Professor Anna Lund's new book says the financial pressures and feelings of insolvency trustees matter when individuals need debt relief.
Trustees at Work: Financial Pressures, Emotional Labour, and Canadian Bankruptcy Law (UBC Press) addresses the financial and emotional dimensions of Canadian personal bankruptcy law.
"Every year, thousands of Canadians end up with significant debt and have no realistic chance of ever repaying it, " she writes. Bankruptcy law provides relief to over-indebted individuals "a second chance, a fresh start. But not all debtors get this benefit."
Says Lund, "bankruptcy law sorts debtors into two groups: those who are considered deserving of relief and those who aren't. I wanted to understand how this sorting process works in practice."
Insolvency trustees - professionals who are tasked with assessing bankruptcies - play a key role in this sorting process. Bankruptcy law provides them with a great deal of latitude to decide who gets debt relief. To understand how they exercise this discretion, Lund interviewed trustees, reviewed case law and analyzed statistics from the federal government.
"I was expecting to find trustees passing judgment on the pre-bankruptcy choices of debtors," she said.
"The federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act invites this kind of judgment. It has some very colourful language. For example, it suggests that debt relief may not be appropriate for an individual who lived with undue extravagance or one who engaged in rash and hazardous speculation. And yet, most trustees are not overly concerned with how a debtor behaved before bankruptcy as long as the debtor is co-operative during the bankruptcy process."
Blending narratives drawn from case law and interviews with tangible statistics, Lund illustrates how the financial pressures and emotional demands of the trustees' work shape their assessments of debtor deservingness.
"The story that emerged when I spoke to trustees was remarkably different from the story I had formulated based on my review of legislation and case law."
"I am incredibly grateful to the individuals who agreed to be interviewed for this project. By sharing their experiences with me, they helped me to better understand how bankruptcy law is brought to life through the everyday practices of trustees."
Published in December 2019, Lund's book has been well received by the academic community and will be of interest to scholars, students, and professional practitioners in the field of bankruptcy and insolvency law.