The Turn Down the Heat Act (Extreme Heat Awareness), 2025 declares the first week in June each year as Extreme Heat Awareness Week, requires the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to publish specified heat-preparedness content on a Government of Ontario website, and obliges the Minister to mail that information to every household in territories without municipal organization annually.
The bill also amends the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 so that municipal treasurers must include the same materials with any tax bill they send to taxpayers. Sections establishing website content, mailouts and municipal obligations come into force three months after Royal Assent.
The measure aims to broaden public awareness about heat risks but creates operational duties for the provincial ministry and local treasurers without attaching funding or content standards in the text.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act proclaims an annual awareness week, mandates four categories of public-facing heat information on a provincial website, requires the Minister to mail that information to households in unorganized territories, and amends municipal statutes to require treasurers to include the materials with tax bills. Sections setting out these publication and distribution duties take effect three months after Royal Assent.
Who It Affects
The Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks must produce and distribute materials; municipal treasurers (including the City of Toronto’s treasurer) must incorporate the materials into tax-bill mailings; residents — particularly those in unorganized territories and recipients of municipal tax bills — are the intended audience. Provincial administrative units and municipal service providers who handle tax billing will also be involved.
Why It Matters
The bill creates a province-wide baseline for public messaging on extreme heat and uses tax-bill distribution to reach households that are often hard to contact. It sets a precedent for using municipal tax mailings as a vector for provincial public education but does so without specifying funding, format, accessibility, or enforcement mechanisms — practical details that will determine whether the outreach is effective.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Act has three operational pillars. First, it makes a formal, symbolic designation: the first week of June each year is Extreme Heat Awareness Week.
The declaration itself imposes no operational duties beyond signaling a recurring period for outreach.
Second, the Act requires the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to publish prescribed types of information on a Government of Ontario website. The bill lists four categories to appear online: what Ontarians can do to prepare for extreme heat; preventative measures to reduce heat-related health risks; a guide to publicly available resources (including health-related resources); and answers to frequently asked questions.
The text mandates subject matter but leaves format, languages, accessibility standards and update cadence unspecified.Third, the bill builds a distribution requirement into existing municipal billing channels. The Minister must mail the website information to every household in territories without municipal organization before the end of each year.
For organized municipalities, the Act amends both the Municipal Act, 2001 and the City of Toronto Act, 2006 so that the treasurer must send materials containing the Minister’s information along with any tax bill they send to taxpayers. That means municipal tax-bill cycles and any third parties who handle them will need to incorporate the materials.Timing is explicit: the general Act comes into force on Royal Assent, but the publication, mailing and municipal-amendment provisions come into force three months after Royal Assent.
The bill does not attach funding, set content standards, require translations or accessible formats, nor establish penalties or reporting obligations. Those implementation details — content design, delivery method for e-bills, and cost coverage — are left to the ministry and municipalities to resolve after the provisions commence.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Act proclaims the first week in June each year as Extreme Heat Awareness Week.
Section 2 requires the Minister to publish four specific categories of heat-related information on a provincial government website: preparedness actions, preventative measures, a guide to public resources, and FAQs.
The Minister must mail the information described in section 2 to every household in a territory without municipal organization before the end of each year.
Amendments to the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and the Municipal Act, 2001 require treasurers to send the same materials with any tax bill they send to taxpayers.
Sections 2–5 (website content, mailouts, and municipal treasurer obligations) come into force three months after Royal Assent; the rest of the Act is effective on Royal Assent.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Proclaim Extreme Heat Awareness Week
Section 1 creates an annual, symbolic observance by declaring the first week in June to be Extreme Heat Awareness Week. The provision imposes no operational duties by itself but provides a recurring temporal anchor for campaigns and may guide the timing of future ministry activities and municipal distribution efforts.
Mandate for provincial website content
This section obliges the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to publish four types of information on a Government of Ontario website: preparedness steps, preventative measures against heat-related health issues, a guide to public resources (including health supports), and FAQs. The bill prescribes content topics but not the form — it does not require specific languages, accessible formats, update schedules, or metrics for accuracy, which leaves substantial implementation discretion to the ministry.
