When the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy opened hearings on Bill 23 in November 2022, there were 10 pages of people who had registered to speak. The committee had four days. AMO, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which represents every municipality in the province, was denied the opportunity to present. The bill went from introduction to Royal Assent in 34 days.
I keep coming back to that timeline, because it sets the pattern for everything that’s happened since.
How it’s supposed to work
Context: Ontario has eight standing committees at Queen’s Park (restructured for the 44th Parliament from the previous arrangement). After a bill passes second reading it’s typically referred to committee for public hearings and clause-by-clause review. Committees can propose amendments before sending the bill back for third reading. The Standing Orders don’t set a fixed time for witness presentations; the subcommittee on committee business decides format and schedule for each hearing.
The process on paper looks reasonable enough. Bill passes second reading, goes to committee, public signs up to present, committee hears them and reviews the bill clause by clause, amendments get proposed, bill goes back to the House for third reading. What I’ve found from tracking this across the 43rd and 44th Parliaments is that the government House Leader files a time allocation motion and the committee gets a compressed schedule. That’s basically the whole story.
Standard format is presenters in groups of three per one-hour block. Each person gets seven minutes to present, then the remaining 39 minutes go to questions from committee members, divided among party caucuses. The chair gives you a one-minute warning, and at seven minutes you’re done. Some committees have cut it to five.
Seven minutes. If you’re a conservation authority which has spent weeks analyzing how a housing bill would affect watershed protections in your jurisdiction, seven minutes to make your case and then the next group comes in.
The bills that didn’t get hearings at all
Here’s the thing that shifted my thinking on this. It’s one story when committees hold rushed hearings. Entirely different when they skip them.
The Ford government has done both, and the skipping has gotten more common.
Committee hearing days for major bills
Bill 97, the 2026 omnibus budget bill, sat at committee stage for two weeks without a single hearing being scheduled. Then Government House Leader Steve Clark filed a time allocation motion that cancelled public hearings entirely and fast-tracked it to third reading. This was the bill which retroactively shielded the Premier’s office and cabinet ministers from FOI requests going back to 1988. It passed April 23, 2026 after a late-night sitting. No committee review.
Bill 60, the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act? Zero committee hearings. Changed eviction rules so landlords could file to evict seven days after notice instead of 15. Tenants disrupted the legislature when it passed, chanting “People over profits.” The Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario said the lack of public consultation “deprived tenants and housing advocates from the opportunity to demand legislation that addresses the needs of the thousands of Ontarians who rent their homes.”
Bill 33, the school board governance bill? Also bypassed.
The Ontario Place legislation in December 2023? Passed in three days without any committee review at all. It exempted the Ontario Place redevelopment from the Environmental Assessment Act, Planning Act, and Heritage Act.
Bill 212 and the 19,124 comments nobody read
Bill 212 is my favourite example because it shows both sides of what’s happening. The time allocation motion limited public hearings to one day, down from the typical three for a contentious bill. House Leader Clark said he needed the bill passed before winter break, there were only four and a half weeks left in the sitting.
Committee members said it generated “the most interest” anyone had seen in six years. Regular citizens who took a day off work couldn’t get slots.
But here’s the number that really tells the story. The Environmental Registry of Ontario received 19,124 comments on Bill 212. Record-setting. Virtually all opposed. The bill passed unchanged.
"They have a short sitting and they fast-track all their bills and they don't give people an opportunity to give input on legislation. That undermines democracy and it means the premier is not being held accountable."
Who gets to speak (and how they’re picked)
This part is worth understanding because most people don’t know how it works. The committee clerk posts a notice on the OLA website with a deadline for requests to appear. No email alerts, no notification system. Just a posting on a government website which most Ontarians have never visited.
When more people apply than can be heard (which is basically always for anything controversial), each member of the subcommittee on committee business provides the clerk with a prioritized list of presenters. The governing party holds majority on subcommittees. You can see where this goes.
People who don’t get selected aren’t told why. They just don’t get a call.
