Project Overview
The LCO’s Class Actions: Objectives, Experiences and Reforms is the first independent, evidence-based review of Ontario’s Class Proceedings Act, 1992 (CPA) since its enactment. The project examined whether class actions are achieving their three legislative goals—access to justice, judicial economy, and behaviour modification—and whether the CPA still reflects current class action practice and justice system priorities.
Class actions have become one of the most visible and far-reaching legal procedures in Canada. Over nearly three decades, they have expanded dramatically in scale and complexity, addressing issues from consumer protection and product liability to privacy breaches, environmental harm, institutional abuse, and labour and securities disputes.
Through extensive research, public submissions, and consultations with lawyers, judges, academics, class members, administrators, and policy experts, the LCO developed Ontario’s first empirical class action database and a set of 47 recommendations to modernize the CPA and related policies.
The Government of Ontario adopted many of the LCO’s class action recommendations in its 2020 amendments to the Class Proceedings Act (1992).
Advisory Committee
The Advisory Committee members were:
- The Honourable Stephen T. Goudge – Chair of the Advisory Committee and LCO Board Liaison
- Marie Audren – Partner, Audren Rolland LLP
- Tim Buckley – Global Resolutions Inc. (formerly of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP);
- Michael A. Eizenga – Partner, Bennett Jones LLP
- Professor Trevor C. W. Farrow – Osgoode Hall Law School
- André Lespérance – Partner, Trudel, Johnston and Lesperance
- Celeste Poltak – Partner, Koskie Minsky LLP
- Linda Rothstein – Partner, Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein
Key Recommendations
The LCO’s 47 recommendations include substantive and technical amendments to the CPA, significant practice management reforms, and major new reporting obligations.
1. Modernize CPA case management, carriage and multijurisdictional proceedings
- Introduce strict rules requiring parties to advance actions in a timely manner, new administrative dismissal provisions, and new authority for courts to case manage actions proactively.
- Implement new provisions to better manage carriage hearings and multijurisdictional class actions.
2. Improve certification and settlement proceedings
- Encourage courts to apply certification test more rigorously, use summary judgement motions more frequently, and adopt best practices for certification motions.
- Establish new obligations on parties seeking settlement approval, improved notice requirements, mandatory and detailed “outcome” reports, and new provisions governing claims administrators and cy-près.
3. Increase transparency and accountability
- Increase scrutiny of counsel fees.
- Introduce new reporting requirements for parties seeking settlement approval, including detailed “outcome reports” on take up rates, compensation for class members, and legal and transaction costs.
- Enhance notice requirements and oversight of claims administrators and cy-près distributions.
- Implement new provisions to govern third party funding and the Class Proceedings Fund.
These reforms aim to make class actions faster, fairer, and more accountable—reinforcing public confidence in the process and ensuring that class proceedings continue to serve their intended purposes.