Industry Canada has released its long-awaited discussion paper on the legislated review of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act.

The discussion paper identifies numerous consumer and corporate insolvency matters and raises several administrative and technical issues as well. However, it does not put forward any recommendations. It is instead inviting stakeholders to comment on these and other important insolvency issues by July 15th so that the Minister of Industry can table a report in Parliament on both Acts by September of this year, as required under the legislation.

CAIRP has already been working for several months to identify areas where the legislation can be improved. André Bolduc (BDO, Ottawa) is leading our Consumer Advocacy Task Force; and Jonathan Krieger (GT, Toronto) and Mark Wentzell (GT, Vancouver) are heading a joint team made up of our Corporate Practice Committee and our Corporate Advocacy Task Force. They are also liaising with the Insolvency Institute of Canada.

We will be sending members CAIRP’s draft submission in the next several weeks for further feedback. However, if you have any comments to offer on the discussion paper at this point, we would ask that you forward them by June 13th to

The discussion paper can be found at: www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cilp-pdci.nsf/eng/cl00871.html