Also, over half of its $75M owed to creditors is to TorStar and the Toronto Star

Metroland Media Group owes just under $75 million to creditors, which includes the 605 staff they unceremoniously cut ties with last week.

Of the $74,245,033.82 owed, $16 million is due to those 605 former employees, according to the creditor package available through Grant Thornton LLP’s website. That number includes some very well-respected members of our Muskoka community.

Metroland Media Group, which is a subsidiary division under the TorStar umbrella, has filed a “Notice of Intention” for protection under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act as it ceased printing 71 community newspapers.

Grant Thornton LLP is handling the filings and is gathering a proposal for its creditors. They have just under a month – under the Act – to find a way to pay as much as possible to their creditors.

That means all those employees who were let go last week will not be paid anything they are owed for a month – at least – as this giant media company goes through its bankruptcy paces.

This at a time when inflation is eating away savings accounts, interest rates are ridiculously high, and mortgages and rents are through the roof.

The media conglomerate is still operating those community papers as digital entities and will continue publishing print versions of the Toronto Star, Hamilton Spectator, St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review, Peterborough Examiner, Welland Tribune, and the Waterloo Region Record.

It begs the question: if they still have the funds to operate all these entities, how come they can’t do the right thing and pay what they owe those 605 people before filing the Notice of Intention?

The answer will certainly be that Metroland doesn’t have the funds to pay off everything it owes, which is why they’re filing bankruptcy paperwork.

Metroland Media Group is technically its own entity – a legal loophole in business law that allows the little people to get hurt while the big boys keep prospering.

It’s very likely that unless some form of government intervention occurs, those 605 individuals – and in turn, their families – won’t get even close to what they’re truly owed once the full bankruptcy proposal is filed.

It will be interesting to see how they’ll handle the $32,285,511.65 owed to TorStar and other intercompany payables or the $9,342,596.01 owed Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, according to the creditor list.

Those lines on the creditor balance list means that Metroland’s ownership group owes themselves over double what they owe their former employees.

Here’s a novel idea: How about the company forgives itself the $41.5 million and change, and instead pays the $16 million you owed to former employees?