Every year, dozens of proposed class actions are filed in Canada asserting various legal claims arising from all manner of industries. Businesses should be aware of class action developments to ensure that they can proactively assess and minimize any potential liability.
In this publication, we (1) preview important forthcoming class action decisions, (2) review recent securities law class action decisions, and (3) review privacy law class action developments.
Preview: Important Forthcoming Class Actions Decisions
Class actions will take centre stage at Canada’s and Ontario’s highest courts over the coming months, with resulting decisions likely to shape the class proceeding landscape for years to come.
NHK Spring et al v Tony Cheung, et al, 2025 CanLII 116171 (SCC Case No 41451)
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear an appeal in a competition class proceeding.
Last fall, the court granted leave to appeal a decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal upholding the certification of a national class action alleging that indirect purchasers in Canada suffered harm resulting from an overseas price-fixing conspiracy. The appeal of an overlapping jurisdiction challenge will be heard simultaneously.
The plaintiffs allege they suffered harm in Canada resulting from a conspiracy to fix the prices of suspension assemblies, which are small and inexpensive subcomponents of hard disk drives.
In October 2022, the Supreme Court of British Columbia granted certification under British Columbia’s class action legislation and dismissed the defendants’ application to stay the proceedings on jurisdictional grounds. In June 2024, the British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissed the defendants’ appeal of both decisions.
The Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to appeal on three issues, concerning:
- the situs of transnational torts and, specifically, the situs of the statutory cause of action arising from certain breaches of the Competition Act;
- the legal framework for rebutting the presumption of jurisdiction simpliciter; and
- whether the legislative jurisdiction of the Competition Act extends to acts that occurred entirely outside of Canada.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on these issues will have a direct impact on competition class actions involving alleged anticompetitive conduct by foreign entities.
North, et al. v. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, et al., 2026 CanLII 29491 (SCC Case No 41913)
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear an appeal in a product liability class proceeding.
This spring, the Court granted leave to appeal an Ontario Court of Appeal decision which overturned the certification of a proposed class action alleging negligence by a car manufacturer.
The plaintiffs purchased vehicles containing so-called N20 engines. The plaintiffs allege that, years after the purchase, their engines suddenly lost power due to chain assembly system failure resulting in catastrophic damage to the engine. The plaintiffs sold their vehicles “as is” instead of repairing them due to the costs quoted for such repairs. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants’ negligence in designing, engineering, testing and manufacturing the vehicles resulted in damage to the plaintiffs and the proposed class, including the costs of averting the real, substantial and imminent danger of personal injury by replacing the vehicles. The plaintiffs also alleged that the carmaker failed to warn its consumers of the safety risks associated with the vehicles. No class member suffered physical harm and no property aside from the vehicles suffered damage.
In October 2023, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice granted certification of the negligent design and manufacturing claims but declined to certify the failure to warn claim. The plaintiffs appealed and the defendants cross-appealed the certification order. In May 2025, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and allowed the cross-appeal, setting aside the certification order.
The appeal raises several important issues such as a manufacturer’s requirement to fix or replace defective products, the classification of a product when a sub-component has been negligently designed or manufactured, and a manufacturer’s potential liability for economic loss.
G.G. v. Ontario, 2025 ONSC 3011
In a rare occasion, the Ontario Court of Appeal convened a five-member panel to hear an appeal of a certification decision.
Forty-nine children’s aid societies in Ontario established and operated a now-defunct system known as “Birth Alerts”. These children’s aid societies issued Birth Alert notifications to hospitals and other healthcare providers when they deemed that a pregnant person was “high-risk”. The Birth Alerts requested that healthcare facilities alert the children’s aid societies when the birth occurred. This resulted in newborn babies being taken from their parents for extended periods of time. The plaintiffs sought to certify a class action alleging various common law causes of action and breaches of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms against the Province of Ontario and the children’s aid societies.
In May 2025, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice certified the action against the Province of Ontario but denied certification against the children’s aid societies. The plaintiffs have appealed the decision refusing to certify the action against the children’s aid societies, while Ontario has appealed the decision certifying the action as against it.
A key issue on certification was the application of the so-called Ragoonanan principle which requires that a representative plaintiff in a class action must have a direct cause of action against each named defendant.
The Associate Chief Justice directed that the appeals should be heard before a five-judge panel to consider whether the Ontario Court of Appeal should depart from the well-established Ragoonanan principle. The Ontario Court of Appeal rarely sits with five judges (a three-judge panel is the norm), and typically only does so when considering whether to decline to follow a prior precedential decision.
The appeals were heard in April 2026 and Canada’s class action community is now awaiting a decision on the future application of the Ragoonanan principle.
Securities Law Class Action Developments
Securities class actions are common in Canada. Canadian provinces each have their own securities regimes, however securities legislation and regulation is significantly harmonized between jurisdictions. Canadian securities litigation often involves cross-border aspects with issuers trading on both Canadian and US exchanges.
