Applicants want to sign now for May 1st start

[Nikolas1212]

...Just the long wait still means I have to pay my mortgage and I'm already in a bad financial situation right now.

I think you already answer your question. Why not just keep looking for tenants, you might want to delay them by telling them that you will sign the lease by end of Feb. if you can't find suitable tenants by then.

If your property is in a high demand area (like the GTA), then it should be easy to find tenants.

On the other hand if the property is not in a desired area for renters, then you could ask if they're willing to pay 3 or 4 months of rent in advance so you can secure the place for them in order to get you out of the financial jam right now.
I know, legally landlords cannot to ask for anything more than the last month's rent deposit, that's why I indicated if "they are willing" to do that, i.e. you don't require the prepay rents, but if they want to secure it, they can offer to pay in advance

Good luck

Going over your helpful post, trying to digest what you wrote.