Breaking the Ice: The Potential and Limits of Section 7 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992
by Amber Sharma, 2L In Carcillo v Canadian Hockey League, 2023 ONSC 886, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice refused to certify a class action commenced on behalf of approximately 15,000 class members against 78 separate defendants located in nine different provinces. The motion judge took the opportunity to examine section 7(2) of Ontario’s Class Proceedings Act, 1992 (“CPA”) which authorizes the court to permit a proceeding to continue as one or more proceedings between different parties where certification is refused. In doing so, Justice Perell considered what alternative processes to a class action are available under Canadian law that could address collective harms in circumstances where certification would be inappropriate. The question of how to manage such a high volume of individual claims following a refusal to certify an action as a class proceeding proved difficult. Besides class actions and the ability to join claims in one proceeding, there
