Book Review: The Class Actions Controversy: The Origins And Development Of The Ontario Class Proceedings Act by Suzanne Chiodo

“At the time of the Supreme Court of Canada’s notorious 1983 decision in GM (Canada) v Naken, there was no mechanism by which a class action could be conducted in the common law provinces of Canada, and the Court’s reasons in that case indicated a suspicion, or at least deep uncertainty, about the very idea. Less than two decades later, that same Court unanimously declared in Western Canadian Shopping Centres Inc v Dutton that “the importance of the class action as a procedural tool in modern litigation has become manifest,” to the point where even courts in provinces which had not enacted class proceedings Acts should design their own process for adjudicating mass claims. “The class action,” wrote the Court in Dutton, “plays an important role in today’s world.””