Class Actions in Canada

The Promise and Reality of Access to Justice

Whatever deficits remain in the Canadian project to make justice available to all, class actions have been heralded as a success. The theme of access to justice runs throughout the discourse on collective litigation, but what do access and justice mean in this context?

Class actions have been employed over the past several decades to overcome barriers for those who would otherwise have no recourse to the courts. Class Actions in Canada critically and empirically examines whether mass litigation is meeting this primary goal. First proposing a conceptualization that moves beyond mere access to a court procedure, leading expert Jasminka Kalajdzic then methodically assesses survey data and case studies to determine how class action practice fulfills or falls short of its objectives.

With class actions becoming increasingly controversial in the United States and collective redress mechanisms being cautiously adopted elsewhere, this is a timely exploration of collective litigation in Canada.