by BETTER FARMING STAFF
© Copyright AgMedia Inc
A bankruptcy inspector for a former Waterloo, Ontario business is petitioning the business’ former owner into personal bankruptcy.
On Nov. 3, Jim Wiersma, of Fisherville, Ontario, applied to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Bankruptcy and Insolvency to declare Arlan Galbraith bankrupt. Dec. 3 is the application’s court date.
Galbraith is the founder of Pigeon King International, which sold pigeon breeding pairs for as much as $500 and bought back offspring for up to $50 each. The business, which had breeders in Canada and the United States, abruptly closed its doors in June, leaving roughly 1,000 investors with worthless pigeons.
The company’s bankruptcy trustee, BDO Dunwoody Limited, estimates PKI’s liabilities could reach $40 million over the $135,000 that remains after liquefying assets. Former business associates say debts from multi-year breeding contracts taken on by Galbraith personally as well as his other companies could amount to hundreds of millions.
In a telephone interview today, Galbraith declined comment on whether he was aware of an action proceeding against him. He says he hasn’t been served legal notice but would be available if someone wanted to serve him.
“I’m readily available,” says Galbraith – “always have been.”
Galbraith notes that he finds it “a little bit absurd” that people might think they were dealing with him personally since the 2007 incorporation of PKI. “Everybody was doing business with the corporation.”
“They can claim they were (dealing with him personally) but obviously I would dispute that, right?” he says.
Asked if he has legal counsel, Galbraith replies he always had legal counsel. He then asks a reporter if they have retained counsel. “Maybe someday you’ll get sued,” he warns.
Court staff also confirm there are plans to file an application for an interim receiver for Galbraith.
BDO spokesperson Susan Taves says an interim receiver “allows us to step in with more authority with a court order between the time of applying for the bankruptcy order and actually getting the order on Dec. 3. And it’s just because it’s such a large gap of time.”
The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada’s website says an interim receiver can be authorized to: take possession and exercise control of all or part of a debtor’s property or business and other action “as the court considers advisable.”
Wiersma’s application requests that BDO’s Kitchener office be appointed as Galbraith’s trustee.
Wiersma’s lawyer, Frank Highley, was not immediately available for comment. BF
© Copyright AgMedia Inc
PKI summary
Comments
It's about time!! As a former breeder, I find it amusing that Arlan feels no one did business with him personally when he financed his home, etc in Cochrane with huge amounts of money from PKI accounts as well as the outrageous salaries he paid himself and some of his salesmen. Arlan will never be able to convince me that he had anything but self gain in mind when he started his PKI scheme. Kudos to Jim Wiersma for pursuing this.
What needs to be done is to make those of authority who were repeatedly warned of this scheme made accountable. Where is the one politician who raised the issue in the Ontario Legislature: Were they "muzzled?."
dave - CBN
November 11 visitor raises an interesting thought. Galbraith was allowed to operate and grow his business in Ontario and Canada since around 2001 as a sole proprietor. All along, I'm sure, paying taxes and fees as required. With the attention the government gives to money laundering and monies derived from or for terrorist activities, surely they would of at least noticed a company with sales in the million dollar plus range. Then in 2007 they allowed, or I should say, charged him money to incorporate his business. This in effect, to the common man at least, is the government saying " ok, you have proved to us over the past 5 or 6 years that your business is legitimate, we will let you protect yourself personally from any mishaps your legitimate business may have". The precedent for government responsibility in this case was set in the 4 or more states that would not allow him in. If there was no responsibility to bear by them, they would have collected fees from him and carried on. Any time you make money from someones business, you are complicit with him. (I'm not a lawyer but this is common sense). Perception is just as important. The 6 or 7 years he was allowed to do business in Ontario, said as much about things or more, than any sales pitch Galbraith or his henchmen threw at naive individuals. Just a thought.
