Bill 60: "Fighting Delays" Fast-Tracks Evictions, Guts Green Roof Bylaw

The title is the tell. "Fighting Delays, Building Faster" describes a bill that, on its tenancy schedule alone, makes it measurably faster to evict a tenant and measurably harder for that tenant to fight it. Shortening the arrears-payment window to 7 days and cutting the Landlord and Tenant Board appeal window from 30 to 15 days compresses exactly the moments where a tenant behind on rent has historically had time to catch up or mount a defence. The Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario formally condemned the bill's passage as "a setback for tenant rights in Ontario."

The N12 change compounds the problem. Ontario already has a well-documented pattern of landlords filing "landlord's own use" evictions that are never followed through on -- tenants are removed, the unit is re-rented at a higher price, and the original tenant has little recourse. Bill 60 removes the one-month compensation payment landlords previously owed for these evictions, so long as four months' notice is given, stripping out one of the only financial disincentives against abusing the N12 process.

Outside of tenancy law, Bill 60 rescinds Toronto's Green Roof Bylaw and other municipal green-building and planning standards while consolidating discretionary planning power in the minister's office -- drawing criticism for centralizing authority that used to sit with local government. United Ways of Ontario specifically called on the province to repeal Schedule 12, and the Ontario Bar Association filed a formal submission on the bill's legal implications. None of this stopped the bill from passing without standing committee review or public consultation.

Tenant-side legal clinics anticipate the shortened arrears and appeal windows will translate directly into more completed evictions and fewer successful LTB challenges, particularly for tenants without existing legal representation who need time to find help. The removal of N12 compensation removes a financial guardrail against bad-faith "landlord's own use" filings at a moment when Ontario's rental market is already under acute pressure.

The rescinding of Toronto's Green Roof Bylaw and related environmental standards sets a precedent for the province overriding municipal environmental policy outright, rather than merely capping what future bylaws can require -- a pattern that follows the same trajectory as other Ford-government moves to strip local governments of planning authority.

The creation of the Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act, 2025 restructures how three of the GTA's largest municipalities -- Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon -- deliver water and wastewater service, moving it out of direct regional government control and into new arm's-length corporations, a structural change worth watching for its long-term effect on rates, accountability and future privatization pressure.