Technical Amendments
To improve administrative effectiveness or enforcement, maintain the integrity and equity of Ontario’s tax and revenue collection system, or enhance legislative clarity, or regulatory flexibility to preserve policy intent, amendments will be proposed to various statutes administered by the Minister of Finance.
In addition, amendments would be proposed to other statutes to improve administrative effectiveness or enforcement, or enhance legislative clarity or regulatory flexibility to preserve policy intent, including:
- Alcohol and Gaming Regulation and Public Protection Act, 1996
- City of Toronto Act, 2006
- Cutting Unnecessary Red Tape Act, 2017
- Early Childhood Educators Act, 2007
- Labour Relations Act, 1995
- Law Society Act
- Municipal Act, 2001
- Municipal Tax Assistance Act
- Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1996
- Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997
Other Legislative Initiatives
Additional proposed legislative initiatives include:
- The government intends to amend the Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, 2015, to further harmonize Ontario’s Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) legislation with the federal Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act. The proposed amendments would incorporate the federal process for entering into or amending an existing agreement set out in the federal Act.
- Amendments to the Pension Benefits Act to facilitate partial asset transfer between plans in the Ontario Public Sector (OPS) and commuted value transfers arising as a result of reorganizations and divestments.
- Amendments to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997, to specify additional cohorts of workers (nurses who directly provide patient care, provincial bailiffs, probation and parole officers and their managers, special constables, and civilian officers in Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS) forensic units) to whom the existing statutory presumption for post-traumatic stress disorder would apply. The amendments would apply prospectively and to any claims and appeals pending at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and Appeals Tribunal on the day that the 2018 Budget bill receives Royal Assent.
- Amendments to the Labour Relations Act, 1995, to respond to the expert advice provided to the government regarding concrete formwork in the construction industry. The amendments would enable the Minister of Labour to amend exclusions to certain designations made pursuant to the provisions in the Act related to the industrial, commercial and institutional sector of the construction industry, to limit the application of those exclusions to certain geographic areas. The amendments would also include adding to the Act, a specific suite of provisions addressing concrete formwork in southwestern Ontario for certain bargaining agents. Amendments to the Labour Relations Act, 1995, to extend an existing provision that limits the imposition of a trusteeship (or other interference that affects a trade union’s autonomy) by a parent trade union over its local union(s) where there is no just cause to do so, which currently applies only to the construction industry, to all unions covered by the Act.
- Amendments to the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act to make the Act apply in respect of Canadian Blood Services. The effect would be that strikes and lockouts would be prohibited, and disputes that could not be resolved at the bargaining table would be referred to a fair and neutral interest arbitration process for resolution.
- Amendments to the City of Toronto Act, 2006, to extend the deadline to June 30, 2018, for the City of Toronto to pass a by-law to change its council composition for the 2018 municipal election.
- Proposed amendments to the Education Act regarding education services and reverse education services agreements to enable a new Reciprocal Education Approach. The approach is intended to improve access for First Nation students to both Provincially funded schools and schools operated by First Nations. Amendment to permit the Lieutenant Governor in Council to make regulations to flow legislative grants to school boards for the purpose of promoting the use of school facilities by community groups.
- Amendments to the Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1996, and the Early Childhood Educators Act, 2007, to expand the colleges’ investigation and discipline practices and procedures for matters respecting sexual abuse and incapacity, and to require the colleges to establish and administer funding for therapy and counselling for students or children who are the subject of alleged sexual abuse or a prohibited act involving child pornography by a member.
- Amendments to the Law Society Act to change the Law Society’s name from the “Law Society of Upper Canada” to the “Law Society of Ontario” and to recognize paralegals as officers of the court in all courts in which they are authorized to provide legal services. Consequential amendments would also be made to various statutes.
- Amendments to the Solicitors Act to remove the prohibition against including legal costs in a contingency fee agreement without court approval, and to apply contingency fee regulation to paralegals as it currently applies to lawyers.
- Amendment of two subsections of the Climate Change Mitigation and Low-carbon Economy Act, 2016, with respect to the reimbursement of expenditures incurred by the Crown for the purposes of funding initiatives that are reasonably likely to reduce or support the reduction of greenhouse gas.