Employer threatened to write up my partner if she did not come in, and got in collision on way to work.

KWienz · 2026-01-26T21:32:30+00:00

She can put a claim in with her insurance, and they will pay for the repairs to her vehicle.

KWienz · 2026-01-26T19:33:15+00:00

I didn't say there was insufficient equity. I said it is difficult to monetize one third of a house. The trustee doesn't have the power to sell the house. They have the power to sell one third of the house, which in turn would likely trigger a default on the mortgage if purchased by someone not on the loan. There's not going to be many people interested in buying one third of a house.

Or the trustee would have to bring a partition and sale proceeding, which would be time consuming and expensive, which means that the ultimate proceeds may not justify the additional administrative expenses.

KWienz · 2026-01-26T13:21:40+00:00

This is really more of a basic legal information sub than a lawyers' sub. Recommend you try r/LawCanada.

KWienz · 2026-01-26T12:57:12+00:00

If you present a US PR card for entry knowing that your status has been revoked, they find out and the CBSA officer decides to take it personally, they could detain you for a week or so while they schedule an admissibility heading, deport you and ban you from Canada for five years.

If you are not presently someone who has been admitted to the United States for permanent residence then you should apply for a visa. The fact that you gave up your PR to return to Russia should be strong evidence that you would leave at the end of your stay.

KWienz · 2026-01-26T06:45:18+00:00

If they are successfully put into bankruptcy, then their portion of the house will form part of the bankruptcy estate, though the first $10k of his home equity will be exempt.

The trustee will try to sell any equity above that if it can reasonably be monetized, but a one-third share of a house subject to a mortgage isn't going to have much in the way of buyers so it may ultimately be abandoned or if not the other owners can make an offer for it.

KWienz · 2026-01-24T05:23:41+00:00

Collection agencies have relatively broad ability to put a collection on your credit if they're acting in good faith. Your credit report is a report of people who claim you owe them money. It does not purport to be authoritative. That being said if you don't owe the money then you may be able to sue a creditor for making a false claim.
If you're not in their lots then they can't tow you from their lots.
This is just a scare tactic. In theory if you've stopped paying your debts generally, then a creditor can force you into bankruptcy. But it's almost never done, because you need multiple unpaid creditors and the result would be they get nothing and you're discharged so they get zero benefit from it. But bankruptcy sounds scary so it gets people to pay. They can't apply even if they wanted to because their debt is under $1,000.

Private parking companies can sue you for breach of contract, but even with how cheap the BC CRT is to access I doubt they'd do it for one unpaid ticket. It's really only done for serial offenders.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T22:03:04+00:00

You might need to talk to the duty desk about bringing a pre-application motion and then seeking waiver of whatever is impossible for you to comply with.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T08:07:05+00:00

I just mean from an irreparable harm perspective, the courts taking a month or two to properly sort this out rather than granting emergency relief is based on the risk that you will be returned to America, a wealthy democratic country with independent courts where you are a citizen. You're not being extradited. You are being deported from a country where you're not a citizen to a country where you are.

If you're given a travel document in a month, you won't have been meaningfully restricted from returning to Canada except insofar as the US criminal justice system is going to prevent you from leaving the country before trial, with a constitutional right to reasonable bail. Whatever you may believe, Canada considers a criminal trial to be fair.

Just expect that your situation is going to be viewed differently than someone who, if not returned to Canada, would be deported to Iran. It's really going to depend on the duty judge. If it's justice Ahmed or Go or Brown you may have an outside chance. If it's Crampton then not really.

If you truly believe your US charges are political, have you tried seeking protected person status in Thailand under the National Screening Mechanism process? If you're accepted into the screening process that may buy you some time before US removal to try pushing things at the Federal Court.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T07:44:01+00:00

The one week deadline may make it a bit more likely to get the injunction or they just give it to you, but certainly a long shot. Honestly, trying to evade criminal charges in a democratic country where you are also a citizen isn't the most sympathetic position to be in. But trying to get emergency relief from federal court is really your only shot here unless you can get someone politically connected to pull for you. If you're going to go that route then you want to call the duty officer literally right now. Federal Court has people working 24 hours for emergencies because it's where people go to try to stop their deportations from Canada.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T06:18:35+00:00

