What is the test for certification of a class action?

The Attorney General points to Cullity J’s remark in LeFrancois v. Guidant Corp. (2008), 56 C.P.C. (6th) 268, [2008] O.J. No. 1397 (Sup. Ct. J.), that “[i]f the plaintiffs cannot produce a workable litigation plan in a complex proceeding, this casts a special and unfavourable light on the requirement that a class proceeding is preferable to other alternatives - including individual actions” (para. 97). Cullity J. went on to say, however (in a passage not cited by the Attorney General): … For this reason, certification has been denied in some cases in which the court has found that the proceeding - and, in particular, the methods of resolving individual issues - would be unmanageable... An unmanageable proceeding will not promote the legislative objective of access to justice and may have no, or negligible, benefits in respect of judicial economy. At the same time, neither the parties nor the court is blessed with perfect foresight at this stage of the proceeding and the future course of the litigation may depend upon the findings of fact and the decisions made at the trial of the common issues. For this reason section 25 of the CPA confers a wide discretion on the trial judge to decide how the individual issues will be dealt with.…