CHAPTER 16 Civil Litigation
In Québec, costs are limited to administrative fees charged to file proceedings and certain disbursements, such as printing, transcript and expert fees. The court may punish substantial breaches noted in the conduct of the proceedings by ordering a party to pay a portion, or all, of the professional fees of the other party’s lawyer. However, awards of costs for lawyers’ fees are only exceptionally granted in Québec. In both Ontario and Québec, costs may also (though very exceptionally) be awarded against the lawyer for a party, rather than the party itself, if there has been an abuse of process by the lawyer. Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Because Canada is a federation in which the provinces and territories have constitutional jurisdiction over the administration of justice, a judgment of a civil court in one province or territory is not automatically enforceable in another province or territory. In this respect, a judgment of a superior court is no different from a judgment rendered by a court in a foreign country. However, in Ontario and the other common law provinces and territories of Canada, there are well-established common law principles and statutory procedures enabling a judgment ordering the payment of money rendered by either a court in another province or territory of Canada or a court in a foreign country to be enforced, without relitigating the case on its merits. A judgment of a court outside Ontario will be enforced in Ontario if the defendant submitted to the jurisdiction of the court that gave the judgment, either by agreement or by participating in the proceeding, or if the claim had a “real and substantial connection” to the jurisdiction in which the judgment was rendered. Assuming that
there is no jurisdictional issue, very few defences can be raised against the enforcement of a foreign judgment. The available defences include that the foreign judgment was obtained by fraud or in a manner contrary to natural justice. These defences are rarely successful. An Ontario court will not re-examine the merits of the claim. The fact that the laws of a foreign jurisdiction are different in both substance and procedure from those in Canada or that the defendant might have had some defence in a Canadian action that was not available in the foreign proceeding typically is not a barrier to enforcement of a foreign judgment. Ontario also has legislation providing for reciprocal enforcement of judgments rendered by courts in other provinces and territories of Canada, as well as judgments rendered in the United Kingdom. The statutory procedure is not always used, because it is not significantly more advantageous than enforcement under common law principles and because the criteria applied and the defences available are substantially the same. In Québec, any judgment from another jurisdiction is similarly considered a foreign judgment. In deciding whether to enforce a foreign judgment, the court will not engage in an examination of the merits of a decision, but may refuse to recognize a foreign judgment if the court determines that (i) the foreign court had no jurisdiction to render the judgment; (ii) the foreign judgment was rendered in contravention of fundamental principles and procedure; (iii) a dispute between the same parties, based on the same facts and having the same object, has given rise to a judgment rendered in Québec, is pending before a Québec court or has been decided in another jurisdiction and the latter judgment meets the necessary conditions for recognition in Québec; (iv) the outcome of the judgment is manifestly inconsistent with public order as understood in international relations;
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