Many securities class actions are advanced on behalf of investors who allege that they have suffered losses as a result of securities law misconduct, most commonly misrepresentations in primary market offering documents or in a reporting issuer’s secondary market public disclosure.
Plaintiffs advancing securities class actions in Ontario, including in the cases below, must generally satisfy both the class action certification requirements and, for secondary market claims, the additional statutory leave requirement under s. 138.8(1) of the Ontario Securities Act (“OSA”). Leave will be granted if the court is satisfied that (a) the action is being brought in good faith, and (b) there is a reasonable possibility that the action will be resolved at trial in favour of the plaintiff. This second criterion requires an analysis of: (i) whether there is an untrue statement; (ii) the materiality of the impugned statement; and (iii) whether the statement has been publicly corrected.
Lundin Mining Corp. v. Markowich, 2026 SCC 39
The Supreme Court of Canada rendered a significant decision regarding the concept of “material change” in securities disclosures. The court declined to provide a concrete definition of “material change”, instead adopting a flexible and contextual approach.
As set out above, a statutory secondary market claim under s. 138.3 cannot proceed unless the plaintiff satisfies the leave requirements in s. 138.8(1). The Supreme Court clarified that the plaintiff must provide a plausible application of the legislative provisions to the limited evidence available. However, the test does not require proving the case on a balance of probabilities nor turning the leave motion into a mini trial.
In the underlying case, the plaintiff investor alleged that the defendant company failed to disclose a pit wall instability and a subsequent rockslide at its premier mine. When the company disclosed the events a month later in its regular updates, the share price fell 16%. The investor sought leave to bring an action under s. 138.8(1) and to certify a class action on behalf of all persons who acquired securities in the mining company between the day that the pit wall instability was detected and the date that the company disclosed the instability and the ensuing rockslide.
The plaintiff alleged that the events were a “material change” under s. 75(1) of the OSA and not merely a “material fact”. The OSA defines a material change as “a change in the business, operations or capital of the issuer that would reasonably be expected to have a significant effect on the market price or value of any of the securities of the issuer.” The legislation does not define the terms “change”, “business”, “operations”, or “capital”. A material fact is “a fact that would reasonably be expected to have a significant effect on the market price or value of the securities.”
The distinction is significant because material changes must be disclosed “forthwith”, while material facts need only be disclosed periodically.
The court of first instance refused to grant leave and dismissed the certification motion, finding that there was no reasonable possibility that a “material change” to the mining company’s “business, operations, or capital” had occurred. The Court of Appeal overturned the decision, finding that the motion judge erred by adopting restrictive definitions.
The majority of the Supreme Court held there was a reasonable possibility that the pit wall instability and rockslide constituted changes in the defendant’s “operations,” and that those changes could have triggered the forthwith disclosure obligation in s. 75(1). The court stressed that “material change” should not be interpreted narrowly in the leave test. Rather, the test asks whether the legislation can plausibly be applied to the available evidence and does not require the plaintiff to conclusively prove the claim. The majority held that the evidence showed a realistic chance that the defendant’s operations were affected and, therefore, the statutory leave requirement was met.
A dissenting decision cautioned against an overly broad interpretation of material change, noting that a potential blurring of the lines between “material facts” and “material changes” could burden public companies, incentivize issuers to over disclose or disclose prematurely to mitigate compliance and liability risks, and expand the potential liability of directors and officers.
Terry Longair Professional Corporation v. Akumin Inc., 2025 ONCA 606
In Terry Longair Professional Corporation v. Akumin Inc., the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the defendant corporation’s appeal from an order granting leave to bring a secondary market misrepresentation claim and certifying a class proceeding for alleged misrepresentations and common law negligence.
The case arose from alleged misrepresentations in the defendant corporation’s public disclosure and financial statements. Between August and November 2021, the defendant corporation issued a series of disclosures acknowledging errors and restating prior financial statements.
The central issue on appeal was whether these subsequent disclosures qualified as “public corrections” for the purposes of s. 138.3(1) of the OSA. Investors that acquired or disposed of the defendant’s shares between the time of the misrepresentation and the time of a public correction can bring a secondary market misrepresentation claim. The court held that a public correction is a disclosure reasonably capable of being understood in the secondary market as correcting what was misleading in the impugned statement. A public correction can be express or contextual, and it does not require a statistically significant price decline. A share price change following a disclosure may be evidence of a public correction, but it is not required to establish a public correction.
In this case, the Court of Appeal confirmed the lower court’s finding that the defendant’s disclosures were public corrections because they expressly identified errors or misleading statements in prior financial reporting.
Similarly, the court dismissed the defendant’s argument that securities must trade in an “efficient market” for a statement to constitute a “public correction” for the purposes of a s. 138.3 claim. The court confirmed that the legislation did not contain such a limitation and that importing one would not accord with the statutory objective of investor protection.
Privacy Law Class Action Developments
Class actions relating to the collection, use, or sharing of personal information or data are frequently pursued in Canada.
