Industry committee  I would agree that by removing the rest of the provisions it is strictly dealing with the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. And it refers to pension protection in the title, which the bill no longer does. So I would think anything after “Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act” would be irrel

Industry committee  In legislation, we can draft wording that will reflect the intent that is wanted by Parliament. We can find wording or the justice department drafters can find wording to refer to another piece of legislation and state that the amount that is under sections 81.3 and 81.4 that wer

Industry committee  That's my understanding.

Industry committee  That's right.

Industry committee  First, with respect to the position of governments, there is a deemed trust, essentially a super-priority that ranks ahead of almost all creditors, for the Canada Revenue Agency. That is limited to amounts that have been taken from an employee's pay for employment insurance, Cana

Industry committee  Your second question was whether this would put the severed and terminated employees ahead of employees who continued to work. In my opinion, yes, that is what this will do. We have the wage earner protection program here in Canada, which pays employees up to roughly $3,100. Peo

Industry committee  In the provincial employment standards acts, or if they're a federally regulated employer under federal labour laws, there are actually minimum standards. For example, in Ontario, if more than 500 employees are laid off at the same time, they are entitled to 16 weeks' salary. Tha

Industry committee  It's the minimum, not a maximum. The severance and termination can be negotiated between the parties, so no maximum is set by statute.

Industry committee  Yes, the employment standards acts of the provincial and federal governments would set minimums. Typically, it's at least a week per year worked, but then there are different rules, depending on.... In the case of mass layoffs, as I've mentioned, the number of weeks you are owed

Industry committee  No. To affect the Nortel proceedings, you would need to have either retroactive or retrospective legislation. This particular piece of legislation is only forward-looking. It will only affect cases that begin after the coming into force of this legislation. It will have no impact

Industry committee  These two provisions refer to the payment of severance and termination pay in the event of either the bankruptcy of a company or the company coming under a receivership. As the bill now stands, it will put the severance and termination pay due to employees ahead of essentially

Industry committee  Currently severance and termination is treated as an unsecured claim, so it would be paid after secured creditors and preferred creditors. Under the insolvency legislation, bankruptcy legislation particularly, you have secured creditors, typically lenders, etc., who have taken