Dogs at the door: the law of credit in Alberta (new Civil Enforcement Act).

• Author: Travis Huckell

BOTH of us had heard through the ensnarled grapevine of lawyer gossip that the Alberta government was, finally, after years of arid law reform debate, introducing a new law of credit and collection in Alberta. Hardly the stuff of a spy thriller to tantalize the late night reading of an average person.

Indeed, I thought, anyone who would actually take the time to read the Civil Enforcement Act, unless for gain, must have a pretty dull social agenda.

And yet this new law must have stirred up a few hornets' nests. It was passed by the Alberta legislature in November 1994 but was not proclaimed in force until January 1, 1996 -- thirteen months later! Surely government doesn't move that slowly unless it has a lot of darn good reasons. In fact, the same lawyer grapevine told me that all sorts banks, and other stakeholders whom we may call creditors -- were deeply interested in this new law.

Is a law concerning the collection of unpaid debt so important that so many people thought it important to speak up? What does it mean for any of us, whether in the legal profession or not?

Unless we live in a medieval world, carrying a sack of freshly minted ducats every time we go to purchase food, a car, or a house, all of us, to greater or lesser extents, are immersed in the law of credit. A great majority of us have credit cards. If we own a house and are not blessed with a munificent great uncle to tuck the entire purchase price into our Christmas stocking, we will have likely taken out a mortgage. Similarly, few of us have $20,000 in our back pockets to buy the average new car without credit.

Of course, none of us likes to think that we will default on our debts. Very few people take out credit with the preconceived idea of deliberately not repaying it.

But, need it be said, life is filled with many misfortunes. We may lose on the stock market; we may lose our job, or our health, or even our life. As a result, the creditors are not paid and something has to happen. Some of us are prudent and take out insurance against such eventualities. Others are either not prudent or cannot afford insurance or do not qualify. What happens then? Who should lose: the creditor who advanced the money, or the debtor and his or her survivors who are called upon to pay it back?

The Civil Enforcement Act is one of the many sources of law that provides rules for debt collection. In this context it touches us all.

In order to understand the new law, it is necessary to...