Ontario Bill 23
Ontario Bill 23 – More Homes Faster Act –Will Have a Devasting Impact on Ontario’s Heritage Places
Passed into law on November 28 after barely a month’s consideration, this sprawling Act, which claims to slash through the “red tape” in 10 existing Provincial Acts in order to create 1.5 million new Ontario homes in 10 years, drastically under-cuts heritage protection tools in the Ontario Heritage Act. Key impacts of the More Homes Faster Act will be to choke off the protection of new heritage places by making designation criteria much more challenging, and curtail the identification of places with “heritage potential” by imposing a 2-year limit on their inclusion on municipal Heritage Registers (an official inventory).
The new Act also strikes devastating blows to natural heritage conservation in Ontario – for instance opening-up the Greenbelt around Toronto to housing development – and has drawn the ire of stakeholders as diverse as the Chiefs of Ontario, ACORN Canada, Ontario Nature, and Association of Municipalities Ontario.
Read the official response from the four national heritage conservation NGOs – Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals, Indigenous Heritage Circle, ICOMOS Canada, and National Trust for Canada:
See a round-up of the detailed issues key provincial heritage actors like Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, Ontario Association of Heritage Professionals, and Ontario Historical Society have identified in the new Act.
Bill 23: ACO’s Press Conference, November 22 2022
ACO Comments on Bill 23
Petition: Stop the attack on heritage: Kill Bill 23!
OAHP/CAHP Submission: Proposed Changes to the Ontario Heritage Act and its regulations: Bill 23 (Schedule 6)
Ontario Historical Society Written Submission to the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy
Shared Path PPC Comments on Proposed Bill 23 (Schedule 6) – the Proposed More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022
The proposed changes to the OHA and its regulations have been posted on the ERO here: https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6196.
For Reference: Provincial / Territorial Heritage Legislation Comparison Chart (2015)
