Français	Contact Us	Help	Search	Canada Site

Home	Site Map	What's New	About Us	FAQs

Bankruptcy Basics

What We Do

Creditors

- Your rights and options when someone owes you money.

Debtors

- Debt is mounting – what can you do?

Trustees in Bankruptcy

Media

Publications and Reports

Glossary

Printable Version

Name Search Help

Name Search Criteria
Name Search Help and Examples

General Information

The Insolvency Name Search database contains basic debtor information of all bankruptcies and proposals registered in Canada since 1978. In addition to this, it includes information about all receiverships registered with the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB) since January 1993. The database also contains information on all petitions that are known to our office.

How do I gain access to the search facility?

Access to the search facility is restricted to valid Strategis (Industry Canada) account holders.
You may wish to take this time to set up your account.
If you ever forget your password, please call Industry Canada toll-free at 1-800-328-6189 or
if you live in the Ottawa region please dial 954-5031 for assistance.

How much does it cost to search the database?

There is a minimum charge of $8.00 for each search of the database. This charge also applies to searches that result in no records found. In the case of successful searches, a fee of $8.00 will be applied for each group of ten matches or less.
(For example: If your search results in 28 matches then a charge of $8.00 will apply to view the first ten matches, an additional charge of $8.00 for the next ten and a final charge of $8.00 will apply if you decide to view the last group of eight matches.)

Helpful hint: Although many of the search fields are optional, you can minimize your search costs by filling in as many of the fields as possible. This will narrow the range of possible results and cut the response time!

Name Search Help and Examples

How do I perform a search?

In order to perform a search of the database you first have to supply some information to the search engine. To do this, simply enter the information in the fields located on the web page and press the Submit Search button found at the bottom. Here is a summary of each field:
Note: The search engine is not case sensitive. Because of this, a query on "John Smith" will yield the same results as searching the database for "JOHN SMITH" or "john smith".

Name Search - For Individuals, Businesses or Corporations
You can specify a debtor's name in any order, whether they are an individual or corporation. A word search will be performed.If the exact name is important you will have to enclose all of the words in the name in quotation marks.
For example: "Pizza Pizza"
Birth Date - Optional
If you know the exact birth date of the person you are trying to find you can enter this information here. The format that you should use is: yyyy/mm/dd.
Note: Some of the records in our database lack the birthdate information. For this reason, records not containing a birth date may also appear in the result list.
Birth Date Range - Optional
If you are not sure of the person's birth date but suspect that it is within a certain range you may wish to use this option. To use this facility simply enter the year that begins the range in the first field and the year that ends the range in the second field.
Filed After - Optional
If you know that a debtor could not have been insolvent before a specific date, use this field to specify the timeframe to begin the search. To use this field, simply enter the date you would like to begin the search which will narrow down the search. If you do not have a specific date, but know the year to begin the search, use January 1st as the specific date, i.e.-- 1983/01/01.
For example: If the debtor you are searching for is 30 years old, you may want to only return records where the Filed After date is twelve years ago or later. This means that any records filed before the debtor was 18 will not be returned
City of Insolvency - Optional
If you know the city the debtor was residing in at the time of filing, enter the city in this field to restrict the search to a specific city.
Note: Remember that some city names have changed and the database will hold the name of the city as it was at the time of filing.
Province of Insolvency - Optional
If you know the province in which the insolvency was registered you may wish to use the handy drop-down list to select the desired province. To use the drop-down list simply click on the activate-arrow and choose the desired province.
Search by Estate ID - Optional
The Estate ID is a unique number assigned to an estate by the OSB when it is registered with our office. If you know the Estate ID then you do not need to supply any further informationto the search engine.

Helpful hint: Searching by Estate ID is the quickest and most economical way of searching the database. If you anticipate using our on-line database to track the various stages of administration of an insolvent estate we recommend that you record this number for future use.

What if I'm not sure of the spelling?

If you do not know the exact spelling of an estate name you may wish to use a Wildcard character. The OSB search engine supports two types of wildcards—the asterisk "*" and the underscore "_".

Truncation and Wild Card Characters

The asterisk "*" wildcard is used to replace zero or more unknown characters and wildcards can be used in multiple search terms.

Example 1: If you perform a search for "Alice Rob*" the database may return a listing of Alices whose last names might be Robertson, Robinson, or Roberts.

Example 2: If you perform a search for "Alice Rob*son" then the database may return a listing of Alices whose last names might be Robertson or Robinson but it will ignore any record containing the name Alice Roberts.

Example 3: If you perform a search for "Al*ce Rob*son" then the database may return a listing of Alice or Alyce whose last name might be Robertson or Robinson but it will ignore any record containing the name Alice Roberts.
The underscore "_" wildcard is used to replace a single unknown character.

Example: If you perform a search for "Luc Si_ard" then the database may return a listing of Lucs whose last names might be Simard or Sicard.

Note: To use a wildcard character, you must make sure to have at least two concrete letters in the expression.

Helpful hint: Wildcards are very powerful tools for performing complex searches. However, use them sparingly to decrease your costs and cut the response time!

Name Search Help and Examples

Frequently Asked Questions:

In order to do a "National Bankruptcy Search", DO NOT put any "Province of Insolvency".

Name Search - For Individuals

You can put Lastname Givenname OR Givenname Lastname

For example:       Joe Smith OR Smith Joe

Do not use a single letter.

For example:       Smith J OR Joe S OR Smith Joe R

For names with an apostrophe, type in the apostrophe.

For example:       O'Connor, Centre D'Hébergement

For names with two last names you can search one or both last names.

For example:       Tremblay Marie, OR Smith Marie OR Tremblay Smith Marie

For names with a hyphen, you can search with or without hyphen.

For example:       St-Louis OR St Louis

If a Date of Birth is input, the system will give you every match of the name of your search, including entries without Date of Birth. This is due to the fact that Bankruptcies entered in the 1970's and 1980's don't have Date of Birth entered.

Name Search - For Business/Corporation

You can type two words in the name of the company, and the systems will give you every business that filed bankruptcies with those words in the name.

For Example:       Entering (Bravo Pizza) will give (Bravo Restaurant and Pizza)

If you use open and close quotations, the system will return every business that filed bankruptcy with those 3 exact words placed as you typed in quotes.

For Example:       Entering ("Bravo Pizza Restaurant") will give (Bravo Pizza Restaurant Inc.)

For a Corporations Search, you can use only the number, but make sure you are putting a space if there is one in the number.

For Example:       237 486 OR if no space 946821

Using WildCards

When using a wildcard (*), you must have at least two characters in the search expression.

For Example: Correct Search:Smith Mo*
Incorrect Search:Smith M*

What if I need more help?

If you need more help please contact us.
We will be happy to assist you!

Monique LeClair, Information Officer
Telephone: (613) 941-9054
Fax: (613) 941-6176
E-mail: osb-bsf@ic.gc.ca


		Created: 2002-08-29 Updated: 2004-02-19	Top of Page	Important Notices