Sean Picard spent years afraid to answer his phone. Not because of anything dramatic. Because he owed $30,000 on his credit card and had no idea how to make it stop growing. He is not alone — and what helped him could help you or someone you know.

By Maplestime Business Desk | Canada | May 23, 2026 Source: CBC Radio — The Current | Last verified: May 23, 2026

---

Key Takeaways

• More than 37,000 Canadians filed for insolvency in the first three months of 2026 — the highest number since the 2009 financial crisis
• A licensed insolvency trustee warns of a potential “slow burn” crisis that could be worse than 2009 if filings stay elevated for several years
• A consumer proposal — a legally binding agreement between you and your creditors — can stop interest from growing and give you a real repayment plan
• Free non-profit credit counselling is available across Canada and does not require a lawyer or insolvency trustee
• One Toronto man with $30,000 in credit card debt is now two years into a five-year repayment plan — no longer afraid to answer his phone
• Experts say shame is one of the biggest barriers stopping Canadians from getting help — and it should not be

---

Sean Picard’s Story — The Phone He Was Afraid to Answer

Sean Picard is 41 years old. He works in retail in Toronto. And for years, when his phone rang, his stomach dropped.

“I was basically just throwing money at interest, where it wasn’t going down. I was avoiding calls from the bank, trying to just make the problem go away,” he told CBC Radio’s The Current.

The problem was $30,000 in credit card debt — accumulated slowly, quietly, over years. It started with a student credit card whose limit kept climbing. It accelerated when Picard was earning around $50,000 a year and using the card to cover gaps between what he earned and what he spent.

“I didn’t really think of the consequences of that down the road,” he said.

He knew he needed help about eight years ago. He did not actually get it until two years ago — six years of knowing, six years of avoiding, six years of anxiety sitting quietly in the back of every day.

Part of what held him back was isolation. “None of my friends had gone through what I was experiencing — or at least weren’t sharing what they were going through.”

Part of it was confusion. When he tried to research options online, he encountered a landscape of advice that ranged from unhelpful to suspicious. “When you go down rabbit holes on the internet, you see some things that may seem too good to be true,” he said.

So he waited. And the debt did not.

---

He Is Not Alone — The Numbers Are Alarming

Picard’s story is deeply personal. It is also representative of something happening across the country at a scale that financial experts are watching with real concern.

More than 37,000 people filed for insolvency in Canada in the first three months of 2026 — the highest number of consumer insolvencies since 2009, during the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis.

That number is not a blip. It is the result of years of compounding pressure on Canadian households.

Stacy Yanchuk Oleksy, a certified financial counsellor and CEO of Money Mentors — a non-profit credit counselling agency in Alberta — said Canadians are facing a “perfect storm” of high housing costs, lingering pandemic-related inflation, the Trump administration’s trade war, and now soaring gas prices arising from the US-Israel war on Iran.

“We’ve been frogs boiling to death in the water for a while,” she said.

“Debt doesn’t discriminate — it will come for anybody who’s not paying attention.”

---

Who Is Getting Into Trouble — And It Is Not Who You Think

One of the most striking shifts that financial professionals are observing in 2026 is who is showing up for help.

Scott Terrio, a licensed insolvency trustee and manager of consumer insolvency at Hoyes, Michalos and Associates, said he used to primarily help renters who did not have assets to fall back on. Now it is homeowners with well-paying jobs who are finding themselves in financial trouble.

This matters because it dismantles the story many Canadians tell themselves about debt — that it is a problem for people who made bad choices, who did not work hard enough, who do not earn enough. In 2026, people with good jobs and owned homes are showing up in insolvency trustees’ offices. The cost of living in Canada has simply outpaced the ability of many households to keep up.

And Terrio is not optimistic about the short-term outlook.

“It’s going to go up and then it’s going to be a plateau and it’s probably going to be two, three years,” he said. “When you take 140,000 or 150,000 or more Canadians filing in a year, times three or four years, that’s way worse than a spike of two years, 15 years ago.”

A slow burn. Not a crash — a grind. And grinds are harder to see coming until you are already in them.

---

The Options — What Actually Exists to Help You

This is the part of the debt conversation that rarely gets covered clearly. The options are real. They are accessible. And most Canadians do not know they exist until they are already in crisis.

Free Non-Profit Credit Counselling

Yanchuk Oleksy said Money Mentors and organizations like it start by listening to a person’s story and then figuring out what options are available. That could include a plan and timeline to consolidate and repay debts to different creditors — or setting up what she called “a fireside chat with your creditors, to ask for lower interest or ask for a break” while getting help.

Non-profit credit counselling services are available across Canada. They do not charge the fees that some for-profit debt companies do. They are not trying to sell you a product. They are trying to help you understand your situation and your options.

