British Columbia Government Announces Proposed Changes To Class Proceeding Act

On April 23, 2018, the British Columbia government introduced Bill 21, proposing a variety of amendments to the Class Proceeding Act, British Columbia's class action legislation. The primary focus of the proposed amendments is to change how non-residents of British Columbia are included in B.C. class proceedings and to introduce rules for handling multi-jurisdictional proceedings. The government based many of the proposed changes on the Uniform Law Conference of Canada's model Uniform Class Proceedings Act amendments of 2006. British Columbia now joins Alberta and Saskatchewan in following this model legislation.

In its press release introducing the Bill, the government stated that these proposed changes will "clarify and improve the processes for class proceedings involving both residents and non-residents of British Columbia" and "increase access to justice and improve judicial efficiency by reducing the necessity for parallel proceedings to take place in other