The decision concerned a carriage Application involving three overlapping proposed class actions under the Class Proceedings Act, SA 2003, c C-16.5. The purpose of the carriage Application was to determine which action respecting the same class and the same cause or causes of action should be permitted to proceed, thereby avoiding multiple duplicative proceedings.

Broadly, the Actions involved claims against Alberta for cultural loss suffered by Aboriginal children removed from their families and placed with non-Aboriginal foster or adoptive parents during the "Sixties Scoop" era. The claims also included allegations of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in some Actions. The three Actions were defined as the DM Action, the RT Action, and the AH Action.

The authority to decide the carriage Application was drawn from, among other sources, Rules 2.9, 4.12(3), and 4.14(1)(c), (d), and (f). The Court identified numerous factors to be considered in deciding carriage applications, including the proposed representative plaintiff, the substance of the competing actions, the procedural history of each action, and counsel for each action.

The Court found that none of the Actions had progressed significantly since 2019; the proposed representative plaintiff factor weighed strongest in favour of the AH Action. All three actions took a similar approach to the cultural loss claim, so this factor did not distinguish them. However, their scope differed substantially. The DM Action was narrowly focused on cultural loss alone, the RT Action was extremely broad and subsumed cultural loss within many unrelated claims, and the AH Action occupied a middle ground by combining cultural loss with claims for physical, sexual, and emotional harm. Overall, the scope modestly weighed in favour of the AH Action.

The Court further found that although counsel to the DM Action had greater experience and resources than the other counsel involved, a conflict-of-interest finding was critical to that assessment.  In the circumstances, it was found that the AH Action was best suited to advance the interests of the proposed class, balancing comprehensiveness and efficiency. The DM Action was stayed due to the conflict of interest issue, and the RT Action was stayed to the extent it overlapped with the AH Action.