Recently, two significant distressed companies with thousands of commercial leases, Rite Aid and WeWork, each filed chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, seeking in part to rationalize their geographic footprints through the rejection of a substantial portion of their lease portfolios.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario's decision in Dal Bianco v Deem Management Services Limited, 2020 ONCA 585 [Dal Bianco] is the most recent pronouncement on resolving procedural conflicts between the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, RSC, 1985, c B-3 (BIA) and provincial enactments.