvencies decline by 19% and 1% respectively over the same period.