Mortgage 101 – Bankruptcy Isn’t a Dirty Word

Dan Ahlstrand and Clinton Wilkins welcome guest Tina Powell, a licensed insolvency trustee from MMP, to discuss the current state of consumer insolvency in Nova Scotia.

Dan Ahlstrand
Welcome back to January. Merry Debtmas edition of Mortgage 101. I’m Dan Ahlstrand. He is Clinton. Wilkins and Clinton, we have a special guest in the studio today.

Clinton Wilkins
I love having guests because it just brings an interesting dynamic to our show. And really, the guests that we bring on are really the experts in their fields. We’ve had national leaders from across the country. We’ve had chief risk officers from lenders. We have people in the insurance base, real estate space, and legal space, and we’re talking about Merry Debtmas in January. We talked a little bit about refinance. But not everyone can refinance because maybe you don’t own a home, or maybe you don’t have the equity to refinance, or maybe you’ve had some credit issues, and a refinance just doesn’t make sense for you. So we have a good friend of our show. We have had her on before. We have Tina Powell here from MMP, and I’ll let Tina do a little intro. You can tell us about your job there, and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of questions for you.

Tina Powell
Hello, everyone. I’m Tina Powell, licensed insolvency trustee, and I deal in consumer insolvency for the Province of Nova Scotia.

Clinton Wilkins
Tina, how long have you been doing this type of business?

Tina Powell
I’ve been in this business for over 20 years. But who’s counting, right?

Clinton Wilkins
Dan, he’s been in this media business for more than 20 I always joke with people, my internal age is 33, but my government age is much, much higher.

Dan Ahlstrand
I think I would imagine Tina and I have had conversations in the past on the talk show about debt. And I would imagine in the last 20 years, you’ve pretty much seen it all when it comes to debt in this part of the world.

<strong>Current Trends in Insolvency and Bankruptcy</strong>

Tina Powell
I’ve been fortunate to help a lot of wonderful people, and I’ve also been very fortunate that these people have told me their stories and have allowed me to help them, and it is a pretty rewarding job, actually.

Clinton Wilkins
Now I’m sure you’ve seen the good, bad and the ugly. How is the landscape right now in the restructuring business, because I assume you guys do bankruptcies, and you do consumer proposals. Are they up? Are they down? Where are the trends looking here going into 2026?

Tina Powell
Well, the stats from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy for the year ending October 2025, which was the most recent data I could find on bankruptcies and general consumer insolvencies, including consumer proposals, have remained pretty flat, with only a 1.7% increase. That’s up to the 12 years ending October 2025; however, I will tell you that 2026 has been off to a roaring start. We basically have a lot of people reaching out, needing our help, and yeah, so we’re available.

Dan Ahlstrand
Tina, we talked about the cost-of-living crisis that we’re in here in Nova Scotia a lot over the last year. And I would imagine that that is a contributing factor to an increase already to start the year. What are people telling you about the cost of living in Nova Scotia is getting out of hand?

<strong>Impact of High Cost of Living on Debt</strong>

Tina Powell
Before the pandemic, we were seeing the traditional reasons and the typical circumstances, like a job loss, relationship breakdown, health problems, business failure, but now people are coming to us with those same problems, but the predominant issue is the high cost of living, and that seems to be the driving factor, and people are trying to rectify their sister circumstance by using credit, and then they get in the vicious cycle and often require assistance from somebody like myself.

Clinton Wilkins
One Canadian is at an all-time high level of indebtedness. We keep on hearing this in the media. From your perspective, where is the mix for the clients? Are more people doing consumer proposed proposals, or more people doing bankruptcies? Like, where are? Where’s the mix in terms of the clients that you’re seeing on the residential side?

Tina Powell
Well, on the residential and consumer side, typically, I would say anywhere around 70%, maybe a little more, are preferring the consumer proposal. The consumer proposal process is a lot easier for an individual, because it’s a set payment over a period of time. And it’s much easier on your credit rating, especially if there was a prior insolvency. So that’s typically the driving force of the proposal.

Clinton Wilkins
And with proposals, do people pay back? Like, give us a little mechanics of like, how a proposal would work?

<strong>Consumer Proposals vs. Bankruptcies</strong>

Tina Powell
So basically, with a consumer proposal, we look at what their overall financial situation is. We do a bit of an, I can’t say, a bit of analysis. We do a financial deep dive into their situation. Okay? We look at their income. How did, how did it become in the state? Right? Look at their income, what their monthly expenses are, what they have for assets, and what equity they have in the assets, what their ability to repay the creditors are, and we also look at if an insolvency proceeding is right for them, because typically, at the end of the day, it serves us well to do what’s best for the individual. It’s not about what’s best for us; it’s about what’s best for the individual. So if they can remortgage or maybe sell some assets or whatnot, then that’s when we take a good, hard look. And once we get through and make them aware of what brought them here, and what we can do to help, knowledge is power, so they leave our office or the meeting feeling a little more empowered than they were before they met with us.

Clinton Wilkins
So there’s so much misinformation out there, and I think even when you’re looking online, it’s hard to find out what the rules look like. What is the best path? And I think that’s where it’s so important, when you’re dealing with big financial transactions, to seek the advice of a professional, no matter what kind of industry you’re in, exactly.

Tina Powell
And a lot of people don’t, or still are not aware of what help there is out there. And as much as MMP advertises, or our competitors advertise, a lot of people don’t know that there is help available. And once they realize that we can help them and get them into a better financial situation, they’re often very thankful. I mean, people are literally paying 1000s of dollars in interest each year, and they’re just basically like a hamster on a wheel. They’re not making any significant progress. They’re stressed, they’re ashamed, and they just don’t know where to turn for help. And many don’t realize that license insolvency trustees are the only debt professionals. We’re regulated by the federal government, but we can provide collection relief from the creditors, whereas an informal debt settlement does not provide any protection for them.

Dan Ahlstrand
The other side of the equation, Tina is, of course, bankruptcy, and that sometimes is considered to be a dirty word. Is there a situation, or are there situations, where a bankruptcy is the right approach for somebody who’s in over their head?

<strong>Situations Suitable for Bankruptcy</strong>

Tina Powell
Sure, when we’re considering what options would work best for an individual at the end of the day, it is their choice, but we have to look at their ability to be able to sustain continued payments over a long period of time. So, for example, if they have, they’re going to be facing a change in their income, or they don’t have the income to be able to handle a consumer proposal in their budget. Could be, may not even be an it may not even be an income issue. It may be a debt issue. Maybe their living expenses are too high, or maybe they have a lot of tax debt with the tax person, the old tax man, who likes to get paid.

Clinton Wilkins
They made it their preferred creditor, right? They are in front of everybody, the tax.

Tina Powell
In some cases, but in some cases not. They’ll just rank as an ordinary unsecured creditor. But we have to look to see what the probability is of having the general body of unsecured creditors accept the proposal that we’re going to file, and if we don’t think that it will, we will, obviously, go down the bankruptcy route. But there’s bankruptcy doesn’t have the same stigma it did years ago.

Clinton Wilkins
You don’t want to do it twice. That’s when you’re really in Purgatory.

Tina Powell
Yeah, and that’s when we look at a consumer proposal really hard if there’s been a prior bankruptcy.

Dan Ahlstrand
Tina, we’re going to continue the conversation after we take our next break. I have a lot more questions. You’ve unwrapped the presents. You’ve put the boxes away. Merry Debtmas: Mortgage 101 continues after the break.