On May 26, 2025, CCLA filed its written submission to the Standing Committee on the Interior urging Members of Ontario’s Provincial Parliament to vote against Schedule 9 of Bill 5, the Special Economic Zones Act.
Schedule 9 enables the Cabinet and the Minister to create lawless zones where the provincial executive – instead of the legislature – has the final stay. This means that Cabinet could hand pick corporations and exempt them from compliance with important statutes, including environmental laws, labour laws, health and safety laws, local planning laws, municipal zoning bylaws, and even privacy laws. This broad discretion is likely to disproportionately harm vulnerable communities in Ontario, including Indigenous people, workers and people living in poverty.
The Government of Ontario relies on a “global economic uncertainty” in an attempt to justify the broad and extraordinary powers introduced by Schedule 9. While acute and significant crises – wars and pandemics among them – might justify the temporary use of exceptional emergency powers by the executive branch of government, a vague, undefined and unlimited “global economic uncertainty” is not akin to these circumstances. Even in situations where exceptional powers would be appropriate, their invocation and exercise should be subject to checks and balances. Schedule 9 fails on all counts.
Finally, the limitations on Crown’s liability provided for in Schedule 9 risk depriving ordinary people of much-needed compensation against the backdrop of the very economic uncertainty that the provincial government seeks to improve through this proposed legislation. Ontarians should be deeply concerned whenever their government seeks to shield itself from financial liability and accountability.
CCLA’s submission on Bill 5 can be found here.
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