Okanagan businessman’s claims against province tossed in bank debt case

Okanagan businessman’s claims against province tossed in bank debt case

Published 11:05 am Monday, April 13, 2026

A Penticton businessman who previously ran for office with the Libertarian Party has had his attempts to claim damages from the province over pandemic health restrictions tossed, as a pair of banks seek payment for unpaid loans.

The decision regarding the attempts to add the government to the two debt cases by Justice Richard Fowler was made in Vancouver on April 2 and was recently published.

The Justice rejected MacIntyre’s third-party notices, as well as struck a separate civil claim he had filed for having to be bound to fail.

In May 2025, RBC filed a claim for over $39,000 of debt between a line of credit and a Visa account that MacIntyre and his numbered corporation, 2221837 Alberta Inc., failed to pay.

In response, MacIntyre filed a counterclaim alleging RBC used predatory lending practices and relied on faulty algorithms for approving credit limit — which were denied by the bank — and that the government’s health regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic caused economic duress.

“MacIntyre also pleads that he had provided expert knowledge and experience to the provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, that demonstrates the restrictions and lockdowns that caused him economic duress were unnecessary and unreasonable,” the decision reads.

Following the counterclaim, MacIntyre filed a third-party notice to add the Attorney General of Canada and the Province of B.C. to the case. It sought forgiveness of all personal and business debts owed to RBC, reinstatement of his RBC Mastercard, reinstatement of his airline points on his RBC Visa, and an additional $5 million apiece from B.C. and the attorney general.

This was later amended to seek to have any debts MacIntyre might be found to owe the bank paid for by the province and the attorney general, as well as damages.

The second debt suit, filed by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), was filed in July 2025 over $318,000 of debt between nine different loan agreements with MacIntyre and his company, Big Bear Software Inc.

In MacIntyre’s responses, he argued, among other things, that the loans advanced by BDC were unconscionable, that the bank had been negligent in approving the loans, and that the loans constituted loan-cycling whereby BDC was approving loans to Big Bear that they knew were being used to pay down other BDC loans.

In October 2025, MacIntyre filed a third-party notice to add the Attorney General of Canada and the Province of B.C. to the case involving the BDC, which was largely the same as the notice filed in the RBC case.

Justice Fowler found that the attorney general and the province were not party to any of the contractual agreements with either RBC or BDC, that there was a lack of material facts to support any claim of indemnity, and that there were no facts to explain how the province may have contributed to or caused the losses with no clear relation between the alleged misconduct and debt claims.

“Taken at their very best, the RBC TPN and the BDC TPN include claims that the response of AGC and the Province to the pandemic created challenging economic circumstances for MacIntyre and his businesses,” Justice Fowler wrote. “The conduct alleged against AGC and the Province is extremely wide-ranging, and the relief sought potentially vastly exceeds the claims by either RBC or BDC for repayment of debt. A connection between the third-party claims and the underlying claims of RBC and BDC is not established.”

On top of the third-party notices, MacIntyre filed a separate lawsuit against RBC, the Attorney General of Canada, and the Province of B.C., which, among other claims, alleged that the public-health orders issued during the pandemic were illegal, that the government parties profited off the health orders, and that they committed misfeasance in a public office.

MacIntyre also claimed he suffered cruel and unusual punishment under the Charter’s rights to mobility over health restrictions for unvaccinated individuals.

Justice Fowler went through each of MacIntyre’s claims and found that there were no material facts pleaded to support them. He found that for certain claims, such as the allegations of misfeasance against the public health officer, it would not have mattered as the officer has statutory immunity.

As a result of the Justice deeming there to be no possible chance for any of the claims to succeed, MacIntyre’s suit was tossed entirely, with no leave to amend.

The claims by the banks regarding the alleged unpaid debts remain unresolved and before the courts.