Ontario court refuses to certify SiriusXM subscription-fee class action

An Ontario judge has refused to certify a proposed class action over SiriusXM subscription fees, finding that the claims as pleaded could not succeed under provincial consumer-protection law or unjust enrichment.

In Weinstein v. Sirius XM Canada Inc., 2026 ONSC 5805, released October 14, 2026, Justice E.M. Morgan of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed Matthew Weinstein's certification motion against Sirius XM Canada Inc. and Sirius XM Canada Holdings Inc. Costs were left for written submissions.

The decision prevents the proposed case from moving forward as a class proceeding on its existing pleading. It was not a judgment after a trial, and it did not decide a federal Competition Act claim on its merits. That distinction matters because federal law specifically addresses drip pricing, while the remaining lawsuit depended on different statutory and equitable claims.

The subscription fee at issue

Weinstein alleged that a mandatory Music Royalty and Administration Fee increased subscription costs by six to 20 per cent above advertised base prices. He argued that the advertising was misleading and that notices about the fee falsely suggested it was government-mandated.

The proposed class covered consumers across Canada, excluding Quebec, who bought a SiriusXM plan with music channels and were charged the fee between March 1, 2010, and July 18, 2024. It excluded business purchases.

But the pleading did not allege that SiriusXM charged more than customers ultimately agreed to pay, failed to deliver the contracted services, or breached the subscription agreement. Morgan recorded that Weinstein conceded the full price, including the fee and taxes, was disclosed and accepted before purchase, and that he received the services he bought.

Why the remaining legal claims failed

Certification has five statutory requirements. The first asks whether the pleading discloses a legally viable cause of action. At this stage, that issue is assessed from the pleading rather than by requiring the plaintiff to prove the case through evidence. A claim fails if it is plain and obvious that it cannot succeed.

The original pleading had included a Competition Act claim. SiriusXM relied on an arbitration clause in the subscription agreement and moved against that claim; the plaintiff ultimately consented to an order removing it. Ontario's Consumer Protection Act protects consumers' ability to pursue claims under that statute despite an arbitration agreement, so the revised pleading instead advanced provincial consumer-protection claims and unjust enrichment.

For the Ontario price-misrepresentation claim, Morgan examined the advertising descriptions and materials incorporated into the pleading. Base prices were accompanied by asterisks or references to additional fees, taxes or offer details, with the full amount payable set out elsewhere in the materials. His conclusion was that the representations, read with those disclosures, were not false or misleading.

Weinstein argued that this was a novel consumer-protection claim that should proceed to trial, and that displaying the extra charges less prominently than the base price was misleading. Morgan rejected those arguments. He relied on earlier decisions about the overall impression of advertising and readable qualifications, and distinguished cases involving pricing information that had not been disclosed at all.

The reasoning was tied to the pleaded materials and the legal claims before the court. It does not establish that fine print always cures misleading advertising.

A different federal rule, and a separate enforcement agreement

Morgan expressly distinguished amendments made to the Competition Act in 2022 that deem specified drip-pricing representations false or misleading. He said Ontario's Consumer Protection Act did not contain an equivalent provision. The specific federal rule therefore could not simply be imported into the provincial claim.

There had also been a separate regulatory outcome. In a June 5, 2024 announcement, the Competition Bureau said its investigation concluded SiriusXM advertised unattainable subscription prices outside Quebec because of a mandatory additional fee. Under an agreement registered with the Competition Tribunal, SiriusXM agreed to pay a $3.3-million penalty and $30,000 in investigation costs, stop the challenged pricing practices and improve its compliance procedures.

That federal enforcement agreement is distinct from the private certification motion decided by Morgan. His reasons identify July 18, 2024, as the date the challenged pricing representations ended under the consent arrangement, not as a date when the subscription fee itself was abolished.

Other provinces, fee explanations and the contract

The claims under other provinces' consumer-protection legislation faced an additional problem. Morgan identified reliance as a necessary element under the legislation invoked in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The pleading did not allege that class members in those provinces relied on the challenged representations.

The judge also rejected the allegation that SiriusXM misrepresented the fee's purpose. He read the notices incorporated into the pleading as explaining that the company introduced the fee in response to royalty obligations, with subsequent increases reflecting content, licensing, regulatory and administrative costs. He did not accept that those notices represented the fee itself as a government-imposed charge.

Unjust enrichment failed for a separate reason: the subscription agreement supplied a legal basis for retaining the payments. Such a claim requires an enrichment, a corresponding loss and no legal justification for the transfer. Weinstein did not challenge the contract's validity or seek to undo it; he sought recovery of the additional fee while keeping the subscription services.

Morgan also considered the arbitration clause an obstacle to the unjust-enrichment claim. He noted that no motion to stay that claim had been brought and that it remained exposed to such a motion. The judgment did not make a new stay order on that basis.

Other certification requirements were considered only in the alternative

Although the failure to plead a viable cause of action was decisive, Morgan reviewed the remaining certification requirements in case they needed future consideration.

On the assumption that the legal defects could be overcome, he found an identifiable class, suitable common issues and an adequate representative plaintiff and litigation plan. He also accepted that a class proceeding would be preferable because the amounts at stake for individual subscribers were too small to justify separate litigation.

His alternative discussion included the proposed method for calculating damages across the class. He said disputes about that method did not need to be resolved at certification. None of those observations certified a class, established a right to refunds or sent the case to trial: the motion was dismissed because the first mandatory requirement was not met.