Canadian reference

Where do you get official debt help in Canada?

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada publishes the federal government's debt-help guidance, including how credit counselling works, how to tell a legitimate service from a predatory one, and when to consider a licensed insolvency trustee. It is the first place to go when essentials or minimum payments are not covered, when collections are involved, or when payday loans are part of the picture.

Where do you get official debt help in Canada?
Publisher	Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
Cost	Free
Use it before	Any repayment optimisation or consolidation decision
Covers	Credit counselling, debt consolidation, consumer proposals, bankruptcy

What this means in practice

A repayment comparison assumes the situation is already stable. If essentials and minimum payments are not covered without new borrowing, ranking debts by interest rate answers the wrong question.
Money Journal's own debt tool stops and points here when its safety check does not pass, rather than producing a ranking that could delay the right step.
Credit counselling from a non-profit agency and a fee-charging debt settlement company are not the same thing. The FCAC guidance explains how to tell them apart.

What this page does not decide

Money Journal does not provide debt settlement, credit repair, consolidation, lending or legal advice, and does not assess your situation. This page points to the official route rather than standing in for it.

Source and review state

Rule CA-DDP-DEBT-ESCALATION version 1.0.0, in bundle 2026.08.12. Effective 2026-01-01, next review 2026-12-31.

FCAC: Getting help from a credit counsellor

Why we show the review date

A rate published without a date is impossible to check. Every high-impact figure on this site carries its source, its version and the date it must be reviewed again, and it stops being presented as current when that date passes.