Canada

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The report from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy showed that the total number of insolvencies — meaning those filed by both businesses and consumers — was up by 23.6 per cent last year.

He said that if things start to unravel, there's still room for the Bank of Canada to lower interest rates, which would help businesses repay their loans and reduce the need for job cuts.

The latter is when a person in debt offers a formal proposal to their creditors asking for a different arrangement to pay back the money they owe.

Richard Goldhar, a licensed insolvency trustee who assists clients with such arrangements, says things are busy at his Toronto-based firm.

And while wages have been on the rise, they aren't keeping pace with inflation, in turn forcing people to borrow money while interest rates are still high, at five per cent.

Anna Lund, an associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Alberta, said that the insolvency numbers reported on Friday are more or less in line with 2019 levels, given the drop-off that began in 2020.

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