Arbitration is intended to be an efficient non-judicial means for resolving disputes by a mutually acceptable third-party. It is not surprising, therefore, that the legislative framework for arbitrations provides only limited rights of appeal to the courts from an arbitration award. This gives rise to two questions: (1) Is an appeal available? and (2) if so, what standard of review should the court apply? The answers to these questions have been in a state of flux since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Sattva in 2016 and Vavilov in 2019. The purpose of this presentation is to examine these issues.
This paper is written for the Western Canada Commercial Arbitration Society’s Education Meeting, November 21 – 22, 2025.