Specialized Insolvency Regimes

• Author: Roderick J. Wood
• Profession: Faculty of Law University of Alberta
• Pages: 533-544

533

cha Pter 21

SPECIALIZED

INSOLVENCY REGIMES

There are two specialized insolvency regimes that apply to p articular

types of debtors or economic sectors. The Winding-Up and Restr uctur-

ing Act is used prima rily in respect of insolvencies of banks, insurance

companies, trust companies, and loan companies. It is sometimes used

to wind-up federal corporations, such as the liquidation of the assets of

the Christi an Brothers of Ireland in Canada as a result of the claims of

boys who suffered abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfound-

land. There is also a speci al insolvency regime that govern s railway

companie s.

Unfortunately, the use of spec ialized insolvency regimes in these

sectors has produced a creeping statutory obsolescence.1 While the

general insolvency regime s are frequently amended in order to create

an eff‌icient and modernized insolvency system, these amendments are

usually not introduced into the specialized insolvency reg imes.2 The

1 One need only exa mine the def‌inition of “trad ing company” in the Winding-up

and Restruc turing Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. W-11, s. 2(1) [WURA], to be no stalgically

transp orted back to an earlier era of “apot hecaries, auctioneers, ba nkers, brok-

ers, brickm akers, builders, carp enters, carriers, c attle or sheep salesmen, coach

proprietors, dyers, f ullers, keepers of inns, t averns, hotels, saloons or cof fee

houses, lime bu rners, livery stable keepe rs, market gardeners, mil lers, miners,

packers, pri nters, quarrymen, sh arebrokers, ship-owners , shipwrights, stock-

brokers, stock-jobbers, v ictuallers, warehouse men, wharf‌ingers . . . .”

2 There have been two e xceptions to this tendency. Provi sions found in other

insolvency st atutes that limit the appl ication of the legislation to ai rcraft objects

and to eligible f‌in ancial contracts have a lso been added to the WURA.