Bill 227, the Cutting Red Tape, Building Ontario Act, which received royal assent on Dec. 4, contains over 60 new initiatives aimed at improving services and keeping costs down, including the reduction of administrative requirements for brownfield development to help accelerate the building of new homes, speeding up operations at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) and proposals aimed at making it easier for building officials to work across provincial boundaries.
Mike Harris, Ontario’s minister of red tape reduction, said red tape has “long hindered productivity and economic growth in Ontario.”
“Thanks to the actions taken by our government since 2018, our red tape reduction measures have lowered costs, improved services and supported economic recovery, all while maintaining essential safety and environmental standards,” he said. “Our most recent red tape package includes new initiatives that would provide an additional $20 million in cost savings and more than 56,000 hours in time saved per year. This will continue to make life easier and more affordable, strengthen Ontario’s standing in the global economy and create the conditions for people and businesses to thrive.”
The legislation marks the 14th red tape reduction package introduced by the Ontario government since 2018.
Julie Kwiecinski, director of provincial affairs for Ontario at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), said “unnecessary, excessive, and duplicative” paperwork costs businesses and people valuable time and money that could be better spent on job creation and families.
“We commend the Ontario government for remaining laser-focused on reducing regulatory burdens for businesses — and now also individuals — through the consistent introduction of two red tape reduction packages every year,” she said. “Regulation disproportionately impacts smaller businesses, because they don’t have compliance or human resources departments to do the work of following government rules.”
Specifically, the bill amends the Residential Tenancies Act and the Statutory Powers Procedure Act to increase efficiencies at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), which has faced a massive backlog of cases over the past few years. The new rules give the board chair the ability to set deadlines for LTB panels to make decisions and assign decisions to other panels if decisions are not being made in time, while also saying an error in the contents of a form, notice or document still constitutes substantial compliance with the Residential Tenancy Act’s requirements, as long as the error does not significantly prejudice a party’s ability to participate in a proceeding.
Laura Gurr, managing partner of Cohen Highley LLP in London, Ont., said the delay at the LTB is a key contributor to the increase in the price of rental housing, and the changes have the potential to have a big impact.
“For tenants and smaller landlords — and even large corporate landlords — you can have an error in the forms that wouldn’t prejudice the other party, but after waiting eight or 10 months for a hearing date you might have to start at the beginning,” she said. “So I’m hopeful that this will reduce some of those delays because we are seeing applications either being dismissed or not moving forward because of that non-substantial error.”
As part of the bill, Ontario is exploring the feasibility of making arrangements with one or more registered consumer reporting agencies to facilitate access to LTB orders where tenants have a history of missed payments. It also gives homeowners more flexibility and design options for building a variety of additional residential units, including garden suites, laneway homes and basement apartments by reducing the need for landowners to obtain a rezoning or minor variance prior to construction.
Ray Mikkola, Pallett Valo LLP
“Residential landlords are dependent on a quick and effective application to a tribunal, which could order an end to a tenancy and a requirement to vacate property — but if you can’t get that tribunal to give you the relief you need, people who depend on rental income are going to run out of money,” he said. “Things like that have a knock-on effect for homeowners who are thinking about making their homes available to tenants.”
Real estate professionals with clients who are buying a single-family residential dwelling should understand how easy it would be to construct a garden or a laneway suite on the property, said Mikkola.
“That may be more and more what purchases of expensive properties in Toronto and the like are looking at, in terms of getting some additional type of income,” he said. “Lawyers would want to familiarize themselves with that issue. But there’s nothing here that is a game changer — it’s more about the next step in the process of attempting to reduce regulations.”
Bill 227 also amends the Environmental Protection Act to reduce record of site condition registration requirements for the redevelopment of certain “lower risk” brownfield sites while “continuing to ensure that the health and safety of people and the environment are protected.” The province’s excess soil regulation has also been amended to make it easier and more affordable for municipalities and businesses in the construction industry to reuse more excess soil excavated from construction sites and infrastructure projects.
The legislation also streamlines environmental permissions for certain stormwater management works, construction-related water takings, residential geothermal systems, on-site sewage systems and aggregate washing systems to allow municipalities and businesses to self-register these projects online on the environmental activity and sector registry, instead of applying for a traditional environmental permission that can take up to a year to obtain.
But Mikkola said he is concerned the risk to people’s health and safety might be increased now that the requirements for brownfield development have been reduced.
“When it comes to health and safety of people in the environment, there’s no bright line test. You have to satisfy this, and if you do, everybody’s perfectly safe — and if you don’t, then obviously there’s going to be significant impacts on the environment and people’s health and safety,” he said. “So, every time we reduce requirements for brownfield development it seems to me that we increase the risk that somebody is going to suffer a health problem or there’ll be a safety issue where the environment will be impacted.”
Bill 227 also has a number of provisions related to the administration of the justice system, such as amendments to the Family Law Act allowing parties to a family arbitration award for support to file it in the courts for enforcement, a change to the Juries Act authorizing the Minister of Health to include the year of birth for prospective jurors in the jury source list and no longer requiring the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) to table its annual report in the legislature.
More information about Ontario’s red tape reduction initiatives can be found here.
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