Insolvency rates are not what you think
Most reporting on Canadian insolvency focuses on provinces. The city-level data tells a different story. The gap between cities within the same province is often larger than the gap between provinces themselves.
The OSB publishes CMA-level insolvency rates once a year, and 2024 is the most recent full dataset available. As of 2024, Greater Sudbury has a consumer insolvency rate of 5.8 per 1,000 adults aged 18 and older. Toronto’s rate is 3.4.
A resident of Sudbury is 70% more likely to file for insolvency than someone in Toronto. Both cities are in the same province, subject to the same laws, and have access to the same insolvency options. The difference lies in the local economy, not in the legal or regulatory framework.
Unfortunately, when looking at provincial statistics, the true story is obscured. By breaking down insolvency data at the municipal level, we can see where steep increases in the cost of living are being felt, while wages remain stagnant and economic growth opportunities have narrowed compared to prior years.
Consumer insolvency rates by city, 2024
The following table shows consumer insolvency rates per 1,000 adults (aged 18 and older) for every Census Metropolitan Area tracked by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.
Rates include both consumer proposals and bankruptcies. Cities are ranked from highest to lowest overall insolvency rate.
| City | Province | Insolvency rate | Bankruptcy rate | Proposal rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greater Sudbury | Ontario | 5.8 | 1.3 | 4.5 |
| Trois-Rivieres | Quebec | 5.6 | 2.0 | 3.7 |
| Saint John | New Brunswick | 5.6 | 1.5 | 4.1 |
| Belleville | Ontario | 5.6 | 1.0 | 4.7 |
| Barrie | Ontario | 5.4 | 0.8 | 4.7 |
| Lethbridge | Alberta | 5.4 | 0.8 | 4.7 |
| St. John’s | Newfoundland & Labrador | 5.0 | 1.1 | 3.8 |
| Saguenay | Quebec | 5.0 | 1.7 | 3.3 |
| Moncton | New Brunswick | 4.9 | 1.3 | 3.6 |
| St. Catharines-Niagara | Ontario | 4.8 | 1.0 | 3.7 |
| Sherbrooke | Quebec | 4.7 | 1.6 | 3.1 |
| Edmonton | Alberta | 4.6 | 0.6 | 4.0 |
| Brantford | Ontario | 4.6 | 0.7 | 3.9 |
| London | Ontario | 4.5 | 1.0 | 3.5 |
| Oshawa | Ontario | 4.5 | 0.7 | 3.7 |
| Quebec City | Quebec | 4.4 | 1.3 | 3.1 |
| Regina | Saskatchewan | 4.4 | 0.6 | 3.8 |
| Peterborough | Ontario | 4.1 | 0.6 | 3.5 |
| Hamilton | Ontario | 4.1 | 0.8 | 3.3 |
| Halifax | Nova Scotia | 4.0 | 1.0 | 3.0 |
| Windsor | Ontario | 3.9 | 0.8 | 3.1 |
| Calgary | Alberta | 3.8 | 0.5 | 3.2 |
| Montreal | Quebec | 3.8 | 1.1 | 2.6 |
| Kelowna | British Columbia | 3.6 | 0.6 | 3.0 |
| Saskatoon | Saskatchewan | 3.6 | 0.6 | 3.0 |
| Kingston | Ontario | 3.6 | 0.7 | 3.0 |
| Thunder Bay | Ontario | 3.5 | 0.8 | 2.6 |
| Toronto | Ontario | 3.4 | 0.6 | 2.8 |
| Ottawa-Gatineau | Ontario/Quebec | 3.4 | 0.8 | 2.6 |
| Kitchener | Ontario | 3.4 | 0.6 | 2.8 |
| Guelph | Ontario | 3.3 | 0.7 | 2.6 |
| Abbotsford | British Columbia | 3.2 | 0.6 | 2.6 |
| Winnipeg | Manitoba | 3.2 | 0.8 | 2.5 |
| Victoria | British Columbia | 2.6 | 0.4 | 2.2 |
| Vancouver | British Columbia | 2.5 | 0.4 | 2.1 |
Where are Canadians struggling the most?
