More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Canadians with the lowest credit ratings repaid the most credit card debt in the first year of the pandemic as part of a wave of non-mortgage debt repayments, Statistics Canada said Monday.
Overall non-mortgage debt fell by a record $20.6 billion from the start of the pandemic to January 2021, including a $16.6-billion drop in credit card debt as household incomes hit record levels, the agency said in a report.
Mortgage debt, however, rose by a record $99.6 billion over the same period.
Credit card balances declined across income levels but were most pronounced for those with lower credit ratings.
"The largest reductions in debt loads were among those with the lowest credit ratings, suggesting that Canadians most vulnerable to financial hardships were able to use savings prudently during the pandemic," the agency's report said.
The total balance owing for those with credit scores below 640 dropped from almost $15 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019 to under $10 billion in the first quarter of this year. For those with a credit score above 800 the balance went from about $16 billion to $14 billion.
For those with the lowest scores, it meant an overall drop in balances of more than 35 per cent, while those with credit scores between 641 and 800 saw declines of between 15 and 20 per cent, and those in the over 800 level had declines of about 13 per cent.
"Those with lower scores repaid their debt at a faster rate than those with higher scores throughout the pandemic," the agency said.
The drop in credit card debt marked a sharp reversal for a category that has seen average annual growth of 20.7 per cent over the last two decades, rising from $13.2 billion in 2000 to $90.6 billion in February last year.
The change came as household consumption spending dropped significantly, down 14.7 per cent in the second quarter last year compared with a year earlier for the largest year-over-year decline since the agency started tracking it in 1961.
"Households had few places to spend, and many used the pandemic lockdown as an opportunity to save and pay down existing debt," the agency said.
The debt repayments have also come about as government support programs helped prop up incomes and in some cases paid more than what people had been earning before, said Nathan Janzen, senior economist at RBC.
"During the pandemic there was a significant increase in household disposable income, and that was government support payments more than offsetting lost earned wages over the pandemic."
Job losses have been heavily concentrated at the lowest end of the labour market with a large share of losses among people making less than $500 a week, which is the lowest weekly payment under the government programs, said Janzen.
"So for a lot of people there has been in some cases full, or more than full, wage offset."
People with the lowest credit scores also generally face higher interest rates, said Doug Hoyes, an insolvency trustee at Hoyes, Michalos & Associates. For credit cards, that can mean having to pay interest rates of more than 25 per cent, compared to high single digits for some borrowers.
"Any extra dollar that they have, it's a huge saving to be deleveraging and paying down that credit card."
Many people struggling with debt have also been paying down their balance as a defensive strategy, so they have more capacity to borrow in the future, he said.
Spending has already started to rise this year as restrictions have eased and the labour market has improved. Non-mortgage borrowing in March and April saw "exceptionally strong growth" compared with a year earlier, though March 2021 credit card balances were still $11.5 billion below their pre-pandemic levels, said StatCan.
Households were carrying about $2.5 trillion in outstanding debt one year into the pandemic, approximately two-thirds of which was mortgage debt, Statistics Canada said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 23, 2021.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
Devastating tornadoes tore across parts of eastern Nebraska and northeast Texas Friday as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event ramped up in the central United States, injuring at least three people.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Donald Trump's defence team attacked the credibility Friday of the prosecution's first witness in his hush money case, seeking to discredit testimony detailing a scheme between Trump and a tabloid to bury negative stories to protect the Republican's 2016 presidential campaign.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.