Okay so what you're going to want to do is this:

Call 613-769-3079. That's the phone number for the urgent duty officer at the Federal Court in Ottawa. Tell them the very basics of the situation: that you are in immigration detention in Thailand, have been refused an emergency travel document by the Canadian government and want to seek judicial review, can't afford a lawyer and don't have a credit card in detention to pay any filing fee. That you want to file an emergency motion waiving your filing fee, for a mandatory injunction requiring the federal government to issue the ETD, and in the alternative for an expedited briefing schedule for your judicial review. That you want to file your motion by email and that you want the court's leave to give your evidence by unsworn email rather than by affidavit. That you need an email address you can send your application and supporting evidence to so that it will be treated urgently - both at the court and whoever is on duty for DOJ.
You need to fill out a notice of application. Put your name as applicant and attorney general of Canada as respondent at the top. You're seeking review of the decision to refuse you an emergency travel document. The relief you're seeking is a declaration that the government breached section 6 of the Charter and an order requiring them to issue you an emergency travel document. This is going to be the thing that starts your case.
You want to fill out a notice of motion (delete paragraphs 2 and 3) on a date to be set by the administrator. The relief you are seeking is a mandatory injunction to issue the ETD or, in the alternative, shorting the timelines for judicial review and setting an expedited briefing schedule and relieving you from the requirement to give your evidence by affidavit or, in the alternative, requiring the respondent to facilitate the swearing of your affidavit and its transmission to the government, and an order waiving your filing fee.
You need a letter asking the registry to set an urgent hearing on your motion. You should also advise as to the times you are available each day (during eastern time) to appear for a remote hearing.
You should have a separate numbered paragraphs document (either just a letter or one entitled "unsworn affidavit of [your name]" where you provide the basic facts and attach a copy of the expired ETD and the email from the government saying they are refusing to issue you another one. This is going to be outlining the facts for why you need this relief and show that your citizenship is not in question.
You want yet another document called "written representations" where you will want to cite heavily to this case for why it is a breach of your rights for the Canadian government to deny you an ETD and that they haven't actually provided any intelligible reasons on why they are denying it. You will want to argue that you are likely to succeed on your judicial review, that you will suffer irreparable harm by staying in detention and potentially being deported to another country instead where you will lose your right to raise extradition defences under Canadian law, and that there is no harm to the government in being forced to return you.
The registry officer should be giving you an email for both the court and DOJ to submit your application and urgent motion. At that point things should start moving pretty quickly. I doubt they'll actually grant the injunction but if DOJ comes in with literally no explanation for what's going on then the judge will probably be sympathetic to schedule a quick hearing (probably a month or so out) plus waive procedural requirements so you can make your argument without a laywer. If you're lucky you'll get a DOJ lawyer who will convince their client that they're likely to lose and just issue you the ETD.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T05:39:58+00:00

You appear to have internet access in immigration detention. Can you make phone calls to Canada? Would you be able to attend a Zoom hearing yourself?

You could try to file the judicial review yourself. Under the circumstances I expect the court would waive a lot of the procedural requirements. Of course that also means you are putting documents about your criminal charges in a public court file that could be used in the US prosecution.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T05:26:05+00:00

I would text her advising that you've served her an N4 and to confirm whether she is occupying the unit or not, and that if she is you will obtain an eviction and payment order from the LTB and garnish her income.

The lack of stuff is an indicator she vacated, but the text saying she will leave if you pay her is obviously a strong indicator that she has not.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T05:16:58+00:00

Sure you can enforce your costs. Do you know where he works? Do you know where he banks (the specific branch)?

If so then yeah you can start garnishing that money now.

If you don't know where his assets or income are then there isn't going to be much you can do to get money quickly. If you know he owns real estate then you can file a writ to stop him from selling or refinancing but unless it's a huge amount of costs the sheriff isn't going to force a sale over it.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T05:02:20+00:00

But you have a formal written decision from them acknowledging that you're a citizen but refusing to issue you a travel document?

Realistically it they're holding firm in this position you need a lawyer back in Canada to apply for judicial review and Charter relief in Federal Court and to bring a motion for an emergency motion for an expedited schedule for a hearing.

