Ontario bills

Ontario's 2025 budget implementation bill makes wide-ranging changes including cutting fuel and gasoline tax rates, eliminating provincial tax on propane, reducing liquor taxes for microbrewers and distillery retail stores, creating a new fertility treatment tax credit, increasing securities and commodity futures penalties, restricting municipal toll highways and bicycle lanes in Toronto, and regulating municipal automated camera enforcement systems.

This Ontario bill overhauls the province's emergency management framework by modernizing governance structures, creating a Commissioner of Emergency Management and 'Ontario Corps,' requiring updated emergency management plans from municipalities and critical infrastructure operators, and giving the Minister of Community and Social Services new power to issue binding directives and compliance orders to publicly-funded social service providers.

This Ontario bill amends the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, 2006 to create two new classes of provincial parks — Adventure Class Parks (for activities like rock climbing, mountain biking, and motorized off-road vehicles) and Urban Class Parks (for nature-based recreation near urban centres) — and classifies Charleston Lake Provincial Park and Uxbridge Urban Provincial Park under these new categories.

This Ontario bill modernizes wildfire management by renaming and expanding the Forest Fires Prevention Act, creates a new regulatory framework for underground geologic carbon dioxide storage, strengthens the Minister's powers to address hazardous oil and gas wells, and updates the Surveyors Act to introduce new licence categories and streamline professional governance.

This Ontario bill establishes a provincial homelessness elimination strategy aiming to end homelessness within 10 years, requiring the government to build data systems, increase affordable housing, invest in supportive housing, and create an advisory committee and annual public reporting on progress.

This Ontario bill proclaims the first week of June each year as Extreme Heat Awareness Week, requires the provincial government to publish extreme heat preparedness information online, and mandates that this information be included with municipal property tax bills sent to taxpayers.

Ontario's Working for Workers Seven Act, 2025 amends multiple statutes to strengthen workplace safety enforcement through new administrative penalties, require job posting platforms to address fraudulent listings, create job seeking leave for mass-terminated employees, allow extended lay-offs by agreement, reimburse certain employers for defibrillator costs, streamline planning approvals for skills training facilities, and increase penalties for WSIB violations.

This bill amends Ontario's Marriage Act to allow Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) to officially solemnize marriages after giving written notice to the Minister, with that authority continuing for 12 months after they leave office.

This bill amends Ontario's Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act to create a beverage container deposit-return program, requiring minimum deposits of 10 cents (containers ≤1 litre) and 25 cents (containers >1 litre), and mandating that grocery stores and Beer Store locations serve as collection depots where consumers can return containers for refunds.

This Ontario bill increases provincial ministerial oversight of children's aid societies, school boards, and post-secondary institutions by expanding investigation and intervention powers, requiring new audit and compliance structures for school boards, mandating merit-based admissions and research security plans at colleges and universities, and broadening Ombudsman functions for child and youth services.

This Ontario bill reinstates pensions for Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) by enrolling them in the Public Service Pension Plan and establishing a supplemental pension plan, while also lifting the salary freeze that has been in place since 2009 and adding a salary premium for the Government House Leader.

This Ontario bill creates a mandatory licensing scheme for operating zoos and keeping wild animals in captivity, establishing standards of care, annual inspections, enforcement powers, and penalties for non-compliance.

This Ontario bill amends the Occupational Health and Safety Act to require the Minister to develop a Worker Heat Protection Standard, mandating employers to implement heat stress controls, provide training, supply cool drinking water and protective equipment, and compensate workers for all rest breaks and training time related to heat stress.

This Ontario bill proclaims the fourth week in March as Flooding Awareness Week and requires the provincial government to publish flood preparedness information online, while also mandating that municipalities include flood awareness materials with every property tax bill sent to taxpayers.

This Ontario bill restricts the provincial government's ability to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, limiting its use to urgent situations where a court has already found a Charter violation, requiring an Attorney General's justification report and a two-thirds legislative majority for passage.

This Ontario bill overhauls energy regulation to prioritize economic growth, introduces new connection requirements for data centres and other large electricity users seeking grid access, allows public funding of electricity transmission costs to reduce rates, streamlines municipal utility franchise approvals by removing voter assent requirements, and adds foreign procurement restrictions for energy sector companies.

This Ontario bill requires the provincial government to ensure 9-1-1 service infrastructure reaches all areas of Ontario, mandates compatible computer-aided dispatch systems across emergency services by December 2026, and imposes staffing, training, and operational requirements on 9-1-1 call centres while creating an Assistant Ombudsman to oversee 9-1-1 operations.

This Ontario bill requires the provincial government to formally recognize that correctional facilities are not appropriate for people experiencing mental health crises and that mental illness should not be criminalized. It is a declaratory act inspired by the coroner's inquest into the death of Soleiman Faqiri, who died while in custody awaiting psychiatric evaluation.

This bill proclaims the week beginning on the third Monday in September each year as Consent Awareness Week in Ontario, aiming to promote public understanding and practice of consent, particularly in post-secondary institutions and workplaces.

This Ontario bill requires hospitals and long-term care homes to develop plans to phase out the use of healthcare staffing agencies within 24 months, mandates that new staffing agencies operate as not-for-profits, caps agency worker pay at 10% above facility rates, bans poaching of facility employees, and subjects agencies receiving over $400,000 from the Ontario government to enhanced oversight and Sunshine List disclosure.