OTTAWA – 30 December 2024 – The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) today published its comprehensive report on consumer liability waivers. The report details the use of such waivers by businesses, largely in the sports, recreation and tourism industries against consumers pursuing otherwise well-founded legal actions for negligence for harms they suffer in such activities.
“Consumer liability waivers remove the right of nearly all Canadians to seek appropriate legal redress when they are injured or even killed while skiing, hiking, ziplining, trampolining, rock climbing and nearly every other type of recreational activity,” said John Lawford, Special Counsel to PIAC and co-author of the report. “In my over twenty years of advocacy I have never seen such an egregious and unnecessary tilting of the playing field against consumers,” he added.
PIAC’s report details how the law in all of Canada’s ‘common law’ based provinces (with the notable exception of Québec) and territories allow companies offering recreational, sporting and tourism services to completely disclaim any legal liability and possible payment of damages or other compensation to their customers, by use of a signed waiver or even a posted notice, even if the company is negligent and even if it admits its own failure to follow safe practice.
The report outlines the long and twisted history of the liability waivers in Canadian law, the banning of such waivers in many other countries, including the United Kingdom, upon which Canadian ‘common law’ and many statutes are based, and possible reforms to both the law and the regulation of the main sporting, recreational and tourism industries to ensure appropriate consumer compensation for injuries and fatalities suffered in these sectors.
A copy of the report, “Consumer Liability Waivers – An Accident Waiting to Happen?”, is available from the PIAC website. A French translation of an abridged version of the report is in preparation and will be posted as soon as it is available.
For more information, please contact:
John Lawford
Special Counsel to PIAC
Public Interest Advocacy Centre
(613) 562-4002
jlawford@piac.ca
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