Form 79 Change Notice

The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB) is aware of concerns regarding the provision of information on a debtor's level of education. The data we are asking for concerning education levels will allow us to more effectively develop and target the type of counselling and educational information that should be available in order to have an impact on one of the aspects associated with rehabilitating debtors — developing financial management skills. As you know, rehabilitation of debtors is a cornerstone of the insolvency process that addresses not only the present financial state of an individual but also their future financial management capacity. One step taken in the past to strengthen the financial management capacity of debtors availing themselves of the provisions of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act was the introduction of mandatory counselling services for debtors. Trustees are responsible for ensuring that these services are provided to debtors. The objectives of the counselling services are to educate debtors on good financial management practices, including prudent use of consumer credit and budgeting principles, and to assist in developing successful strategies for achieving financial goals and overcoming financial setbacks. Clearly, such proactive educational support is to the advantage of both debtors and society at large. It also supports the focus the government has recently placed on the creation of a Task Force on Financial Literacy in Canada. Collection of information on the level of education attained by debtors is an important demographic indicator for statistical purposes and will be used to design counselling and educational materials. Statistics will be collected in a generic fashion such that they are not linked to any individual debtor.

The OSB will be removing the requirement to indicate the highest level of education completed by a bankrupt/debtor from Part A of Form 79 and placing the requirement on the Estate Information Summary Sheet, which is provided only to the OSB. In the interim, the OSB has eliminated the mandatory nature of this field from the electronic filing system. The OSB is working with insolvency software vendors to have this change reflected in their software as soon as possible. Pending software revisions, trustees may wish to black out or delete this information from the forms being sent to creditors.