The Ontario government has introduced Bill 119, Protecting Ontario’s Streets and Communities Act, 2026 (PDF), an omnibus public safety bill that proposes a broad set of changes spanning enforcement tools, policing governance, regulatory oversight, and municipal land use enforcement.
While the legislation addresses a wide range of public safety initiatives, several components have direct and indirect implications for municipalities – particularly those related to enforcement tools for illegal land use, regulation of the towing industry, and proposed changes to policing governance and priorities.
Stronger Enforcement Tools for Illegal Truck Yards and Land Use
A key municipal-focused component of the legislation is proposed amendments to the Planning Act that would enable municipalities to issue administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) for illegal land uses, including unauthorized truck yards and depots operating on rural, agricultural, and residential lands. The amendments are intended to enable faster, compliance-oriented enforcement to address safety risks, damage to local roads, and persistent noise, lighting, odour, and drainage impacts on nearby communities generated by illegal truck yards.
Under the current framework, municipalities typically rely on prosecutions for zoning bylaw violations, which can be resource-intensive and slow to resolve, with enforcement costs in some cases exceeding the fines recovered. The proposed AMP framework is meant to enable municipalities to issue penalties directly, and unpaid penalties could be added to the tax roll and recovered through property tax mechanisms.
Broader Public Safety Measures
Beyond land use enforcement, the legislation proposes a series of reforms related to policing, public safety oversight, and justice system processes, including:
- Proposed amendments to the Community Safety and Policy Act, 2019, that would allow the Solicitor General to issue directives establishing priorities that police service boards would be required to reflect in their strategic plans;
- Expanded provincial oversight to set and coordinate policing and community safety priorities;
- New rules and qualification standards for tow truck operators and vehicle storage providers;
- Measures intended to streamline provincial offences and judicial processes, including allowing certain plea agreements to proceed without judicial oversight;
- Expanded enforcement powers related to illegal drugs on public transit systems; and
- New public notification tools for high-risk offenders through a centralized provincial website.
With respect to the enforcement tools noted above, we expect this will help streamline enforcement where AMP systems are in place and may relieve pressure on other municipally-delivered services.
However, the proposed policing governance changes could mark a notable shift in the balance between provincial oversight and municipal police governance. Policing oversight in Ontario has traditionally been grounded in locally governed police services boards that reflect community-specific priorities and conditions. The proposed changes could formalize a mechanism for provincial direction on policing priorities, with implications for how local boards align strategic planning decisions. Reporting on the legislation indicates that these directives could shape policing priorities across municipalities, with directives incorporated into board-level strategic plans, and compliance expectations tied to provincial oversight mechanisms. From a municipal governance perspective, this shift raises broader questions about the balance between provincial standard-setting and local autonomy in policing oversight. This shift could also result in potential downstream implications for municipal administration, coordination, and costs, particularly where local priorities diverge from provincially directed enforcement themes.
We will continue to monitor the Protecting Ontario’s Streets and Communities Act, 2026, as it proceeds through the legislative process and other developments. While we do not generally comment on police service issues, we are interested in enforcement capacity, administrative burden, governance structures, and financial impacts of some of the proposals.