The spread between the highest and lowest CMAs is more than 2 to 1. Northern Ontario, New Brunswick, and smaller Quebec cities carry the highest consumer insolvency rates, while BC metros and large urban centres like Toronto sit at the bottom.
The regional patterns are consistent, but the reasons behind them are not.
Northern and mid-size Ontario cities lead the country
Greater Sudbury (5.8) has the highest consumer insolvency rate of any major metro in Canada.
Barrie (5.4), Belleville (5.6), St. Catharines-Niagara (4.8), Brantford (4.6), Oshawa (4.5), London (4.5), and Peterborough (4.1) all sit above the rates in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
These are cities where housing costs have risen sharply, but wages have not kept pace. Many residents commute long distances to Toronto for work. When the cost of the commute, the mortgage, and the car payment all rise at the same time, it becomes virtually impossible to make ends meet.
Quebec cities have high bankruptcy rates
Quebec metros show a distinct pattern. Trois-Rivieres has a bankruptcy rate of 2.0 per 1,000 adults. Saguenay sits at 1.7. Compare that to Edmonton (0.6), Calgary (0.5), or Toronto (0.6). Nobody in the rest of Canada goes bankrupt at the rate Quebec does.
Quebec City itself has a bankruptcy rate of 1.3, more than double Toronto’s 0.6. The proposal-to-bankruptcy split in Quebec cities is much closer to even than in the rest of Canada, where proposals dominate by a wide margin.
Alberta cities rank higher than you would expect
Edmonton (4.6) and Lethbridge (5.4) both sit in the top half of the country. Calgary (3.8) is lower but still above Toronto.
Alberta’s overall provincial insolvency rate appears moderate due to its young, high-earning population in the oil and gas sector. Outside that sector, Albertans are filing at rates comparable to those in Ontario’s hardest-hit cities.
The difference is in how they file. Edmonton’s proposal rate (4.0) is one of the highest in the country, while its bankruptcy rate (0.6) is among the lowest. Albertans are using proposals rather than bankruptcy at a far higher rate than most Canadians.
Vancouver and Victoria are the lowest
Vancouver has the lowest consumer insolvency rate of any major metro in Canada at 2.5 per 1,000 adults. Victoria is the second lowest at 2.6. These numbers are less than half the rate in Greater Sudbury.
Given Vancouver’s cost of living, this might seem counterintuitive. High home values give homeowners more options to manage debt, including refinancing and accessing home equity, before they reach the point of formal insolvency.
People who can’t afford to live in Vancouver also leave the city entirely, taking their debt problems with them.
British Columbia’s consumer insolvency filings grew 10.6% year over year in the 12 months ending December 2025, the fastest rate of any province. That growth suggests the gap between Vancouver and higher-rate cities is narrowing.
The five-year trend is heading one direction
The OSB data from 2020 to 2024 tells a clear story. Of the 33 CMAs with data for both years, 31 saw their consumer insolvency rate increase.
Only two New Brunswick metros bucked the trend: Saint John dropped from 6.0 to 5.6 and Moncton from 5.3 to 4.9. Both started with rates that were already among the highest in the country.
The increases elsewhere are stark. Peterborough went from 2.4 to 4.1 (71%). St. Catharines-Niagara went from 3.0 to 4.8 (60%). Vancouver went from 1.6 to 2.5 (56%). That is the fastest percentage growth among major metros in Western Canada.
One caveat. The base year of 2020 was not normal. COVID suppressed insolvency filings across the board, so percentage increases measured from 2020 are inflated. Against the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline, most of these jumps would be much smaller. The direction is the same, but the scale of the increase looks more dramatic than it is.
How to read these numbers
The insolvency rate is the number of consumer insolvencies per 1,000 adults (aged 18 and older) in the Census Metropolitan Area. A rate of 5.0 means that 5 out of every 1,000 adults in that city filed for insolvency in 2024, or 1 in every 200.
These rates only capture people who have taken the formal step of filing a consumer proposal or bankruptcy with a Licensed Insolvency Trustee.
