[1][2] This now includes having a key role in the annual Conflict Resolution Day, hosted on the third Thursday of every October since 2007, which seeks to promote awareness for the utility of ADR practices.
[12][13] Indigenous peoples from a number of tribes also have traditions that strongly relate to the principles adopted in community mediation and restorative justice, and have been practicing these extensively in Alberta for generations.
[14] Since the mid-1990s, the Judicial system in Alberta began to recognize the potential of ADR to alleviate the increasing strain on the courts caused by the public's expectation that trials and judges are the de facto approach dispute resolution.
As of September 1, 2019, the enforcement of mandatory alternative dispute resolution rules 8.4(3)(a) and 8.5(1)(a) will come into effect under a pilot project that aims to promote ADR use in the Court of Queens bench.
The rules state that parties pursuing civil and family law actions “will participate in at least one of the dispute resolution processes described in R. 4.16(1)[17] to be completed prior to trial.”[18] One of the first major inquiries into the use of ADR by the Government of Alberta came in the mid-1990s, in particular through the Interaction '96 (I'96) conference held in Edmonton in 1996.
[20] In 1998 AAMS, the foundation from which ADRIA would emerge, helped relevant stakeholders to create the Intermunicipal Dispute Resolution Initiative, which would come to provide the mediation services outlined in the 1999 Municipal Government Act amendment.
[11] Encapsulating a range of alternative dispute resolution methods, ADR has become increasingly adopted by a number of government and private entities across Alberta over the last two decades.
It aimed implement ADR mechanisms to help resolve landowner issues, through use of "company-sponsored consultations and negotiations, third-party mediation, company executive involvement, and EUB senior staff/Board Member assistance.