The legal meaning of bankruptcy and insolvency law has often remained elusive, even to practitioners and scholars in the field, despite having been enshrined in Canada’s Constitution since Confederation. Federal jurisdiction in this area must be measured against provincial powers over property and civil rights, among others. Debt and Federalism traces conceptions of the bankruptcy and insolvency power through four cases that form the constitutional foundation of the Canadian bankruptcy system: the 1894 Voluntary Assignments Case, Royal Bank of Canada v Larue in 1928, the 1934 Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act Reference Case, and the 1937 Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act Reference Case. Together, they produced the bedrock for modern understandings of bankruptcy and insolvency law.

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Virginia Torrie is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Banking and Finance Law Review.

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While the tradition of any book review is to mention a few blemishes, I was hard pressed to find any... This is an excellent, thought-provoking and informative book.

Banking & Finance Law Review

This book is a masterpiece of academic contribution enriching our understanding on the bankruptcy law development in Canada and beyond … I am overwhelmed by the quality of the in-depth analysis in this book.

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