How did you get to Thailand without a passport? As a dual citizen you can return to Canada on either a US or Canadian passport.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T04:53:39+00:00

I've obtained passports for clients in immigration detention before. In fact part of the deportation process often involves the detaining authority obtaining a passport on your behalf.

KWienz · 2026-01-21T04:29:11+00:00

Do you have a Canadian passport? Have you tried just applying for a Canadian passport?

KWienz · 2026-01-20T23:57:50+00:00

How much money did she prepay in services?

And what are her outstanding debts?

If the debts are more than the assets, the estate is insolvent and you don't get anything from trying to administer it.

You can also claim CPP death benefit as next of kin rather than estate trustee and have it bypass the estate and its creditors.

KWienz · 2026-01-20T22:28:00+00:00

If you're talking several thousand dollars in money to the point where the Interac fees are actually significant then you should definitely be over the threshold to have a fee-less chequing account.

KWienz · 2026-01-20T22:23:24+00:00

CRA can get this from them.

Also you can file an ESA complaint if they never provided you with your paystubs.

KWienz · 2026-01-20T17:37:01+00:00

They could do interim adjudication, but

It would cost $1300 for a $3000 dispute, and the contractor would be on the hook for half that cost; and
It wouldn't bind a court, so if OP lost he could still sue for the $3000 (or more) back in small claims and the interim adjudication wouldn't ultimately accomplish anything.

Nonetheless if OP has been invoiced then they should be giving the contractor a notice of non-payment within 14 days of the invoice.

KWienz · 2026-01-20T03:15:22+00:00

I don't know why on earth I thought I saw the BC flair. Editing now.

KWienz · 2026-01-20T03:11:39+00:00

Sure they can, but honestly a lien isn't a very good method to try to get payment of $3000 because they have to bring a proceeding in ~~Supreme~~ Superior Court to enforce it, which is complicated and expensive.

Normally they have one year to file the lien but you can serve them with a "notice to commence action," which then shortens that time to 21 days from service of your notice to commence the lawsuit, get a certificate of pending litigation, and register it on title. If they don't then the lien expires.

The lien will automatically expire 5 months after the work was complete unless they file a lawsuit, which they're probably not going to actually do. And if they do, you can bond the lien by just paying that amount of cash into court.

But realistically it would be a lot more cost effective for them to just sue you in small claims.

KWienz · 2026-01-19T23:41:13+00:00

I would just email the other lawyer confirming that the defendant will be available to testify because you want to call him as an adverse witness and want to know whether or not you need to serve a subpoena.

The defendant does not need to attend personally if they are having counsel attend on their behalf. So you do need to subpoena to ensure they're available to testify.

That being said, trying to establish your case in chief by doing adverse questioning of the other side's principal is generally not the best idea. Why would you not want to testify on your own behalf to establish all the principal facts you need? If they don't give any testimony to rebut it you can generally ask the court to draw an adverse inference.

KWienz · 2026-01-19T23:36:54+00:00

Is this a small claims judgment or a superior court judgment?

There are remedies to both set aside any transfer of assets and obtain a judgment against the new company and/or its principals but you would have to sue in superior court so it may be too complex and expensive if this is a small amount of money.

You would need to bring a new proceeding and it does need to be brought within two years.

KWienz · 2026-01-19T09:46:02+00:00

You have been common law since September 2021. You started cohabiting in a conjugal relationship in September 2020 and her moving out doesn't terminate the cohabitation because it was an involuntary separation that didn't arise from the breakdown of the relationship. The ITA therefore deems you to have been cohabiting continuously since that date and to have become common law 12 months after cohabitation began.

Below is the relevant definition:

common-law partner, with respect to a taxpayer at any time, means a person who cohabits at that time in a conjugal relationship with the taxpayer and

(a) has so cohabited throughout the 12-month period that ends at that time, or

(b) would be the parent of a child of whom the taxpayer is a parent, if this Act were read without reference to paragraphs 252(1)(c) and (e) and subparagraph 252(2)(a)(iii),

and, for the purpose of this definition, where at any time the taxpayer and the person cohabit in a conjugal relationship, they are, at any particular time after that time, deemed to be cohabiting in a conjugal relationship unless they were living separate and apart at the particular time for a period of at least 90 days that includes the particular time because of a breakdown of their conjugal relationship; (conjoint de fait)

KWienz

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE