Ontario And Québec Courts Hold Joint Hearing In Multijurisdiction Class Actions

In Brazeau v Canada (Attorney General), the Ontario and Québec courts heard identical motions for a distribution protocol and individual issues protocol in the context of three overlapping class actions. The case demonstrates Canadian courts' willingness to adopt novel procedures for efficiently managing complex, multijurisdiction class actions. In particular, instead of holding separate hearings – resulting in duplication of effort and costs and risking inconsistent decisions – both courts held a joint hearing and co-operated to issue one decision. In addition, in a further departure from their usual procedure, the courts prepared a draft protocol and invited the parties to propose any changes before issuing a final order instead of just ruling on the parties' dispute.