Editing Class action (section)

===Canada===
[[Law of Canada|Provincial laws]] in Canada allow class actions. All provinces permit plaintiff classes and some permit defendant classes. [[Quebec]] was the first province to enact class proceedings legislation, in 1978. [[Ontario]] was next, with the Class Proceedings Act, 1992. As of 2008, 9 of 10 provinces had enacted comprehensive class actions legislation. In [[Prince Edward Island]], where no comprehensive legislation exists, following the decision of the [[Supreme Court of Canada]] in ''Western Canadian Shopping Centres Inc. v. Dutton'', [2001] 2 S.C.R. 534, class actions may be advanced under a local rule of court. The [[Federal Court of Canada]] permits class actions under Part V.1 of the Federal Courts Rules.

Legislation in [[Saskatchewan]], [[Manitoba]], [[Ontario]], and [[Nova Scotia]] expressly or by judicial opinion has been read to allow for what are informally known as national "opt-out" class actions, whereby residents of other provinces may be included in the class definition and potentially be bound by the court's judgment on common issues unless they opt out in a prescribed manner and time. Court rulings have determined that this permits a court in one province to include residents of other provinces in the class action on an "opt-out" basis.

Judicial opinions have indicated that provincial legislative national opt-out powers should not be exercised to interfere with the ability of another province to certify a parallel class action for residents of other provinces. The first court to certify will generally exclude residents of provinces whose courts have certified a parallel class action. However, in the [[Vioxx]] litigation, two provincial courts certified overlapping class actions whereby Canadian residents were class members in two class actions in two provinces.<ref>Ontario: ''Tiboni v. Merck Frosst Canada Ltd.'', [2008] O.J. No. 2996. Saskatchewan: ''Wuttunee v. Merck Frosst Canada Ltd.'', 2008 SKQB 78</ref> Both decisions are under appeal.{{update inline|reason=16 years on?|date=January 2025}}

Other legislation may provide for representative actions on behalf of a large number of plaintiffs, independent of class action procedures. For instance, under Ontario's Condominium Act, a [[condominium]]'s governing corporation may launch a lawsuit on behalf of the owners for damage to the condominium's common elements, even though the corporation does not own the common elements.

The largest class action suit in Canada was settled in 2005 after [[Nora Bernard]] initiated efforts that led to an estimated 79,000 survivors of Canada's [[Canadian Indian residential school system|residential school system]] suing the [[Canadian government]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Molavi |first=Michael |date=26 July 2023 |title=Collective Legal Mobilisation: Exploring Class Actions in Sweden and Canada |journal=Nordic Journal of Human Rights |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=32–51 |doi=10.1080/18918131.2023.2229697 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The settlement amounted to upwards of $5 billion.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lau |first1=Rebecca |title=Late Mi'kmaw activist Nora Bernard recommended as new name for Halifax's Cornwallis Street |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/9340913/nora-bernard-street-renaming-cornwallis-halifax/ |access-date=16 December 2024 |work=Global News |publisher=Global News |date=11 December 2022}}</ref>