Context: Anyone can submit a written brief to a committee regardless of whether they’re selected to present orally. But written submissions don’t get the same visibility or media coverage as oral deputations, and there’s no requirement that committee members read them before voting.
Professional advocacy groups and industry associations know the system, they register early. Individual residents and small community groups tend to miss the window. I looked at the 2024 pre-budget consultations and it was 256 witnesses presenting orally with roughly 100 more who could only submit written briefs. The 2023 round: 140 oral, over 200 written only.
The selection process means the government’s preferred witnesses get priority. It’s not subtle.
How other places do this better
Quebec has something Ontario doesn’t: a legal requirement for public notice when committees hold general consultations. The notice has to run in the Gazette officielle du Quebec and newspapers. Since 2009, individuals can participate without even submitting a brief in advance. Their committees have chairs and vice-chairs from different parties, which creates at least some structural independence.
BC’s legislative committees held a Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform in 2025 that heard from nearly 1,000 people, virtually and in communities across the province. That’s what a serious consultation looks like.
Ontario’s committees used to travel. In the 1990s and early 2000s it was common to hold hearings in London, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Sudbury. For Bill 5 in 2025, the NDP moved a motion to hold an additional hearing day in Thunder Bay so northern Ontario residents wouldn’t have to fly to Toronto. The PC majority voted it down. Indigenous leaders who did make the trip to Queen’s Park got five minutes.
Not a conspiracy. Just a system that’s been optimized for speed over input, and nobody with the votes to change it has any interest in slowing things down.
The omnibus problem
Time allocation on a regular bill is one thing. Time allocation on an omnibus bill which bundles 15 or 20 schedules into a single piece of legislation is something else. If the committee gets two days for a 20-schedule bill, that works out to less than two and a half hours per schedule. And some of those schedules rewrite entire Acts.
The Canadian Environmental Law Association flagged this pattern back in 2020 when Schedule 6 of Bill 229 was used to gut conservation authority powers through a budget bill. They called it “the most recent example of a disturbing trend of using omnibus budget measures bills to make substantial changes.” Half the Greenbelt Council resigned over it.
In the fall 2025 session alone, the government passed 12 pieces of legislation, most of which bypassed committee hearings. MPPs sat for 51 days that year, and the 2026 calendar projects only 53 days, the fewest in a non-election year in five decades.
Less time sitting means less time for committees which means less time for public input. The math keeps getting worse.
What would actually change things
A few reforms would make the process more honest. Mandatory minimum hearing days proportional to the number of schedules in a bill. A real notification system for anyone who wants to track specific policy areas. Published criteria for how presenters are selected when demand exceeds capacity. Requiring committee chairs and vice-chairs from different parties, the way Quebec does it.
None of this is radical. Most of it exists in other Westminster-style parliaments already.
The Information and Privacy Commissioner put it plainly after Bill 97: “If oversight bodies get in the way, just change the rules.” That logic applies to committee hearings too. If public input gets in the way, just skip them.
Sources and verification: Bill 23 timeline (introduction Oct 25, Royal Assent Nov 28, 2022) and committee deputation data from OLA Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy transcripts, Nov 2022 (ola.org). Bill 212’s 19,124 ERO comments from the Environmental Registry of Ontario posting 019-9266, confirmed by Momentum Mag and CBC reporting. Bill 97 committee bypass reported by Globe and Mail, Global News, and the Ontario NDP. Time allocation count (100+ since 2018) from Globe and Mail editorial analysis. Deputation format (7 minutes per presenter, groups of three per hour) from multiple OLA committee transcripts, 2023-2025. Pre-budget consultation witness counts from OLA committee reports. Mike Schreiner quote from Global News, December 2025. Information and Privacy Commissioner quote from IPC media release, March 2026. Quebec committee procedures from assnat.qc.ca. BC electoral reform committee data from Fair Vote Canada, November 2025. 2025 sitting days (51) from Global News; 2026 projection (53 days) from CBC analysis.
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