First time buying a car in Canada, what is reasonable?

To preface I currently own an old Mitsubishi Lancer Hatchback with ~268K Kilometres in Alberta. I'm daily driving it short distances, I take transit to work so it's really for going to the gym, groceries or meeting friends. The car is slowly falling apart (e.g., significant rust damage, heating barely works, clunky on highways). I'm looking to get a new car ahead of time before this one breaks down to save myself some hassle.

I was originally looking to get a manual car; I ride motorcycles so I understand the principle but would like to learn. However, the market for manual cars are kind of crazy? I'm looking at $10K-$15K CAD for cars that are more than a decade old with more than 150k km on them or they require significant work due to age. I was checking out automatics as well, but it's really tough to find something within my price range (max $15k) which hasn't been in a significant accident, or not absolutely run down (e.g., 170k km+).

Should I just bite the bullet and buy something that's been in an accident before? It's quite hard to find a second hand undamaged vehicle with reasonable mileage for sub $15K.