LAT tells OMVIC to drop proposed conditions on Olschewski after employee fraud sank his dealership

On June 19, 2026, Ontario’s Licence Appeal Tribunal ordered the Registrar not to carry out a Notice of Proposal that would have put conditions on Christopher Olschewski’s salesperson registration for six years. The decision, published by CanLII as Christopher Olschewski v. Registrar, Motor Vehicle Dealers Act, 2002, 2026 CanLII 62983 (ON LAT), is the first outright appellant win among the LAT cases covered on this site. Where Chaudry saw a refusal upheld and Pourtehrani ended in conditions, Vice-Chair Jeffery Campbell’s order gives the Registrar nothing it asked for.

What the Registrar proposed

The NOP, dated January 26, 2026, rested on two of the disentitlement grounds in s. 6(1)(a) of the MVDA: that having regard to the financial position of an interested person (Experience Nissan), Olschewski could not reasonably be expected to be financially responsible in the conduct of business (s. 6(1)(a)(i)), and that he provided a false statement on a Salesperson Change Application (s. 6(1)(a)(iii)).

The proposed conditions were heavy. For six years, Olschewski would be barred from being a partner, shareholder, officer, director or person in charge of a dealership, barred from final signing authority on sales or lease contracts, restricted in financial decision-making, and barred from financing any dealership without the Registrar’s written approval. He would also complete the Key Elements Course with at least 80% within ninety days.

A receivership built on someone else’s fraud

Olschewski was first registered in July 2020 as a salesperson at Muskoka Nissan, where he was also General Manager. By late 2024 he owned three stores: Rouge Valley Mitsubishi in Scarborough, Muskoka Nissan in Bracebridge, and Experience Nissan in Orillia. Nissan Canada Inc. financed Experience under a cross-guarantee agreement that tied all three dealerships’ obligations together, so a default at one store dragged the others down with it.

In January 2024 his bank flagged the financing of seven vehicle sales at Rouge Valley as fraud. Investigations found two senior employees at that store had sold vehicles out of trust: $1,374,901.29 by Nissan Canada’s receivership application, later identified at $2,200,000 in a report by B. Riley Farber Inc. The defaults that followed led the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to place Experience under receivership on January 28, 2025. A trustee’s report put Experience’s liabilities at $22,454,836.88 against assets of $5,014,726.36.

On the financial-responsibility ground, the Vice-Chair found the Registrar had not made its case. Olschewski did not dispute that he and Experience were interested persons in respect of each other under s. 6(4). But no evidence tied the insolvency to anything he did: “The respondent did not direct me to any evidence identifying a cause of Experience’s insolvency other than the fraudulent conveyances carried out by employees at Rouge Valley” ([30]). When the fraud surfaced, Olschewski called the affected customers, reported it to police, and promptly notified OMVIC ([21], [31]). The adjudicator also declined OMVIC’s request to draw an adverse inference from the absence of pre-fraud profitability records, because the onus to prove financial irresponsibility sits with the Registrar, not on the registrant to prove profitability ([27]).

The false statement was real, and it still was not enough

The second ground had more substance. On an October 9, 2025 Salesperson Change Application moving his employment from Sturgeon Falls Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram to Haliburton Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, Olschewski answered “No” to whether he had ever been an officer, director, owner, partner or operator of a business involved in bankruptcy or insolvency proceedings. By then, Experience had been in receivership for over eight months. Olschewski said he misunderstood the question; the Vice-Chair found that hard to accept from the owner of three dealerships, and held the answer was false whether inadvertent or otherwise ([37]).

A false answer alone did not carry the day. The question under the Act is whether the false statement affords reasonable grounds to believe the registrant will not carry on business in accordance with the law and with integrity and honesty. The decision answers it directly: “I conclude that it is not reasonable to find that the appellant will fail to carry on business in accordance with the law, or with integrity and honesty, based solely on a single incorrect response on one application” ([39]). There was no evidence of prior OMVIC infractions, consumer complaints, or financial irregularities.

The decision closes with a pointed observation. Even if the grounds had been made out, OMVIC’s own witness, Registration Services Manager Evelyn Ruta, testified that she could not identify any consumer harm Olschewski had inflicted, nor how the proposed conditions would prevent consumer harm ([42]). Under s. 9(5) the Tribunal owes the Registrar no deference, and conditions still have to protect the public from something.

Nothing in the order restricts Olschewski’s registration. If the Registrar wants a different outcome, its remaining route is the Divisional Court.

What to learn

• An interested person’s insolvency is not automatically yours. Under s. 6(1)(a)(i), the Registrar must show the registrant cannot be expected to be financially responsible. Where the collapse traces to employee fraud the registrant reported promptly, the connection fails. Contrast Chaudry, where the financial trouble was the registrant’s own.
• Answer application questions as if each one is a ground for refusal, because it is. The receivership question on a change application caught Olschewski out, and the finding that his answer was false survived even though the appeal succeeded. A cleaner answer would have removed the entire second ground under s. 6(1)(a)(iii).
• Proposed conditions need a consumer-protection purpose. When the regulator’s own witness cannot say what harm the conditions would prevent, the s. 9(5) discretion has nothing to anchor to. That is the difference between this case and Pourtehrani, where conditions had a job to do.