The risks to Canadian finances will remain pronounced even during the recovery phase once the coronavirus crisis passes, according to Deloitte Chief Economist Craig Alexander.
“One of the great legacies of the current crisis is that after the pandemic has passed, we’re going to have more indebted households,” Alexander told Yahoo Finance Canada earlier this week. “So I think the issue around leverage isn’t going to go away; in fact, I think it will become more acute.”
Compounding the issue is , which already reached a record high even before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the global financial system. is also placing many households’ long-term economic prospects in doubt.
However, Canadians might find a measure of respite: Susan Hosterman of Fitch Ratings said that so far, the impact of the coronavirus is not likely as severe as that observed in the United States more than a decade ago.
“I definitely feel like we’re not going to see the delinquency rates that we saw in the US during the financial crisis. It’s not going to be anywhere near that,” Hosterman said. “I don’t think we’ll see those levels with just how proactive the banks are being with working with the borrowers.”
Ephraim is currently a journalist at Mortgage Broker News, Real Estate Professional and Canadian Real Estate Wealth.
Ephraim is a highly accomplished news reporter whose work has been published across North America and the Asia Pacific region. Before joining Key Media, Ephraim spent eight years working as a journalist with Reuters TV. His areas of expertise include real estate, mortgage, and finance.
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