Since the 1970s, Canadian legislative and judicial attitudes have shifted towards a much greater acceptance of dispute resolution outside of the courts. Arbitration of commercial disputes is now at least as popular as litigation in Canada. A significant reason for this cultural and attitudinal shift has been an increasing willingness on the part of Canadian courts to give effect to contracting parties’ wishes to have their disputes resolved through the arbitral process. At the same time, the courts have also been careful not to impose arbitration proceedings in circumstances where the contractual language does not support such an outcome. Against that backdrop, in this article we address two specific areas of interest: (i) stays of judicial proceedings in favour of arbitration; and (ii) arbitrators’ competence as to their own jurisdiction.

In addition, the following items are discussed:

• Stays of judicial proceedings in favour of arbitration
• Jurisdiction of the arbitrator

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