Excavation National: the receivables outlasted the NOI

On June 23, 2025, Royal Bank of Canada told Excavation National Inc. that it would end their business relationship on September 22 and was calling all of its advances as of that date, per the First Trustee's Report, Dec. 22, 2025, para. 13. The company, incorporated in November 2017, worked in excavation and the hauling of bulk materials, mostly for general contractors and landowners on public and private construction projects, and by December employed 60 people full time. Its audited revenue for the year to August 31, 2024 was $76,907,825. The unaudited figure for the following year was $44,296,094, with a net loss of $1,842,007, and September and October 2025 produced revenue of $3,586,298 and a net loss of $2,199,176, per the First Trustee's Report, Dec. 22, 2025, paras. 8–10, 17, 21.

Between that letter and early December the two met several times, and the company, in consultation with RBC, concluded that it should file a notice of intention to make a proposal and finish the work underway, per the First Trustee's Report, Dec. 22, 2025, para. 14. On October 24, the day after RBC sent its notice under s. 244 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the company acknowledged the debt and consented to immediate enforcement, per the Application to Appoint a Receiver, June 3, 2026, paras. 20–21. As a result, KPMG Inc.'s first report says, the stay that followed the notice of intention did not affect RBC, which agreed instead to a support and forbearance agreement: for a time it would refrain from exercising its remedies, keep funding the company and support the filing, per the First Trustee's Report, Dec. 22, 2025, paras. 13, 15. The notice went in on December 4, 2025, with KPMG as trustee (Certificate of Filing of a Notice of Intention, Dec. 4, 2025, p. 1).

Four extensions carried it to June 4, 2026, the end of what RBC's application calls the maximum six-month period to file a proposal (Application to Appoint a Receiver, June 3, 2026, paras. 2, 28–34). That application, filed June 3 with the company's consent, put its receivables at $13,558,076 (paras. 2, 41). On June 8, Registrar Judith Daigle of the Superior Court, Commercial Division, in Laval appointed KPMG receiver (Order Appointing a Receiver, June 8, 2026, para. 4). KPMG suspended the company's operations on June 12, let all of its employees go, and on June 22, as receiver, filed an assignment in bankruptcy, per the Trustee's Report on Preliminary Administration, July 13, 2026, paras. 15, 18(c).

Releases before payment

The obstacle to that plan was one the company set out in its first application to the court, filed December 18, 2025 and solemnly affirmed by Kevin Mainville, whom the application describes as its sole shareholder and director. Its clients were demanding, in exchange for payment, releases from the subcontractors and suppliers that had denounced their contracts to them, and the application cited art. 2123 of the Civil Code of Québec for the clients' right to hold back from what they owed the company enough to secure those denounced claims. Because some of the claims could predate the notice of intention, the company feared that paying them might breach the BIA; unpaid, it said, the denounced creditors would not issue releases, and finishing the projects and collecting the receivables "would be extremely complicated, if not impossible" [translation], per the Application to Extend the Delay and Authorize Payment of Certain Claims, Dec. 18, 2025, paras. 10, 26–30. The lists of those creditors, and of the ones already paid, were filed under seal (paras. 19, 36).

At the date of filing the company put its denounced accounts at a little over $3.8 million across 33 projects, KPMG reported. Unless the receivables were collected, the trustee wrote, the company "will be unable to finish the remaining projects and will probably be obliged to declare bankruptcy" [translation], and it supported the request, per the First Trustee's Report, Dec. 22, 2025, paras. 30–32. On December 23, Justice Patrick Ferland extended the time for a proposal to February 17, 2026. His order permitted the company, without obliging it, to pay denounced claims from before and after the filing, with the trustee's consent and in consultation with RBC; ordered each denounced creditor so paid to sign and deliver a release on receipt; and ratified the payments already made, per the First Extension Order, Dec. 23, 2025, paras. 10–13.

What came in

The company had forecast $1,830,339 of collections for the two weeks to December 13 and collected $522,243, and its December forecast had the RBC line, net of cash, falling from $7,046,626 to $4,134,029 by February 21, per the First Trustee's Report, Dec. 22, 2025, paras. 33–34, 36. It stood at $6,477,729 on January 31, after seven weeks in which the company collected $3,330,957 against $7,020,532 forecast. KPMG described the gap as a timing difference, "mainly linked to the delays required to obtain releases from the subcontractors who had denounced their accounts payable" [translation], and reported that the company was having difficulty getting releases from some denounced suppliers despite the December order, per the Second Trustee's Report, Feb. 12, 2026, paras. 16, 19–20. In the six weeks to April 25 the company collected $1,734,633 against $4,400,861 forecast, and the line stood at $6,546,388, per the Fourth Trustee's Report, May 8, 2026, paras. 23–24. From March the reports carried the same passage: in certain files "significant sums nevertheless remain withheld by the project owners, their payment being conditional on the issuance of releases by subcontractors who had denounced their claims" [translation], per the Third Trustee's Report, Mar. 26, 2026, para. 24 and the Fourth Trustee's Report, May 8, 2026, para. 25.

On March 11 the company took one account to court, applying for an order that Tisseur Inc., the general contractor on a six-storey, 78-unit concrete residential building, pay $173,670 plus interest into trust with KPMG for work under two 2024 subcontracts, one on time and materials and one lump-sum. The application, affirmed by Éric Blouin for the company, says Tisseur had approved the October 2025 payment application and verbally acknowledged the amounts, yet "refuses, neglects or omits to pay" them [translation], per the Application for the Recovery of Funds, Mar. 11, 2026, paras. 1, 13–14, 17, 25, 29, 32–33. By the company's account in May, Tisseur filed a summary statement of its defence on or about March 30, and at the end of April the two sides' talks took on a "serious and concrete" character [translation], per the Application for a Fourth Extension, May 8, 2026, paras. 24, 29. Tisseur's defence is not in the record read for this piece, and no ruling on the application appears on the docket.

The sixth month

On May 8 the company asked for 20 more days, to June 4, "for the fourth and last time," in the words of KPMG's report [translation], per the Fourth Trustee's Report, May 8, 2026, para. 31; the order of May 11 granted them (Fourth Extension Order, May 11, 2026, para. 10). On May 12, RBC served a prior notice of the exercise of a hypothecary right against the company's movable property, per the Application to Appoint a Receiver, June 3, 2026, para. 37.