Collège LaSalle: leave to refund deposits, and a hearing on the penalties

Collège LaSalle is asking the Superior Court, at a hearing set for 9:30 a.m. on November 10 before Justice Michel A. Pinsonnault, for leave to refund students who are entitled to cancel their contracts for educational services and had prepaid their tuition: up to $1,500,000 in all, beginning the week of November 10, with the monitor's prior written authorization, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, paras. 34–36 and Notice of Presentation, p. 15. Approximately 300 students have asked for the return of deposits they paid before the college's CCAA proceedings began in August. Their requests for the fall 2026 session came to nearly $1.3 million when the monitor, Restructuration Deloitte inc., reported to the court on November 6; the deposits average $4,000 a student and run as high as $23,000 in some cases, per the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, paras. 7, 50–51. The monitor recommends the refunds, and its report gives the purpose of the order sought: "afin de préserver la confiance des étudiants actuels et futurs et d'éviter toute incidence défavorable potentielle sur les inscriptions aux sessions subséquentes" [translation: "in order to preserve the confidence of current and future students and to avoid any potential adverse effect on enrolment in subsequent sessions"], per the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, paras. 50, 68.

The same application, which the chair of the college's board solemnly affirmed on November 4, asks for three other things: a stay extension to January 29, 2027; the transfer of the college's judicial review of the ministry's penalties, court file 500-17-130879-243, into the CCAA file, with a two-day hearing on the merits to be fixed "dans les meilleurs délais" [translation: "as soon as possible"]; and the $1.5 million directors' and officers' charge, whose hearing the court postponed in September, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, paras. 1–2, 12, 18, 31, 33 and p. 14. The college says, and the monitor understands, that the Attorney General of Quebec does not contest the transfer, and the monitor recommends that the court grant the application as sought, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, para. 32 and the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, paras. 67–68.

When this case was last reported here, on October 7, the Quebec Court of Appeal had given the Attorney General leave to appeal the September 3 order directing the government to pay the college the full amount of its 2026-2027 initial allocation without set-off. In their November filings the college and the monitor both say that the appeal's hearing date remains to be set, and that the order remains executory notwithstanding the appeal because the Attorney General did not ask for a suspension of its provisional execution, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, paras. 8, 14 and the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, para. 16.

Deposits paid before the filing

The college takes such deposits in the course of its operations, the report says, from foreign students who want to complete their registration for future sessions. It has told the monitor that in the ordinary course it refunds students who ask, when they no longer wish to continue their studies at the college, in whole or in part on pre-established terms, per the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, para. 49. The application says the refunds result, among other things, from the cancellation by some students of their registration for 2026-2027 when they had prepaid their tuition, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, para. 35. The creditor list as at August 24 carries students' deposits as a single line of $5,142,155, per the Creditor List, Aug. 24, 2026.

The monitor considers the refunds, which would cover requests mostly for the fall 2026 session, "nécessaire, opportun, raisonnable" [translation: "necessary, appropriate, reasonable"] in the circumstances and limited to what is necessary, per the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, paras. 50, 52, and the application says they will not prevent the college from meeting its obligations to its stakeholders in the ordinary course, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, para. 37. The fall session, the report says, is running as planned for all students and ends December 23; the winter session is to begin January 7, 2027, and the monitor has been told that registrations are following the normal course and are in line with the college's projections, per the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, para. 24.

Why the college wants the penalties heard in its CCAA file

The ministry, Quebec's Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, imposed the penalties by decisions of June 28, 2024 and June 30, 2025: $8,781,740 and $21,113,864, about $29,900,000 together, for what the application calls "dépassements allégués des limites d'inscription" [translation: "alleged overruns of the enrolment limits"], and which the college traces to Bill 96, the French-language law Quebec adopted in June 2022, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, paras. 27–28. Those decisions were reported here on September 4. The November application calls the penalties one of the principal causes of the college's insolvency and adds: "il est impossible de conclure un plan d'arrangement tant que l'issue de ces pénalités n'aura pas été décidée" [translation: "it is impossible to conclude a plan of arrangement until the outcome of these penalties has been decided"]. It is therefore "primordial", the application says, that the judicial review be decided on the merits as soon as possible, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, para. 30.

The application is addressed to Justice Pinsonnault, whom Justice Karen M. Rogers, coordinating judge of the Commercial Division in Montréal, named case management judge on September 25, with a mandate that includes presiding over the trial on the merits, if any, per the Judgment Appointing a Case Management Judge, Sept. 25, 2026, para. 4 and p. 2 and the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, p. 1. On October 19 the college asked for the transfer and the two-day hearing by a notice of case management and a letter to Justice Pinsonnault. Its file in the judicial review, it says, is "en état" [translation: "ready"], and on October 22 it was told the Attorney General would not contest the transfer, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, paras. 15–16. The application adds that the college's counsel sent the Attorney General's counsel a draft joint declaration to fix a hearing, dated September 29, and have followed up several times to finalize it; to date, it says, the Attorney General's counsel have not been in a position to act on it, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, para. 17.

Unless the ministry and the college settle the penalties, the monitor's report says, "le dénouement rapide du pourvoi en contrôle judiciaire est important pour favoriser un règlement collectif des réclamations des créanciers de la Débitrice" [translation: "the prompt resolution of the judicial review is important to foster a collective settlement of the claims of the Debtor's creditors"], per the Fourth Report of the Monitor, Nov. 6, 2026, para. 67. The college ties the stay to the same dispute: the extension, it says, would let it keep negotiating with the government over the penalties and the 2025-2026 subsidy recovery, or failing that carry through the court challenges already begun, and the outcome of those discussions will have a decisive effect on the plan of arrangement it may ultimately present, per the Application for an Extension Order, Nov. 4, 2026, paras. 20–21.