Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Rémi Lhomme says he felt hopeful about his future when he was hired at a travel startup in Calgary in the spring of 2024.
“It was looking, at first, [like a] great opportunity to start from zero and grow with the company,” he said.
Kanopii had billed itself as a “platform founded to disrupt and dominate the global online travel agency industry.”
But Lhomme says things went downhill when he and other workers stopped receiving their regular salaries, and then the paycheques stopped altogether by the end of 2024.
“You have a lot of stress because you have to figure out how to pay rent, how to pay [for] food, how to try to get back the money you lost in the process,” he said.
What Lhomme didn’t realize was that Kanopii wasn’t the first business its CEO had founded and which allegedly left workers financially in the lurch.
Kanopii currently owes Lhomme $14,001.56, according to an order issued by the Alberta government.
Calgary employees fighting for thousands in missing wages discovered that the entrepreneur they worked for was also behind another company that didn’t pay its bills. For The National, CBC’s Idil Mussa investigates what happened with Kanopii Inc., revealing the ‘corporate veil’ that helps protect individuals from personal liability when a company fails.
CBC News spoke to several ex-employees who claim they too are missing tens of thousands of dollars in pay.
According to Alberta’s public registry of employers who have been ruled to owe money to workers, Kanopii has outstanding payments totalling more than $152,000.
Company founder and CEO Ifeanyi Daniels-Akunekwe would not agree to an interview, but in an emailed response to questions he wrote the company’s intention was never to mislead employees.
“Kanopii was never a scam,” he said.
Daniels-Akunekwe claims the company could not launch because it experienced “significant and unexpected banking challenges.”
“We relied on scheduled investor funding to meet payroll obligations. When those funds were delayed, it unfortunately created further disruptions to our internal timelines,” he said.
But before things started to collapse at Kanopii there was 3volution Homes Group Inc., a homebuilding company founded by Daniels-Akunekwe which left homebuyers in northeast Edmonton with mortgages to pay on homes his company failed to build.
A CBC News investigation in 2023 found that 13 3volution builds had their building permits cancelled by the city of Edmonton. Court documents obtained then also showed that tradespeople were seeking more than $180,000 in damages for unpaid invoices.
3volution is currently listed as owing more than $80,000 in wages, vacation and termination pay, according to Alberta’s public registry of employers who have outstanding judgments for non-payment to workers.
Edmonton police said they are “aware of complaints” against 3volution.
Daniels-Akunekwe says he is unable to comment on 3volution at this time.
Four people who bought houses in northeast Edmonton from the same Calgary builder more than a year ago say construction has stalled, leaving them responsible for mortgage payments on homes they can’t live in. The CBC’s Madeleine Cummings has the story.
Some former Kanopii workers wonder how Daniels-Akunekwe was able to start a new business after 3volution left so many people stranded.
“The government’s not going to stop a private citizen from incorporating a company just because they’ve had a string of failed businesses,” said Calgary employment lawyer Sarah Coderre.
Coderre says holding Daniels-Akunekwe personally responsible for the failure of his company and its inability to pay its workers could be challenging because of a legal concept called the corporate veil.
“The corporate veil comes from this idea that a corporation in and of itself is a legal person. It’s a legal entity. So the corporation is responsible for its own debts and liabilities. The corporation is responsible for how it treats the employees,” she said.
“There is a difference, right, between moral justice and legal justice. The system is only so good.”
Dozens of civil cases have been filed against Kanopii and 3volution.
In a statement, Alberta’s Ministry of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration said the province’s employment standards are “designed to regulate the conditions of employment — such as wages, hours of work and termination — not the broader entrepreneurial activities or business development decisions.”
The ministry says employers are legally obligated to pay what’s owed and that people can try to collect those funds on their own — at their own expense — or they can choose to have the government pursue collections on their behalf for free.
“Alberta’s government recognizes how frustrating it can be when earnings are not received, especially after collection efforts have already begun. While the collections process can be complex and time-consuming, every effort is made to recover funds,” wrote Justin Laurence, assistant communications director with the ministry.
Laurence says Alberta legislation provides tools to help recover people’s money including issuing demands for payment to third parties.
