North Central Bailiffs in Kelowna, B.C., is busy. In fact, as pandemic restrictions and mandates continue to ease, owner Mike Sundstrom has never had more work end up on his desk.
From Sundstrom’s vantage point, the industry where he makes his living as a licensed bailiff and licensed sheriff isn’t prepared to handle the massive surge of claims he predicts is just around the corner.
His firm, one of several bailiff firms in the province, gets to see a sweeping overview where most of the financial and economic sectors collide. And given how many lenders and government agencies hit the pause button on collections during the past two and a half years of COVID-19 when Canadians’ ability to pay was most fragile, Sundstrom says every sector is now beginning to call him.
“[Bailiffs are] the canary in the gold mine,” he told The Epoch Times.
From banking to car dealerships to residential defaults, he says asset seizures continue to climb. Yet, he says, what has him even more concerned is the fallout when the slow pace of government claims such as tax files eventually make their way through the system.
“Every time I turn around there’s a new file coming in, and we’re seeing this all at once,” Sundstrom says.
“Everything is up. Repossessions are up, evictions are up. And this even though we’re not seeing Revenue Canada, PST [provincial sales tax], and WCB [Workers’ Compensation Board] back to full speed…
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