Ontario Government Introduces the 'Get It Done' Act

Today, the Ford government resumed the legislative session by tabling a bill that invokes the 2022 campaign promise to Get It Done. This legislation is the most recent example of the government supporting its priorities of creating jobs and building housing and infrastructure.

The Honourable Prabmeet Sarkaria, Minister of Transportation, introduced The Get It Done Act, an election-style omnibus bill that focuses on issues important to voters including reducing gridlock, building critical infrastructure and homes faster, and keeping costs down for businesses and families.  

Key proposed measures announced as part of the Get It Done Act include:

• Banning new tolls on provincial highways including Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway, as well as the province’s 400-series highways.  
• Making the current freeze on driver’s licenses and Ontario Photo Card fees permanent and automating the license plate renewal process starting this summer.  
• Requiring the Ontario government to obtain the consent of Ontario voters by first holding a referendum before implementing a new provincial carbon pricing program.  
• Designating the Hazel McCallion Light Rail Transit Line Extensions as a priority transit project under the Building Transit Faster Act, 2020.
• Changes to the Environmental Assessment Act, that would make it clearer for municipalities, provincial ministries and agencies that expropriation is one of the ways property can be acquired for a project before the EA process is completed.
• Moving more projects to a streamlined environmental assessment process that would help get critical infrastructure such as highways, railways and transmission lines built faster.  
• Begin consultations, including with municipal partners on a new streamlined process for certain municipal water, shoreline and sewage system projects to help accelerate project planning by limiting the process to six months from 18 months or more.
• Exploring opportunities to improve the permitting process for mine development and operation to help ensure the mining sector remains competitive.  
• Modifying legislatively approved official plans for some of Ontario’s fastest-growing municipalities.

One of the most immediate changes, coming into effective February 22, 2024, will be a move to a project list approach for the environmental assessment process, shifting from the previous focus on project proponents to what the project is and its potential for environmental effects. This method will list the types of infrastructure projects that still require the highest level of environmental assessment, such as large landfills and electricity generation facilities. This project list approach aligns Ontario with other jurisdictions, including the federal government, Quebec and British Columbia.

This return to core values for the Ford Government with its campaign like messaging, signals that it is moving past the controversies of 2023 and is beginning to think about the election just over two years away. Part of this shift could be fueled by the Liberal Party choosing Bonnie Crombie as their leader and the choice in front her to run for a seat in the Legislature. There has been much debate on the value of a seat at Queen's Park, versus travelling the Province rebuilding the Liberal Party. However, there were no seats, or none that made sense, to run in.

This changed recently, when surprisingly, the seat for riding of Milton was vacated, by former Minister Parm Gill, to run federally in just under 2 years. Ms. Crombie is said to be giving a run for that seat “serious consideration,” suggesting the value in that seat might have gone up.