Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Tervita Corporation's claims against Spectra Energy Midstream Corporation and the Troyer Defendants were found to be statute-barred under section 6(1) of the Limitation Act.
   
• Central to the dispute was whether commencing an unserved Alberta action within the two-year limitation period preserved a later-filed British Columbia claim.
   
• Justice Hamilton rejected Tervita's argument that the Alberta Action qualified as the operative "court proceeding" for the purposes of the BC claim.
   
• Both the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act and the Court of Appeal's reasoning in Oldcastle Building Products Canada Inc v. Division 8 Consulting Corp. were considered and distinguished.
   
• No transfer application was ever brought to move the Alberta Action into the BC court system.
   
• Summary trial was found suitable given the largely uncontroverted factual record, leading to dismissal of the Notice of Civil Claim.
   

Facts of the case

Tervita Corporation operates a waste disposal facility near Fort St. John, British Columbia, while Spectra Energy Midstream Corporation operates a nearby gas plant. Troyer Ventures Ltd., along with its employees Gerry Robertson and Leland Charron, provided transportation services to Spectra. On September 10, 2013, Troyer transported waste materials from Spectra's gas plant to Tervita's facility for disposal. Spectra had prepared a manifest describing the materials as relatively non-flammable, but this description was inaccurate — the materials were in fact flammable. Relying on the manifest, the Troyer Defendants unloaded the waste in the open air rather than through a pipe, which would have been standard practice for flammable materials. The vaporization of the flammable waste caused an explosion and fire at Tervita's facility. Following investigations by Tervita, the RCMP, Transportation Canada, and WorkSafeBC, Tervita acknowledged that it had discovered its claims against all defendants by no later than September 20, 2013.

Tervita commenced an action in the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench on September 8, 2015, making claims identical to those later advanced in British Columbia, but never served that action on any defendant. On September 2, 2016, Tervita obtained a three-month extension to serve the Alberta Action, extending the deadline to December 8, 2016, yet still did not serve it. Not until January 17, 2024 did Tervita seek a further extension of time to serve, and the Alberta Court dismissed that application on August 28, 2024, effectively ending the Alberta Action. Meanwhile, Tervita filed its BC Notice of Civil Claim on September 25, 2015, serving Spectra and Troyer on September 6, 2016, and the individual Troyer Defendants on or about September 19, 2016. Spectra and the Troyer Defendants each pleaded a limitation defence and applied to dismiss the claims against them.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The central provision was section 6(1) of the Limitation Act, S.B.C. 2012, c. 13, which provides that "a court proceeding in respect of a claim must not be commenced more than 2 years after the day on which the claim is discovered." Tervita argued that because "court proceeding" is undefined and not expressly limited to BC proceedings, its timely-filed Alberta Action satisfied this requirement even though the BC claim was filed outside the two-year window. Tervita also invoked section 23 of the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act, S.B.C. 2003, c. 28, which allows a proceeding transferred to the BC Supreme Court from an out-of-province court to be treated, for limitation purposes, as having been commenced on the date it was originally filed in the transferring court — provided the transferring court had territorial and subject matter competence at the time of transfer.

Reasoning and analysis

Justice Hamilton first found that a summary trial was suitable, since the facts were largely uncontroverted, a conventional trial would be costly and unnecessary on this issue, and no injustice would result from resolving the limitation question this way. Turning to the merits, the court agreed with the parties that "court proceeding" under section 6(1) is not confined to BC proceedings, since BC's Limitation Act can sometimes govern claims litigated elsewhere. However, the court held that this principle did not assist Tervita, because there was no authority supporting the proposition that a separate, unserved out-of-province action commenced within the limitation period preserves a later, distinct BC action commenced after the limitation period expired. The court distinguished Oldcastle Building Products Canada Inc v. Division 8 Consulting Corp., 2026 BCCA 223, noting that the passage relied on by Tervita concerned filing a separate action to preserve a limitation period before it expired — not reviving a claim after expiry.

The court also held that Tervita could not rely on section 23 of the CJPTA absent an actual application to transfer the Alberta Action to British Columbia, which Tervita never brought and which would, in any event, have required demonstrating the Alberta court's territorial and subject matter competence. Finally, the court rejected Tervita's submission that dismissal would undermine the policy objectives of limitation law identified in Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v. Green, 2015 SCC 60 — namely certainty, fairness to defendants, and diligence by plaintiffs. The court found Tervita had not been diligent, having filed two actions but served neither within the applicable limitation period, and having waited years before taking further steps in Alberta. The court also rejected Tervita's suggestion that the defendants bore any responsibility for the failure to serve the Alberta Action.

Ruling and overall outcome

The court concluded that Tervita's claims against Spectra and the Troyer Defendants were statute-barred, as the Notice of Civil Claim was not filed within two years of the claims being discovered, and the unserved Alberta Action did not preserve the claim. Accordingly, the applications by Spectra Energy Midstream Corporation and the Troyer Defendants (Troyer Ventures Ltd., Gerry Robertson, and Leland Charron) — the successful parties — were granted, and all claims against them were dismissed. No monetary award, damages, or costs were ordered in this decision; the court noted only that counsel had not specifically addressed costs and left the parties at liberty to request a brief appearance if they could not agree.