ONxpress: the claims officer the order forgot to protect

ONxpress Operations Inc. was owned by two shareholders: Deutsche Bahn International Operations GmbH and Aecon O&M, a division of Aecon Construction Group Inc.

By special resolution effective January 1, 2026 they approved its liquidation and dissolution under **s. 211(3) of the *Canada Business Corporations Act***, ratified the engagement of GlassRatner Restructuring Inc. as dissolution advisor and liquidator, and contemplated an application to continue the liquidation under court supervision, per Third Report of the Liquidator, May 22, 2026, para. 1.

That is a solvent, voluntary wind-up — the shareholders deciding to close a company down in an orderly way. What made it a court proceeding is that not everyone with a claim against it was ready to stop.

A liquidation, not an insolvency

It is worth being clear about the statute, because the CBCA liquidation is much less familiar than the CCAA or the BIA and the differences matter.

Under s. 211(8) the court may order that the liquidation be continued under its supervision. Under s. 217 it may appoint Inspectors. And the order sought here contained the feature that makes any of this recognisable to an insolvency practitioner: a direction that no proceeding or enforcement process be commenced or continued against the company or the liquidator, or affecting its assets, except with the liquidator's consent or leave of the court, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 3(a).

The application was made on January 5, 2026, returnable January 27, together with a claims procedure order establishing a process for the solicitation, determination and resolution of claims against the company and its current and former directors and officers.

And it asked, specifically, that a proceeding before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario — file number 2024-55448-I — be stayed and suspended pending further order.

The court did not simply grant it

At the initial hearing on January 27, Justice Conway requested further submissions, including in respect of the scope of the stay of proceedings, and continued the hearing to January 30, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 5.

That pause is the origin of everything that follows.

Staying a human rights application is not the same as staying a debt collection action. A complainant before the HRTO is pursuing a statutory remedy in a specialist tribunal with its own expertise, procedure and remedial powers. Sweeping that into a corporate claims process run by an accounting firm converts a discrimination complaint into a number to be proved, adjudicated by people whose training is in valuing claims rather than in human rights law.

The liquidator's answer, produced in the three days between hearings, was to build the expertise into the process:

the inclusion of a Claims Officer to adjudicate disputed claims was added to the proposed draft Claims Procedure Order after the Initial Hearing to address concerns raised by the Court with respect to Ms. Williams having a party with subject matter expertise to adjudicate the HRTO Claim in the Claims Process if the relief staying the HRTO Claim was granted.

Per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 20.

And it found a specific person for the job. Andrew Diamond is a mediator and arbitrator with more than sixteen years' experience mediating public and private sector disputes — and was an adjudicator with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario for ten years, from 2008 to 2018, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 21.

He agreed to accept the appointment if ordered, the draft was amended before the adjourned hearing, and on January 30 the court granted both the Liquidation Order and the Claims Procedure Order.

That is a genuinely good piece of process design. The complainant loses her forum but not the kind of decision-maker that forum would have given her.

What the tight timeline cost

Then the problem this report is about:

In amending the proposed Claims Procedure Order under the tight timeline, standard protections granted by the Court in favour of the Claims Officer were not included in the Order.

Per Third Report, May 22, 2026, para. 22.

The claims officer role was invented over a weekend to solve a fairness problem, and the boilerplate that normally accompanies such an appointment did not travel with it. Andrew Diamond's engagement letter, dated March 3, 2026 and received after the order was granted, requires the liquidator to seek protections for him and for ADR Chambers, where he practises.

The liquidator's case for granting them sets out what a claims officer actually does, per Third Report, May 22, 2026, paras. 23–25:

The mandate requires independent review and adjudication of disputed claims with a potential value, on the face of the claims, in excess of $70 million. In discharging it he will make binding determinations that may be adverse to one or more claimants, some of whom may challenge those determinations or "may attempt to pursue collateral proceedings against the Claims Officer personally or ADR Chambers".