On February 16, 2021, Bill 245, the Accelerating Access to Justice Act, 2021 (“Bill 245” or the “Bill”), was introduced by the Ontario government to “improve access to justice for people across the system.[1] This is a substantial omnibus Bill, containing 11 schedules. It proposes to amend over 100 statutes. The Bill’s objective is to modernize processes in the province’s courts and tribunals. Attorney General Doug Downey stated that, “justice accelerated is justice delivered.” [2] The Minister went on to say that creating a single land tribunal to adjudicate matters relating to land will “allow people with applications to move faster, to get answers faster, to allow things to move forward more efficiently.” [3]
Bill 245 received second reading on March 2, 2021 and was referred to the Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly.
If enacted, Bill 245 will make the most sweeping changes to the expropriation process in Ontario in a generation. The major proposed changes, contained in Schedules 5 and 6 of the Bill, are as follows:
- The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (the “LPAT”), the Board of Negotiation (the “BoN”) and the other member tribunals of the Ontario Land Tribunals cluster (the “Cluster”) are amalgamated and continued as the Ontario Land Tribunal (the “OLT”);
- The Consolidated Hearings Act [4] is to be repealed and a new consolidated hearings process is proposed in section 21 of the proposed Ontario Land Tribunals Act, 2021 (the “OLTA”);
- Hearings of Necessity will be heard by the OLT and may be eliminated in specific situations or in general by future regulation; and
- The statutory 6% interest rate is repealed and is to be replaced by an annual rate to be set out in a future regulation.
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