Two years ago, in delivering the Eighth Crowther Memorial Lecture on the subject of the Modernization of (British) Personal Property Security Law1, Professor Goode discussed at length the unsatisfactory condition of this important branch of commercial law in England and urged implementation of the recommendations on this subject of the Crowther Committee on Consumer Credit. In his lecture Professor Goode referred briefly to Canada as the first Commonwealth country in which several of the provinces have completely overhauled their law of chattel security and have adopted a single comprehensive law along the lines of Art. 9 of the American Uniform Commercial Code. In view of this allusion to Canadian developments, I thought a British audience might be interested to learn how the Canadian provinces came to play this pioneering role, how the new legislation is structured, and what out experience with it has been since the Ontario Personal Property Security Act2 was fully proclaimed in force nine years ago. I hope to be able to persuade you, at least in Canadian terms, that the difficulties of modernizing this venerable branch of commercial law are not as daunting or traumatic as may at first sight appear and that the dividends are well worth the initial capital investment.

In Canada, as in the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western industrialized societies, the availability of large amounts of credit for commercial and consumer purposes has long been of primary importance in maintaining and expanding the national economy. At present time in Canada, the outstanding volume of short and medium term credit advanced by Canadian banks for commercial purposes stands at about Can.$75 billion3. Even more impressive are the figures for consumer credit. The outstanding balance of consumer credit rose from a relatively modest $870 million at the end of 1948 to a remarkable $51 billion at the end of 19844.

Though exact figures are not available, it is entirely safe to assume that a high proportion of commercial and consumer credit is secured by an interest in some form of personal property. Canadian chartered banks regularly require security from all but their most creditworthy and solvent customers. It is an unusual enterprise that is not required to provide security for some part of its outstanding indebtedness. Substantially the same is true for a high percentage of consumer loans and credit sales, especially for consumers in their twenties and thirties. It has been estimated, for