Ontario sees another enormous jump in people not paying housing and other bills

As if we needed more facts and figures to remind us how bad Canada’s economy is at present, a new report has offered a glimpse into just how many people nationwide have been unable to cover their major bills, with mortgage delinquency in particular at an all-time high.

And, residents of Ontario are the worst culprits.

The data, published by Equifax Canada this week, comes from the final months of 2024, a year in which consumer debt across the country grew by 4.6 per cent, to a total of an unthinkable $2.56 trillion.

Though falling lending rates over the course of the year helped to relieve the debts of some, the credit company says that “financial pressures intensified” for many others, especially those with mortgages in our two most exorbitant provinces for property: Ontario and B.C.

When looking at the fourth quarter of the year versus the same time in 2023, there was a shocking 90.2 per cent increase in the number of Ontarians who hadn’t made a mortgage payment in 90 days or more, with over 11,000 households having missed at least one payment.

Comparatively, Quebec saw a 41.2 per cent spike in these types of delinquencies; B.C., 37.7 per cent; Atlantic Canada, 15.7 per cent; and the Prairies, only 0.6 per cent. In Alberta, there were actually 3.6 fewer mortgage defaults in the last three months of 2024 than there were in Q4 2023.

Equifax.

“Mortgage holders who are falling behind in their payments are also carrying substantially higher mortgage balances,” Equifax added. “And Ontario mortgage holders are struggling with other forms of debt as well.”

The rate of consumers defaulting on non-mortage debts, such as car payments and credit card bills, also grew far more in Ontario year-over-year than in the rest of Canada (by 23.9 per cent, compared to the national average, 18 per cent).

This difference is even more stark when looking solely at payments that were 90 days late or more, with a 46.1 per cent rise in this type of extended arrears in Ontario, compared to 23.3 per cent in Quebec, 21.6 per cent in B.C., 6.1 per cent in Alberta, 4.1 per cent in the Prairies and just 1.5 per cent in the Atlantic provinces.

“Mortgage holders will typically do everything they can to keep up with payments, so the fact that we’re seeing missed payments rise so sharply suggests deeper financial strain,” the report states.

It also calls out Toronto specifically as among the worst large cities in the country for non-payment of bills due to “the region’s unique financial challenges” — a.k.a., its ridiculous cost of living between real estate and rent prices, high taxes, and more.

The city is also home to one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at around 8.8 per cent and rising as of January 2025. About 7.6 per cent of people in Ontario — again, a growing number — are now without jobs, compared to 6.6 per cent nationwide: pretty bleak figures overall.

The new Equifax numbers indicate a worsening trend when assessed against earlier 2024 reports, which put mortgage balance delinquency in Ontario at 0.16 per cent in Q2 2024 — which at the time, was the highest level since 2014 — versus the 0.22 per cent in Q4. Consumer debt levels in the country are also slightly higher.