Statutory Jurisdiction: An Analysis of the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act

The rules governing international jurisdiction in Canada have undergone significant changes over the past twenty years. The Supreme Court of Canada signalled a fundamental shift in the early 1990s with its landmark decisions in Morguard Investments v De Savoye and Hunt v T and N plc, followed one year later with a complete reform of private international law in the Civil Code of Quebec. That same year, the Uniform Law Conference of Canada (ULCC) put forward a model Act offering a statutory regime for court jurisdiction. It took more than ten years, however, for this model Act to make its formal entrance onto the Canadian legal landscape. As of 2013, the model has been adopted by five legislatures in Canada but is in force in only three jurisdictions. The timing for the publication of Black, Pitel and Sobkin's new book on the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act (CJPTA) is therefore propitious: it provides a timely and useful guide for those provinces where the new statutory regime already applies as well as a meaningful tool for the remaining jurisdictions that are, or may be, considering following suit.