Hoyes Michalos and Associates Ontario Personal Bankruptcy Blog

On February 7, 2008, Ted Michalos and Douglas Hoyes appeared as expert witnesses before the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce to provide our testimony on bankruptcy reform, and the proposed changes to the bankruptcy rules in Canada. (A picture from the broadcast of our appearance is shown.)

As readers of the Hoyes Michalos Blog will recall, back on December 15, 2007 I posted an article detailing the new bankruptcy rules, and on February 4th I announced our trip to Ottawa.

Despite very bad weather that cancelled our flight and left us with an eight hour drive in a blizzard to Ottawa, we arrived and spent over an hour testifying before the Senators.

In my opening remarks I reminded the Senators that people who get into financial trouble "are real people who in many cases have lost their jobs, gone through a marriage break-up, suffered through an illness, and after these personal tragedies they are faced with an insurmountable burden of debt.

These are not bad people. We believe it's important that when Parliamentarians draft bankruptcy legislation they remember that real people are affected."

We were the first personal bankruptcy trustees to appear before the Committee, and I believe our comments where well received. I'm not naive enough to believe that our testimony will change the course of bankruptcy legislation in the future, but I do believe that the Senators have a better understanding of the plight of the average Canadian who gets into financial difficulty.

Please see our bankruptcy video page for clips of our testimony in Ottawa.

Back in December I posted an article announcing that new bankruptcy laws have been passed by Parliament, but they have not yet come into force. In an effort to ensure that the rules are fair and balanced, the Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee is holding hearings to review the new legislation.

Ted Michalos and I will be appearing before the Committee at noon on February 7 to provide our views on bankruptcy reform. I will post details on our testimony when we return, but here's a preview: we believe the rules should be fair to both bankrupts and to creditors, and in our view the new rules tend to help creditors more than bankrupts.

You can read our full 42 page report to the Committee by downloading the Hoyes Michalos Report to the Senate Standing Committee.

You can watch our testimony live on the Internet at 12 noon on February 7th on the Senate Website.

How will the new rules impact on you? Read our full report on the new bankruptcy laws in Canada, and check back later this week for more information on our appearance in Ottawa.