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Civil Litigation Dicta - Class Proceeding - 'Proceeding by Unincorporated Association or Trade Union' [R12.08]. The Ontario Health Coalition v. Ontario (Minister of Long-Term Care)
In The Ontario Health Coalition v. Ontario (Minister of Long-Term Care) (Ont Divisional Ct, 2025) the Divisional Court dismissed a JR, this from "the June 14, 2023 decision of the Minister of Long-Term Care (the “Minister”) to approve funding and undertake to issue a licence for a new 320 bed long-term care home in Pickering, Ontario".
Here the court considers the class representation provisions of R12.08 ['Proceeding by Unincorporated Association or Trade Union']:[74] In the alternative, the OHC asks that the Court grant a representation order under Rule 12.08 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides:12.08 Where numerous persons are members of an unincorporated association or trade union and a proceeding under the Act would be an unduly expensive or inconvenient means for determining their claims, one or more of them may be authorized by the court to bring a proceeding on behalf of or for the benefit of all. [75] “Act” under Rule 12.08 “means the Class Proceedings Act, 1992”: r. 12.01.
[76] Apart from the timing of this request, the difficulty here is that the OHC has not identified which person or member should be named as the representative plaintiff. I do not read Rule 12.08 as authorizing the Court to name the “unincorporated association” as the representative plaintiff. Rather, it authorizes the Court to permit one or more members to bring the action on behalf of the unincorporated association: Lawrence v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 2017 ONCA 321, 138 O.R. (3d) 129, at para. 16.
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