I was amused to read in the Ontario Farmer last week that Galbraith feels very strongly that he has done nothing wrong. He went on to say that ALL investors knew full well of the risks they were taking and should not have been surprised when the "fear mongers" ruined his company. I'm an investor who has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in real money, not merely the money that was owed to me in unfulfilled contractual obligations from Galbraith. I hope Galbraith will rue the day he ever started this pigeon scheme.
you should see the new house he built in Cochrane, Ontario with very expensive furniture to boot, so he cant say he has no money from this.
Hey, all you pigeon farmers lumbered with stock, why not go to the pet food manufacturers and look for a market there? Last time I checked cats didn't catch and kill turkeys or chickens for food when in the wild, so why would squab be an unacceptable feedstock? Have any of these producers looked into this? Couldn't a group of them get together and start up their own product? I don't imagine it would be too hard to convince a veternarian to certify squab as a high quality pet food for cats. And people are willing to pay a premium to feed their pets the very best. Just an idea...
Edmonton, Alberta
Has anyone considered what world vision is doing?
They have a wonderful program going where you sponsor a family in a third world country
by sending them for (eg: 4 x chickens and 1 x rooster) Cost is $55ca
Why not send pigeons this way?
The farmers can supply the pigeons to world vision for this program.
ALBERTA......
You can buy a goat too, Do any of these animals get there at all? Their overhead is enormous.
For everyone investing their money with PKI,I feel sorry for you all, i have friends who did the same.Upon looking at it,though, I thought right away that it was a scam,that it was greed for money that drove the investors. Everyone wanted to get rich, and it sounded too good to be true,which is usually a sign that it is. I know what i'm talking about. I also have lost money in the past to a company that sounded too good to be true. I hope all of you can find a way out of this mess.Look at this as a learning experience, and you'll gain something out of it,in spite of the hardships you're facing.
Well said. to the last comment. Our hearts go out to all who have invested in Pigeon King. I totally understand that when put in a position of selling the farm or finding a way to keep it, you will do what ever it takes to keep it. Please don't beat your self up because of it you only did what you thought was right.
We all have lost money in the past one way or another and we ended up learning from it. I know several people who invested in the pigeons and have gotten burned. But these same people also invested in the hog industry and also got burned, after building large buildings for their hogs and only to have their contracts cancelled without notice. God bless to you all, I wish you all the best.
An easy response, just stand back and point fingers saying " greed was at the root," and " just wanted to get rich". This from people, usually farmers, that when wheat hits $8.00 a bushel or corn hits $7.00, they plant fence to fence, flooding the market. But that's O.K. Do the math Einstein: A $100,000.00 investment in the birds, even at the high rate will gross the farmer $90,000.00 per year. Take off your production costs, having to be in the barn 7 days a week (as any livestock demands) and you are left with quite a bit less.. Even $90,000.00 per year is not quite enough to put a person in the "rich" bracket. And like most decisions people make, there are more reasons involved that onlookers don't know or appreciate. As this reader says, they may of been involved in a scam also, but the similarities end there. Everyone's reasons are different. By the way, there are probably several reasons beyond the obvious, why farmers plant fence row to fence row in high commodity times. (Just to be fair)
There was a show on CTV this past Saturday night November 15. The name of the show was W5 and it dedicated the last half hour to the current events surrounding Pigeon King. I was impressed with how professional the show's host was regarding the people he interviewed. I was impressed with the young fellow from Ontario and the guy from Manitoba who bought into the Pigeon scheme. After hearing their stories and listening to their reasons for investing, one can hardly conclude that they were greedy. My hats off to the families on the show who agreed to share their circumstances knowing that the entire country might be watching. The host did a good job of interviewing Arlan Galbraith. The answers that the Pigeon King gave to the questions he was asked are the real reason why this whole pigeon scheme failed. There never was a market and he himself (Arlan Galbraith) made it clear that he spent very little if any time at all even looking for a market. Had this plan "to put a pigeon in every pot in North America" been put into the hands of someone else it just might have succeeded!
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