The Importance of Annual General Meeting Attendance - Condo Confidential - November 2015
- Condominium Group
- Dec 30, 2007
- 2 min read
The Importance of Annual General Meeting Attendance - Condo Confidential - November 2015
December 31, 2007
A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision that sections of Ontario’s Highway 407 Act prevent the purpose of financial rehabilitation under the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (BIA) is a welcome ruling that properly upholds bankruptcy legislation, Toronto litigator Joel Watson tells Legal Feeds.
407 ETR Concession Co. v. Canada (Superintendent of Bankruptcy) centred around a $34,977.06 debt that a man had amassed, after using the 407 ETR toll route about 2,000 times between August 1998 and March 2007, according to the agreed statement of facts, says Legal Feeds. The man failed to pay his bill. In 2005 and again in 2006, 407 ETR sent notice to the registrar of motor vehicles, which refused to validate his vehicle permits when they expired.
The man filed for bankruptcy in late 2007 and was granted an absolute discharge in June 2011, but 407 ETR continued to seek the costs, the article notes.
“The [407] act is a modern-day equivalent of debtor prisons that says we’re going to virtually incarcerate you until you pay your debts, but you can’t work to pay your debts while you’re incarcerated,” Watson, partner with Shibley Righton LLP, says in the article.
Once a debt is discharged in a bankruptcy, that is it, he says — and the point of a fresh start is to allow the bankrupt to rehabilitate.
"The issue is bankruptcy and the pursuit by the 407 of debts after bankruptcy discharge, not through court judgment, but by forcing Ontario to deny Moore a drivers licence, which in effect, forces payment of the debt or deprives him of the right to drive which in reality deprives him of the right to earn a living and be rehabilitated," Watson tells AdvocateDaily.
"To say, as the minority did, that Moore had a choice not to pay and not to have a drivers licence, is to ignore the reality that a driver’s licence is essential and that denial was really an attempt to go around the bankruptcy discharge," he adds.
As Justice Clément Gascon wrote on behalf of the SCC: “In my view, s. 22(4) of the 407 Act is inoperative to the extent that it conflicts with s. 178(2) of the BIA. This provision cannot be used by ETR to enforce an otherwise discharged provable claim contrary to s. 178(2) of the BIA.”
“Gascon’s ruling is ultimately so principled, candid, and helpful and this level of common sense is really needed because it makes the judicial system far more effective,” Watson tells Legal Feeds.
