{"id":922,"date":"2019-05-02T13:15:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T17:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=922"},"modified":"2019-05-02T13:15:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T17:15:08","slug":"ontario-is-limitations-law-procedural-in-ontario-probably","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=922","title":{"rendered":"Ontario: is limitations law procedural in Ontario? (probably)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/hvw6q\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Lo Faso and Ferracuti <\/em><\/a>contains the following statement on the substantive nature of limitation periods:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[<a class=\"paragAnchor\" name=\"par17\"><\/a>17]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The defendants argue that the prejudice caused by the expiry of the limitation period makes the amendments untenable. The Supreme Court of Canada has held limitation periods are fundamentally substantive, and not procedural in nature. In para. 35 of\u00a0<i>Castillo v. Castillo<\/i>,\u00a0<span class=\"reflex3-block\"><a class=\"reflex3-caselaw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.canlii.org\/en\/ca\/scc\/doc\/2005\/2005scc83\/2005scc83.html\">2005 SCC 83 (CanLII)<\/a>,\u00a0<span class=\"reflex3-alt\">[2005] 3 S.C.R. 870<\/span><\/span>, Justice Bastarache, in a separate yet concurring decision with the majority, held that \u201climitation periods have the effect of cancelling the substantive rights of plaintiffs, and of vesting a right in defendants not be sued in such cases\u2026\u201d Justice Bastarache referred also to the decision of Justice La Forest in\u00a0<i>Tolofson v. Jensen,<\/i>\u00a0<span class=\"reflex3-block\" data-path=\"\/en\/reflex\/884562.html\"><span class=\"reflex3-alt\">[1994] 3 S.C.R. 1002 (SCC)<\/span><\/span>, where he stated that limitation periods are, by the very nature, substantive as they determine the rights of both of the parties in a cause of action. As Justice La Forest explained, \u201cthey destroy the right of the plaintiff to bring suit and vest a right in the defendant to be free from suit\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don\u2019t think this is correct law in Ontario.\u00a0 At common law, limitation periods are procedural so that the expiry of a limitation period is a procedural bar to asserting a cause of action, but doesn\u2019t extinguish the cause of action.\u00a0 The Limitations Act arguably recognises this implicitly:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Conflict of laws<\/p>\n<p>23 For the purpose of applying the rules regarding conflict of laws, the limitations law of Ontario or any other jurisdiction is substantive law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This provision is only necessary if the limitations law of Ontario is otherwise procedural.<\/p>\n<p>To be fair, all of this is largely academic outside of conflicts .\u00a0 I\u2019ve been involved in just one case in the last five years where the impact of an expired limitation period mattered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lo Faso and Ferracuti contains the following statement on the substantive nature of limitation periods: [17]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0The defendants argue that the prejudice caused by the expiry of the limitation period makes the amendments untenable. The Supreme Court of Canada has held limitation periods are fundamentally substantive, and not procedural in nature. In para. 35 &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/?p=922\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Ontario: is limitations law procedural in Ontario? (probably)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[238,81,548,550,549],"class_list":["post-922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ontario","tag-blog-pedantry","tag-conflict-of-laws","tag-effect-of-an-expired-limitation-period","tag-ontario-act-s-23","tag-procedural-or-substantive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/limitations.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}