The Applicant applied to consolidate three Actions involving the same Parties. The Court determined that the existing case law on consolidation under the old Rules is still applicable under the new Rules because of the similarity that exists between the old and the new Rules. Thus, Bank of Montreal v Valerio, 2009 ABQB 578 and Mikisew Cree First Nation v Canada, [l998] A.J. No. 869 (Q.L)(Q.B.) are still relevant to determining “the types of factors which a court should consider when deciding whether to exercise its power under the Rules …” Further, pursuant to Alliance Pipeline Ltd Partnership v C.E. Franklin Ltd, 2007 ABCA 285, “although individual factors should be considered, the court’s overall objective is to ensure that its decision on how the actions should be tried will serve the ends of justice”.

The Court decided that the three claims should be heard together. The Court reasoned that this would result in greater efficiency. One specific reason given for this is that Alternative Dispute Resolution could only be effective if all of the proceedings were dealt with at the same time.

The Court noted that even more important than efficiency is the fact that hearing the claims together would result in greater fairness. This is because in all three proceedings the evidence will almost exclusively be from the two primary Parties. Having one Trial allows for a single assessment of credibility on the evidence. The Court ordered a consolidation of the Actions because there was “a real risk that the results in the three proceedings could not be reconciled with one another”.

Lastly, it was decided that neither Party would be prejudiced by trying the Actions at the same time.