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Zaki Alam, a licensed insolvency trustee and a senior vice president with MNP Ltd. in Edmonton, says people are feeling hopeless about their debt.

“People have been living on supplementing their income, hoping that they’re going to get better jobs, better hours down the line, but that doesn’t seem to have come true in the past two, three years. So, presumably, the amount of debt has been building up,” he said.

Stagnating wages seem to be a key problem, as well as people relying more on credit cards or payday loans with high interest rates, short-term fixes that end up costing more in the long run.

In Edmonton, Alam said he’s seeing more people coming in to file consumer proposals and bankruptcy. And it’s not just the oilpatch workers anymore.

“Hospitality workers, restaurant workers, we’re seeing the casual workers, we’re even seeing even professionals as well, but it’s a bit of everything, no one type. Seniors as well,” he said. “It’s really sad to see the amount of people coming in … it’s very high compared to historical numbers.”

Albertans are resilient, he said, and they hold on as long as they can before getting help. But that can make problems worse, and not just financially.

“The amount of stress (in) some of the people you see coming through the door, it’s really bad,” he said. “People get stressed, they worry about that, and it impacts on their ability to perform at work … they’re not focusing on maybe their relationship with family members.”

He recommends seeing an insolvency professional for help to find a solution, sooner than later.

The Consumer Debt Index was compiled by Ipsos, surveying a sample of 2,000 Canadians 18 years and older between Dec. 4 and Dec. 9, 2019. The results are accurate to within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

lboothby@postmedia.com

@laurby