They don’t include people struggling with debt who have not yet filed, people who have entered informal debt management plans, or people who have simply stopped paying their creditors.
Methodology and sources
Consumer insolvency rates are published annually by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy. Rates are calculated as consumer insolvencies per 1,000 population aged 18 years and older.
The CMA boundaries come from Statistics Canada, where each CMA is built around an urban core of at least 100,000 residents. That matters because it means a city like Greater Sudbury includes the surrounding commuter towns, not just the downtown core.
Two CMAs, Belleville and Lethbridge, were added to the OSB’s CMA tracking in 2024. They don’t have prior-year data for trend comparison.
The most recent annual CMA rates available are for 2024. When the OSB publishes 2025 CMA rates (expected mid-2026), this article will be updated.
Cite this research: Johnson, R. (2026). Which Canadian City Has the Highest Insolvency Rate? DebtReliefCanada.com, Moses Advisory Group. https://www.debtreliefcanada.com/statistics/canadian-city-highest-insolvency-rate/
Frequently asked questions
Which Canadian city has the highest insolvency rate?
Greater Sudbury, Ontario had the highest consumer insolvency rate in 2024 at 5.8 per 1,000 adults. That means roughly 1 in every 172 adults in Greater Sudbury filed a consumer proposal or bankruptcy in 2024. Trois-Rivieres, Quebec (5.6) and Saint John, New Brunswick (5.6) are close behind.
What is Toronto’s insolvency rate?
Toronto’s consumer insolvency rate in 2024 was 3.4 per 1,000 adults. That places Toronto in the bottom third of 35 Canadian CMAs. Toronto’s proposal rate (2.8) is higher than its bankruptcy rate (0.6), consistent with the Ontario-wide pattern in which proposals outnumber bankruptcies by more than 4 to 1.
What is Vancouver’s insolvency rate?
Vancouver has the lowest consumer insolvency rate of any major Canadian metro at 2.5 per 1,000 adults in 2024. Vancouver’s bankruptcy rate (0.4) and proposal rate (2.1) are both the lowest in the country.
Why do smaller Ontario cities have higher insolvency rates than Toronto?
Cities like Greater Sudbury (5.8), Barrie (5.4) and St. Catharines-Niagara (4.8) have seen sharp increases in housing costs without the wage growth to match. Many residents face long commutes and high vehicle costs on top of their housing payments. When interest rates rose, that combination became unaffordable for thousands of households.
Which city had the fastest-growing insolvency rate?
Peterborough saw the largest percentage increase from 2020 to 2024, rising from 2.4 to 4.1 per 1,000 adults, a 71% jump. Hamilton (64%), St. Catharines-Niagara (60%), Vancouver (56%), Brantford (53%), and Abbotsford (52%) also saw rates rise by more than half.
These figures are measured against a 2020 baseline that was suppressed by COVID, so the actual growth from pre-pandemic levels is smaller.
How does Edmonton compare to Calgary?
Edmonton’s consumer insolvency rate (4.6) is noticeably higher than Calgary’s (3.8). Both cities favour consumer proposals heavily over bankruptcy. Edmonton’s proposal rate of 4.0 per 1,000 adults is well above the national median, while its bankruptcy rate of 0.6 is among the lowest in the country.
Why is Montreal’s insolvency rate lower than other Quebec cities?
Montreal’s consumer insolvency rate of 3.8 per 1,000 adults is below that of Trois-Rivières (5.6), Saguenay (5.0), Sherbrooke (4.7), and Quebec City (4.4). A larger, more diversified economy and younger population keep the rate down.
Montreal’s bankruptcy rate of 1.1 is still 83% higher than Toronto’s 0.6. That gap is consistent with the Quebec-wide pattern of higher bankruptcy-to-proposal ratios.
What does a rate of 5.0 per 1,000 mean in plain terms?
A consumer insolvency rate of 5.0 per 1,000 adults means that 1 in every 200 adults in that city filed for either a consumer proposal or bankruptcy in that year. That rate only captures people who formally filed. It doesn’t include people struggling with debt who haven’t yet taken that step.