Abstract: Canada has a robust history of public inquiries into health failures, whether specific or systemic. Inquiries play a key role in guiding health care policy. Announcement of a public health inquiry almost inevitably triggers issuance of a proposed class action. Class counsel, often involved in the commission, seek to use the inquiry’s findings as “some basis in fact” to justify class certification. As they are neither intended to make findings of civil liability nor subject to rigorous evidentiary standards, public health inquiries don’t necessarily make solid foundations for fair and efficient class actions.
Barry Glaspell (Sun,) studied this question.