Free non-profit credit counselling in Canada:

• Money Mentors (Alberta) — free credit counselling, 1-888-294-0076
• Credit Counselling Society — available across Canada, 1-888-527-8999
• FCAC — Find a Credit Counsellor — federal government directory of accredited non-profit agencies

The DIY Starting Point

Before any formal process, Yanchuk Oleksy says the starting point for most people is simpler than they expect.

“That’s before the whole DIY options, right? Budgeting, going through your expenses and seeing what you can cut,” she said.

The question she says everyone needs to ask before using credit or buy-now-pay-later arrangements: “Can I pay it off in three months? If I can’t — maybe I need to save a little bit more. Because what feels easy right now will create a whole lot of problems down the road.”

A Consumer Proposal — The Option Most Canadians Have Never Heard Of

This is what ultimately helped Sean Picard — and it is something a significant number of Canadians in debt have never been told about.

A consumer proposal is a legally binding process where a debtor and creditor agree on terms. The proposal might involve paying just a percentage of the whole sum, or a timeline for repayment, or both — based on what the person in debt can actually afford.

The key word is legally binding. Once the terms are agreed and the proposal is accepted, your creditors cannot continue charging interest. The calls stop. The anxiety has a shape and a timeline instead of feeling infinite.

“A proposal is a way out — where you’re going from having no plan to having a plan,” said Terrio.

For Picard, the plan was a five-year repayment agreement. No more interest accruing on top of his $30,000. A fixed monthly amount coming directly out of his paycheque.

“Instead of me throwing money at interest and never chipping away at the actual debt itself, I was now able to slowly make that less,” he said. “Every time I get a paycheque, it immediately goes out of my bank account so I don’t even see it, don’t have to think about it. It goes directly to the magic place where my debt goes down.”

Consumer proposals are handled by licensed insolvency trustees — a federally regulated designation. There is a fee for this service, but Terrio notes that most people see an immediate reduction in their total monthly repayments once they commit to a plan.

Bankruptcy — When Everything Else Has Failed

Bankruptcy is the last resort — the legal process that discharges debts entirely in exchange for surrendering certain assets and accepting a period of restrictions on credit and financial activity. It carries consequences but it also represents a real ending point for debt that has become completely unmanageable.

A licensed insolvency trustee can walk you through whether bankruptcy or a consumer proposal is the better fit for your situation. Terrio’s firm noted that roughly four out of ten people who contact them do not proceed with any of the options offered — and that is considered normal. “We don’t want people to do something that isn’t the optimum thing they can do for their situation. And everybody’s different,” he said.

---

The Shame That Stops People From Getting Help

The numbers tell one story. The human reality underneath them tells another.

Debt in Canada carries enormous social stigma. People do not talk about it with friends. They do not bring it up at family dinners. They manage the anxiety privately, sometimes for years, sometimes for decades — because admitting financial difficulty feels like admitting failure.

Yanchuk Oleksy said people struggling with debt should not let shame stop them from seeking help. “It’s not entirely your fault; it’s about taking responsibility. And so by giving us a call, you can make a better decision about your situation,” she said.

Picard’s experience reflects exactly how the shame compounds the problem. He knew he needed help for eight years before he sought it. In that time, the debt did not decrease. His anxiety did not ease. The problem simply waited, growing interest while he found ways to push it to the side of his daily awareness.

“I was thinking about it for almost 10 years and I’ve only done it two years ago. If I had done it back then I would be far out of debt,” he said.

The math on delayed action is punishing. Every year of avoidance is another year of interest charges, another year of minimum payments that barely touch the principal, another year of the phone call you are afraid to pick up.

---

Where Sean Picard Is Now

Two years into his five-year plan, Picard is a different person than the one who spent a decade avoiding his phone.

He is living within his means. He has started saving a small amount each month — something that felt impossible when every dollar was being consumed by interest. His mental wellbeing, he says, has improved in ways that are harder to quantify but just as real as the financial ones.

“I’m not scared to pick up the phone,” he said. “When someone’s calling me, it’s one of my loved ones, one of my friends.”

His advice to other Canadians who recognize themselves in his story is straightforward.

“Be brave enough to take the first step.”

---

Where to Get Help — Canada-Wide Resources

---

Sources: CBC Radio — The Current, May 23, 2026 | Financial Consumer Agency of Canada | Data current as of May 23, 2026.

Have a correction? Email [email protected]

---

Are you or someone you know dealing with debt in Canada right now? You are not alone — and you are not without options. Share this article with anyone who needs to read it. And if you have a story about getting out of debt, share it in the comments. Your experience might be exactly what someone else needs to hear today.