Provincial mailouts to unorganized territories
Section 3 requires the Minister to mail the website materials to every household in a territory without municipal organization before the end of each year. Operationally, the ministry will need a household list for unorganized areas, a printing and mailing plan, and a budget; the Act does not define the delivery standard, frequency beyond 'before the end of each year,' or whether the mailouts must mirror the full website content or a summary.
Toronto treasurer must include heat materials with tax bills
Section 4 adds a subsection to the City of Toronto Act, 2006 directing the city treasurer to send materials containing the Minister’s section 2 information with any tax bill sent to taxpayers. That ties the provincial outreach to Toronto’s existing tax-bill distribution process and will affect production runs, mailing inserts, and any electronic billing systems used by the city.
Municipal treasurers must include heat materials with tax bills
Section 5 makes the same change to the Municipal Act, 2001, obliging municipal treasurers across Ontario to include the Minister’s materials with any tax bill they send. The phrase 'any tax bill they send' reaches both paper and, depending on interpretation, electronic distributions; municipalities will need to decide how to incorporate the materials into diverse billing practices and consider third-party billing vendors and consolidated statements.
Commencement timing
Section 6 brings most of the Act into force on Royal Assent but delays sections 2–5 until three months after Royal Assent. This staggered commencement gives the ministry a short window to prepare website content and coordinates timing for municipal compliance, but the three-month window may be tight if Royal Assent occurs close to the start of summer heat seasons.
Short title
Section 7 provides the Act’s short title as the Turn Down the Heat Act (Extreme Heat Awareness), 2025. This is a formal naming provision and does not affect implementation.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on this topic across all five countries.
Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Households in territories without municipal organization — they receive a direct, provincially mailed information package, improving reach to residents who are otherwise harder to contact for public-health messaging.
- Recipients of municipal tax bills (including Toronto taxpayers) — the requirement embeds heat-preparedness materials into an existing, widely distributed mailing channel, increasing the likelihood of broad exposure.
- At-risk populations (older adults, outdoor workers, low-income households without reliable cooling) — standardized, province-level messaging may increase awareness of preventive measures and available resources targeted to heat-related health risks.
- Provincial public-health and emergency-management units — having a mandated baseline of public information can streamline coordination during heat events and reduce the need to create ad hoc messaging from scratch.
Who Bears the Cost
- Municipal treasurers and municipal governments — they must integrate materials into tax-bill production and distribution cycles, which can entail printing, postage, staff time and vendor changes, particularly for small or rural municipalities with limited administrative capacity.
- City of Toronto’s administrative services — the explicit amendment requires Toronto’s treasurer to add materials to every tax bill, which may affect production runs, insert coordination and digital-billing platforms at scale.
- The provincial ministry (Environment, Conservation and Parks) — the ministry must develop, host and maintain website content and run a provincial mailing program for unorganized territories, creating a real financial and operational responsibility that the Act does not fund.
- Third-party billing and mail vendors — private contractors that handle municipal tax statements may need contractual changes, format adjustments and timing coordination, translating into compliance costs or project work.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is straightforward: the bill advances public-health goals by creating province-wide, consistent outreach on extreme heat, but it does so by imposing practical distribution duties on a mix of provincial and municipal actors without specifying funding, content standards, or enforcement — trading potential reach for operational and fiscal burdens that could limit real-world effectiveness.
The Act sets clear, limited obligations but leaves crucial implementation details undefined. It mandates topics for a provincial website and requires distribution through municipal tax bills and direct mail to unorganized territories, yet it does not set standards for language translations, accessible formats, update frequency, or the length and layout of printed materials.
That gap means the effectiveness of the outreach will depend on how the ministry and municipalities interpret 'information described in section 2' — a brief leaflet versus a detailed booklet will reach very different audiences.
Funding and logistics are unstated. Municipalities must include materials 'with any tax bill they send,' but the Act does not provide provincial funding or an administrative grant to cover additional printing, postage, or vendor contract changes.
The ministry alone is charged with mailing to unorganized territories, which requires an accurate household list and a sustained budget. The three-month delayed commencement for the distribution provisions may compress planning timelines, particularly if Royal Assent occurs near the start of summer.
The Act also contains no enforcement mechanism, reporting requirement, or performance metric to assess whether distribution leads to improved preparedness or reduced heat-related harms.
There's more to this law than the bill.
Codify Laws traces every connection across the legislative lifecycle.