Rising interest rates starting to pinch more Canadians, poll says

A new poll suggests a growing proportion of Canadians say they are feeling the effects of higher interest rates.

The quarterly MNP consumer debt index survey says 43 per cent of Canadians say they're feeling the effects of higher interest rates, up five percentage points from three months ago.

The poll done for insolvency firm MNP also said 51 per cent of respondents fear rising interest rates could impact their ability to repay their debts, while 33 per cent agreed that rising interest rates could possibly push them toward bankruptcy.

Forty-seven per cent said they do not believe they'll be able to cover all living and family expenses in the next 12 months without going into further debt.

MNPpresident Grant Baziansaid the surveyresults show how close many Canadians could be to financial trouble.

"Nearly half of outstanding mortgages have interest rate renewals within a year so monthly mortgage payments are set to rise for a huge proportion of people. But a staggering percentage of Canadians say they already don't have any wiggle room at all," he said in a release.

The poll comes ahead of the Bank of Canada's interest rate announcement on Wednesday.

The central bank has raised its key interest rate target three times since last summer, moves that have prompted the big banks to raise their prime lending rates.

The latest MNP poll was done between March 12 and March 16 and included a sample of 2,001 Canadians that were interviewed online.

The polling industry's professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.