Premier Doug Ford’s government is fast-tracking seven bills in an effort to pass the legislation before MPPs break from sitting for the summer.
For six of them, the Progressive Conservatives have moved to significantly cut short leftover debate time, and skip committee reviews altogether. The seventh is Bill 5, which would give cabinet new "special economic zone" powers and more, which the PCs have moved to cut short debate on to get around opposition efforts to stall the controversial legislation.
Government house leader Steve Clark's plan will limit the remaining house debate on the bills to 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the bill, and speed through the voting process.
In explaining the decision, Clark said the government has decided these bills “are very important to us.”
“It's not uncommon that, either in a provincial legislature or the House of Commons, that after an election the government runs on a particular mandate, the government decides that they're going to prioritize certain things, that the government is going to move forward with (that) legislation.”
Here are the bills being pushed through the house:
Bill 24, the Plan to Protect Ontario Act
Bill 24 is associated with the province’s 2025 budget and includes a number of changes to laws governing highways and taxes, among other things.
Proposed changes to the Highway Traffic Act will allow bike lanes to be removed in Toronto to restore lanes to motor vehicles. It also requires municipalities to share information about automated speed enforcement systems or red light camera systems, and prohibits Toronto from tolling roadways.
The bill also reduces tax rates, markups and fees for alcohol, altering the basic tax rate for spirits and beer produced by microbreweries. More on that here.
There are also changes to the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit and the implementation of the Ontario fertility treatment tax credit.
The budget itself includes an $11-billion business-focused tariff relief package, up to $5 billion for a new Protecting Ontario Account, and another $5 billion for the province’s infrastructure bank. A breakdown of what’s in the budget can be found here.
Bill 10, the Protect Ontario Through Safer Streets and Stronger Communities Act
This bill is the Ford government’s suite of “tough on crime” measures, which includes amending regulations under Christopher’s Law, which established a sex offender registry, to include child sex traffickers.
It also creates an act to tackle human trafficking in hotels and short-term rentals, renews the province’s Anti-Human Trafficking Strategy, and makes changes to the Family Law Act and Children’s Law Reform Act to make restraining orders against intimate partner violence abusers more accessible.
The legislation allows the Solicitor General to expand the number of special constables — individuals who work outside of the police force in areas like transit enforcement, community housing and campus security — who can carry firearms. The province has said the focus of this addition is to make changes to Niagara Parks Commission special constables, but didn’t rule out further expansions.
Police would also get more authority to “search for and seize electronic devices that are intended to be used for vehicle theft.”
A full rundown of the bill can be found here.
Bill 11, the More Convenient Care Act
This legislation was first proposed in 2024 but died on the order paper when Premier Doug Ford called an election. It calls for the creation of a framework for staffing agencies in hospitals, long-term care, and community health sectors, requiring them to disclose administrative markup rates to the government.
This comes amid reports that the use of for-profit staffing agencies has skyrocketed amid worker shortages in the health-care sector.
The government said the information collected would be passed on to hospitals and long-term care homes so they can better bargain with agencies.
The bill also establishes a board of health for Hamilton, amends legislation to allow nurse practitioners to “perform many of the functions in the (Mandatory Blood Testing) Act that must currently be performed by physicians,” and works to modernize health records to allow Ontarians greater digital access to their medical history.
Bill 13, the Primary Care Act
This legislation aims to establish a “framework” for the province’s publicly-funded health-care system, including what people can “expect when accessing primary care services.”
The government said it would focus on six objectives, which includes ensuring OHIP patients have “the opportunity” to have a relationship with a primary care clinician or team; that they receive co-ordinated, inclusive and convenient health services; that patients have access to their personal health information through a digitally-integrated” system; and that the system respond to the needs of the communities.
The Primary Care Act also requires the minister of health to write and publish a report annually describing how the government is working to achieve its objective and the percentage of insured persons with an "ongoing relationship” with a primary-care provider.
Bill 6, the Safer Municipalities Act
This bill prohibits the consumption of illegal drugs in public spaces and changes Ontario’s trespass law to include higher fines if someone is deemed an “occupier” of a property.
It’s meant to crack down on homeless encampments, of which there are at least 703 as of March 2025, according to the government.
The bill would allow police to confront, arrest and fine anyone they suspect of using drugs in public, slapping fines up to $10,000 on people found to be breaking those laws. Those found guilty of breaking the drug consumption law could be sentenced to up to six months in jail.
It’s a retabling of legislation first introduced in December before the provincial election and has been highly criticized by opposition parties and advocacy groups that say the bill won’t help solve the chronic homelessness crisis in Ontario. Advocates held a protest against the bill at Queen's Park this week.
The bill comes at the behest of some Ontario mayors who asked the premier to help them move homeless people out of encampments, which have been set up in public parks.
Bill 17, the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act
This is the government’s annual housing bill, meant to speed up construction of transit, roads and homes.
The legislation proposes to eliminate municipal building codes like the Toronto Green Standard — which offers reduced development charges to builders who meet environmental goals — as well as limit municipalities’ use of inclusionary zoning and restrict the percentage of units that must be affordable to five per cent.
It also makes changes to development charges, giving builders the ability to defer payment to when a unit is occupied as opposed to when a permit is issued. It also allows developers to use credits from one type of infrastructure work to offset those for other projects and allows the province to define what kinds of infrastructure can be funded using those fees.
Long-term care homes are exempt from development charges under the new legislation.
More on the housing legislation can be found here.
Bonus fast-tracked bill: Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act
Debate on this bill isn't being curtailed as severely as debate on the others, but the government has filed a notice of its intent to cut the remainder of the debate short on the most fiercely opposed legislation that it's tabled since winning re-election a few months ago.
Bill 5 would give the provincial cabinet the power to designate an area a “special economic zone,” and then exempt selected proponents and projects from requirements under any provincial law or regulation, including bylaws of municipalities and local boards, that would otherwise apply.
It also proposes to speed up approvals for mining projects through a “one-window” approach, ends an environmental assessment for a controversial dump expansion in Dresden, Ont., replaces the province's Endangered Species Act with legislation that environmental groups argue offers far weaker protections, and empowers cabinet to exempt projects from archeological assessment requirements — which Indigenous leaders have warned puts sacred sites at risk.
The government has given notice of a motion to cut short debate at committee, prevent the opposition parties from waging another filibuster like the one that derailed this week's hearing. After the committee stage, there will be one hour of debate in the house, and the bill will go to a final vote, which is very likely to pass, given the strong PC majority.