Privacy laws in Canada derive from federal and provincial statutes as well as the common law. Recent class cases in British Columbia and Ontario have grappled with allegations of improper sharing of user data and improper use of health professional’s names.
Hvitved v. Home Depot of Canada Inc., 2026 BCCA 39
In Hvitved v. Home Depot of Canada Inc., the British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and cross-appeal from a certification order in a privacy class action.
The proposed class consisted of customers who made in-store purchases and provided their email address in exchange for receiving an electronic receipt. Between 2018 and 2022, the defendant allegedly transferred these email addresses and other purchasing information to an unrelated third party to evaluate its advertising campaigns on the third party’s platform. The plaintiff alleged that this disclosure occurred without consent, constituted a breach of contract, and violated several provincial privacy statutes.
The court of first instance certified the breach of privacy claim under the British Columbia Privacy Act but struck the balance of the claims. The plaintiff appealed the decision not to certify the breach of contract claim, and the defendant cross-appealed the certification of the breach of privacy claim.
The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision to certify the breach of privacy claim. Among other things, the defendant resisted certification by arguing that the claim was inherently individualized. The defendant argued that such claims require contextual assessment of reasonable expectations of privacy, consent, and the surrounding circumstances particular to individual class members. The court disagreed, emphasizing that class members need not be identically situated for commonality to exist, and confirming that common issues need not predominate over individual issues at the certification stage. The way the customer data was collected, transferred and used for marketing analytics constituted a sufficiently common factual foundation to justify class proceedings. Any individual variations in subjective expectations of privacy or damages could be addressed later in the proceeding, including through opt-out mechanisms or individual damages assessments where appropriate.
The Court of Appeal also affirmed the lower court’s finding that the pleading did not disclose a cause of action for breach of contract because it was missing material facts about the formation, form, scope, and terms of the alleged contract. The Court of Appeal agreed that “that the breach of contract claim was pleaded in generic terms, with a palpable lack of specificity, and bound to fail.” Similarly, the court held that the plaintiff had pleaded an “implied term” with insufficient material facts to support it.
RateMDs Inc. v. Bleuler, 2025 BCCA 329
In RateMDs Inc. v. Bleuler, the British Columbia Court of Appeal clarified that privacy claims cannot proceed in the absence of a pleaded privacy interest supported by a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The underlying case was brought on behalf of health professionals whose profiles appeared on the RateMDs.com website. The website contains the names and professional contact information of health professionals, along with anonymous patient ratings, reviews, and comparative rankings. The plaintiff alleged that the creation and operation of these profiles, without consent, constituted (i) a violation of privacy under s. 1 of British Columbia’s Privacy Act as well as analogous provincial legislation, and (ii) an unauthorized use of name for commercial purposes under s. 3(2) of the Privacy Act. The lower court certified the class action.
The Court of Appeal allowed the defendants’ appeal and set aside the certification order, holding that the pleadings did not disclose a reasonable cause of action. The court concluded that the pleadings failed to establish that the plaintiff, or class members, had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information published on the respondent’s website.
The court emphasized that the information at issue did not meet this threshold. Health professionals voluntarily offer services to the public and are routinely subject to public commentary and comparative assessment through online search engines, social media, and review platforms. The court rejected the argument that aggregating reviews, ranking professionals, or doing so for profit transformed otherwise public-facing information into private information protected by provincial privacy legislation.
The court also dismissed the claim under s. 3(2) of the Privacy Act, which prohibits the unauthorized use of a person’s name for advertising or promoting the sale of goods or services. Applying the “sales versus subject” distinction, the court held that health professionals were the subject of the information on RateMDs.com, not vehicles used to promote unrelated products or services.
Donegani v. Facebook Inc., 2025 ONSC 6020
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice refused to certify a proposed class action alleging that the defendant improperly shared the personal data of users with third-party applications and partners without their consent.
The court concluded that the plaintiff had not advanced a workable class definition because class membership could not be determined without extensive individual inquiries. The plaintiffs’ proposed class definition derived from the defendant’s historical data identifying users whose information may have been shared. The court concluded that this approach resulted in a class that was simultaneously underinclusive and overbroad, and depended on individualized factual findings that were inconsistent with the purposes of class proceedings.
The court also declined to certify a claim for nominal damages. Acknowledging that compensatory damages were unlikely and unsupported on the evidentiary record, the plaintiffs sought to rely on nominal damages as symbolic vindication of an alleged breach of contractual duties. The court rejected this approach. It held that determining entitlement to nominal damages would still require individualized inquiries into whether each class member’s data was shared without authorization, creating an “order of operations” problem.
The court found that a class action would not be the preferable procedure. Without evidence of compensable harm, the proposed class action would not advance the goals of access to justice, judicial economy or behaviour modification. Specifically, regulatory proceedings both in Canada and internationally were already addressing many of the alleged privacy concerns, and such proceedings were better suited to achieving behaviour modification regarding the alleged misconduct.
With thanks to Ezra Thevarasalingam and Viesakan Sivaraj, articling students, for their assistance in preparing this publication.