Light Speed Logistics: the receiver seeks a December 22 bar date for carriers

Grant Thornton Limited, appointed in December 2025 on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's application as receiver of Light Speed Logistics Inc.'s accounts receivable, bank accounts and 92 trailers, asks the Court of King's Bench of Alberta on November 12 to give the trucking companies Light Speed hired a single deadline. Any carrier claiming freight charges from one of Light Speed's customers for loads Light Speed engaged it to carry would have until 5:00 p.m. Alberta time on December 22, 2026 to file a proof of claim. A carrier that does not would be "forever barred, estopped, stayed, and enjoined" from pursuing the claim against any customer, the receiver, Light Speed or the money the customers pay in, under the order the receiver asks Justice D.R. Mah to make in Action No. 2501-19777, per the Receiver's Application, Nov. 3, 2026, paras. 1(a), 21 and the proposed order attached to the Fifth Report, Nov. 2, 2026, paras. 1, 33; App. 2 (proposed Carrier Claims Process Order), paras. 2(d), 2(i), 29–30. Light Speed specialized in refrigerated transport for the perishable food sector, the application says (para. 3).

The customers' side of the order sought is a payment and a release. Each customer listed in the report would pay the receiver, within five business days after the bar date, the balance the receiver calculates as not in dispute, and on paying would be "fully, finally and irrevocably released and discharged" from carrier claims, "whether or not a Proof of Claim has been filed in respect thereof." A filed claim would then run against the money instead: to be accepted, it "must be a valid Claim against the AR Funds the Receiver is holding in trust, pursuant to the Bills of Lading Act (Canada), the common law, equity, or any other applicable law." The receiver could pay CIBC each customer's money less the carrier claims filed against that customer, pay admitted claims out of that holdback, and send CIBC what remains of it, per the Fifth Report, Nov. 2, 2026, App. 2 (proposed order), paras. 13–15, 31. Several of the seven primary customers had answered the March 11 demand letters from the receiver's counsel, the application says, that they were "concerned that paying their AR balances to the Receiver would leave them exposed to double payment to the Carriers," per the Receiver's Application, Nov. 3, 2026, paras. 10–11.

What the September order brought in

On September 23 Justice L.K. Harris granted the directions sought in the application reported here on September 17: customers served with the order that had received claims from unpaid carriers were to hand over the carriers' papers, and customers claiming other set-offs were to say so, by October 9 or 14 days after service, whichever was later. The same order approved the second interim distribution, including $578,191.87 to Service Canada and an estimated $2,660,000 to CIBC after $986,808 of holdbacks, per the Order (Interim Distribution, Approving Receiver's Fees and Activities, and Direction to Provide Information), Sept. 23, 2026, paras. 2–4.

By the deadline, McCain Foods Canada and Sobeys Inc. / Sobeys Capital Incorporated had sent the carriers' documents, McCain's from fourteen carriers, and JBS Foods Canada, ULC a summary of the carrier claims it had received. On October 29 one of those carriers, Reliance Trucking Inc., sent the receiver its own documents for its claims against McCain, JBS and Cargill Foods Limited. Several of the papers, the receiver noted, concern loads that began or ended in the United States, were invoiced in US dollars and moved under bills of lading governed by US law, per the Fifth Report, Nov. 2, 2026, paras. 30–32. Set-off claims came from JBS, Canpar Express Inc., Federal Express Canada Corporation, Sysco and Canada Cartage Corporation. A customer that has claimed no set-off or other reduction, the application says, will be taken as not disputing its balance, per the Receiver's Application, Nov. 3, 2026, paras. 15–16, 18–19.

The Fifth Report sets out where the seven stand in a table, converting US-dollar balances at 1.38, the Bank of Canada rate on the receivership date, and putting Cargill and Excel Corporation, members of one group, on one line. Of $8,495,077 demanded, the receiver has accepted $2,177,520 of set-offs, has not admitted $1,397,320, and treats $4,920,237 as non-disputed, a category that takes in balances a customer has acknowledged and balances against which no set-off claim arrived by the deadline, among others, per the Fifth Report, Nov. 2, 2026, para. 16. The $1,397,320 is the whole of Canpar's and FedEx's balances, the McCain claims still under review, and a JBS claim the receiver has rejected.

The seven, line by line

McCain's balance was the largest, at $2,921,175. The receiver accepted about $1.09 million of set-offs "following review and verification of evidence of payments made by McCain and not recorded in the Company's accounting software," and about $205,000 more for invoices McCain had not received and that could not be "adequately supported from LSL's books and records." About $137,000 of McCain's claims, $136,936 in the table, are still under review, and the table counts $1,489,456 of the balance as non-disputed. McCain's carrier documents put Reliance's claim at $110,730, Maplecreek Transport Ltd.'s at $67,900 and All Freight Transport Ltd.'s at $26,400, with $90,570 spread across 11 smaller claimants, per the Fifth Report, Nov. 2, 2026, paras. 16–17.

JBS was asked for $1,640,111. The receiver accepted set-offs of about $670,000 for loads "either not delivered or delivered late and rejected by the end customer around the time of the Receivership Date," about $197,000 of payments JBS made that the company's software did not record, and about $10,000 of carrier claims JBS paid itself. It rejected a further claim of about $115,000 for trailers JBS rented for on-site cold storage after the receivership date "as a result of LSL's trailers being seized." The receiver's reasons: the damages arose after that date, JBS's transportation agreement with Light Speed does not contemplate that kind of set-off, and there is insufficient documentary evidence of the difference between what JBS would have paid Light Speed and what it paid a third party for the same services. The table counts $642,197 of JBS's balance as non-disputed and carries the cold-storage claim, at $115,177, among the set-offs not admitted. JBS's own summary of its carrier claims shows $251,450 from Reliance and $2,539.68 from S B Trucking Ltd., per the Fifth Report, Nov. 2, 2026, paras. 16, 19.

Canpar claims to set off the whole of the $687,281 demanded from it. As the receiver describes it, the set-off relates to an alleged damages claim against Light Speed, dating back to 2021, by TFI Transport 17 LP, o/a TForce Integrated Solutions, a company related to Canpar, and Canpar says Light Speed agreed to let it hold back "between $500,000 to $880,000 of Canpar's accounts receivable until TForce was compensated for its losses from an insurance payout." "The status of the insurance payout is unclear and it is further unclear why it remains unresolved more than 5 years after the alleged loss," the receiver writes. Canpar sent further documents on October 29, which the receiver was still reviewing when it reported. If the claim cannot be resolved, the receiver anticipates applying on the Commercial List to require Canpar to prove its set-off and, if it cannot, to pay, per the Fifth Report, Nov. 2, 2026, paras. 16, 20.