My employer went bankrupt will i get paid?

In detail

The WEPP covers wages, commissions, production bonuses, shift premiums and declared tips, the employment expenses of travelling salespersons, accumulated vacation pay, as well as termination and severance pay.

The eligibility period is the 6 months preceding the bankruptcy or the receivership: it is the amounts earned during that period that are covered. Some people are excluded, in particular directors and officers, those who held a controlling interest in the business, and managers whose duties included financial decisions.

The program applies to bankruptcy and receivership within the meaning of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The trustee or receiver has an obligation to inform the employees and to send Service Canada the information about the amounts owed. It is still worth checking those amounts rather than taking them for granted.

A business closing is not always a bankruptcy in the legal sense. If the employer closes without a bankruptcy or a receivership, the WEPP does not apply and the remedies go instead through the CNESST (Quebec's labour standards, health and safety board) or the civil courts.

What to document

Your last pay stubs, the calculation of the hours and the amounts owed, the record of employment, the trustee's notice and the trustee's name, the date of the bankruptcy or the receivership, and a copy of your claim. Your own figures are what allow you to check the ones the trustee sends in.

Official sources

• Wage Earner Protection Program Act (S.C. 2005, c. 47, s. 1)
• Canada.ca — Wage Earner Protection Program

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