I know someone who may be leaving the country soon for an extended period. I'm a little worried about what will happen when she's gone because she has student loans. I also think she will not return to Canada for many years - perhaps more than ten years. Is there a point when the government will consider her loan a "bad debt" and not pursue her for payment anymore? I'm saying that she is doing the right thing, here, I'm just asking about the statute of limitations (if that's that's the right term) on a student loan. The person lives in Manitoba and has loans with the province and with Canada as well.

Hello spil:

I don't know about Canada, but here in the US, student loans cannot be charged off in bankruptcy so the lender is going to owe it forever. I'll bet Canada is the same. Furthermore, if I were the bank, I'd try to collect it forever too.

excon

The Canada Student Loan Act and the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act are the federal statutes that provide for the granting or guaranteeing of student loans. Both of these acts have statutes of limitation. The limitation period is 6 years. The information can be found in the last section of each act. Some provinces have limitation periods for their student loans. Ontario does not have a limitation period for OSAP. The statutes can be found online. Read them carefully because there are certain simple things that a debtor can do (such as claiming the debt is statute barred that could be used to restart the limitation "clock". Do your research.