Low interest rate or no interest rate?

If it's no interest rate, just put it aside in a HISA for the 6 months or so until you need to pay and knock it off in one go before interest accrues.

If it's low interest rate, I personally would just pay it off. That's still money that could be in your pocket.

I should warn you, if you're planning to pull it out in a year, that may not be enough time if market crashes for your funds to recover.

So maybe put most of it in a HISA for now and into your RRSP (especially if you're clearing 7K a month) and then in a year, pull it out. Save up your emergency saving first.

Then, if you really want to invest just start with an amount you're ok not needing/possibly losing to get your feet wet. Once you're more experienced you can better gage how much you're comfortable putting in and how to utilize it.