Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• This case concerns a certified class action in which Facebook users in Quebec allege they were excluded from receiving employment and housing advertisements on Facebook due to their race, sex, or age.
• At issue is whether Meta Platforms, Inc. and Facebook Canada Ltd. violated the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms through discriminatory advertising targeting practices.
• Central to the procedural dispute is whether the defendants may examine ten class members prior to trial under article 587 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
• The defendants argued that the plaintiff representative, Lyse Beaulieu, could not adequately illuminate key common questions of law and fact, citing memory difficulties and limited personal Facebook job-search activity.
• The court found that member examinations are an exception to the rule protecting class member anonymity and are only permitted where they would be useful to decide common questions.
• Applying that standard, the court determined that pre-trial examination of class members was unnecessary and that the evidence gaps identified by the defendants could be addressed through other means at trial.

Facts of the case

Lyse Beaulieu commenced a class action against Meta Platforms, Inc. and Facebook Canada Ltd. on behalf of all Quebec Facebook users who, between April 11, 2016 and December 22, 2022, were excluded from receiving employment or housing advertisements on Facebook due to their race, sex, or age. The Quebec Court of Appeal authorized the class action on December 22, 2022 (2022 QCCA 1736), reversing a Quebec Superior Court decision that had originally refused authorization. The Supreme Court of Canada subsequently declined to hear the defendants' leave to appeal application on August 31, 2023. Beaulieu filed her introductory motion in the class action on November 30, 2023, seeking moral and punitive damages as well as an injunction. She was examined on discovery on September 23, 2025, and produced hundreds of documents to the defendants through pre-undertakings and undertakings.

Policy terms and contractual clauses at issue

The authorized common questions focus on whether Facebook's advertising services permitted or facilitated the distribution of job and housing ads in a manner that preferentially excluded certain users based on race, sex, or age, in violation of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The questions also address whether the defendants are liable for moral damages resulting from those violations, whether punitive damages should be awarded, and whether an injunction should issue requiring them to cease discriminatory advertising targeting practices. These questions were authorized collectively by the Court of Appeal, which also determined that causation between the alleged exclusion and the alleged harm would be addressed on a collective basis (paras. 56–59 of the Court of Appeal's decision).

Reasoning and analysis

The defendants sought permission under article 587 of the Code of Civil Procedure to conduct pre-trial examinations of ten class members, arguing that Beaulieu's own examination had exposed significant gaps: she had never personally used Facebook to search for employment, could not recall any advertisements she received during the class period, had memory difficulties, and her individual claim did not address all grounds of exclusion covered by the class definition. The defendants contended that this rendered member examinations both useful and necessary to establish the existence and nature of damages, causation, and whether collective recovery was possible.

The court rejected each of these arguments. It clarified that the class definition authorized by the Court of Appeal does not require members to have actively used Facebook to search for jobs or housing — it encompasses all Quebec Facebook users who were looking for employment or housing, or who were interested in such advertisements, irrespective of how they conducted their search. The court further noted that it is entirely expected that class members would not know what advertisements they failed to receive as a result of discriminatory targeting, since only the defendants possess data on what proportion of job and housing ads on Facebook Canada during the class period included such targeting. The court also observed that a representative plaintiff's failure to recall specific advertisements does not address whether systemic discriminatory practices occurred, and that the representative's personal claim need not expressly invoke every possible ground of exclusion. Relying on the Court of Appeal's authorization decision, the court confirmed that causation and the appropriate remedies, including damages, would be resolved collectively at trial rather than through individual member examinations. It also held, citing Henry c. Procureur général du Québec (2026 QCCS 194, para. 63), that pre-trial examination of individual class members is inappropriate in claims for moral and punitive damages arising from systemic rights violations. Finally, the court observed that given the potentially very large size of the group, examining ten members would not produce testimony meaningfully more representative of the class than that of the plaintiff herself.

Ruling and overall outcome

The court dismissed the defendants' motion for permission to examine ten class members, finding that such examinations would not be useful for deciding the common questions at issue. The plaintiff, Lyse Beaulieu, was the successful party on this motion. The court ordered costs in her favour; however, the judgment does not specify the exact monetary amount of those costs.