Whatever deficits remain in the Canadian project to make justice available to all, class actions have been heralded as a success. They have been employed over the past twenty-five years to overcome barriers to justice for those who would otherwise have no recourse to the courts. First proposing a conceptualization of access to justice 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. Class Actions in Canada is a timely exploration of the evolution of collective litigation in Canada.

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.

"The Ontario Class Proceedings Act, 1992 represented a major innovation in civil procedure. Suzanne Chiodo’s book ... looks at the origins of representative proceedings in equity, the rise of modern-day class actions around the world (particularly in the United States and Quebec), and at the debates about the Ontario legislation. The book presents an ... analysis of the political and social influences that shaped this momentous legal change. It explains for the first time how the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee Report in 1990 pulled together so many divergent interests where previous attempts had failed."--Provided by publisher.