Bill 153 (Building Infrastructure Safely Act, 2024) overhauls parts of the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012 to change how underground-utility locate requests are classified, governed and operated. It shifts several governance levers toward the provincial Minister, formalizes operational standards for the call system and adjusts the corporation’s ability to set and use fees.
The changes matter to anyone who plans excavations, owns underground infrastructure, manages large projects, or runs the provincial one-call corporation: the bill rearranges operational duties, creates new regulatory hooks for the Minister, and alters liability and fee relationships that affect costs and accountability for locate work.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill creates four categories of locate requests (emergency, specified, standard and a new dedicated locator request for project owners), authorizes Ministerial regulation of response times and standards, and requires certain operational elements such as at least one call centre in Northern Ontario. It also rewrites governance rules so the corporation may set fees subject to Minister-approved processes and keeps collected funds outside public-money rules.
Who It Affects
Excavators, project owners and dedicated locators, owners/operators of underground and transmission infrastructure (members of the one-call corporation), the corporation itself, and the Minister’s office. Regulators and compliance teams for utilities and contractors will see new process and timing obligations.
Why It Matters
The bill centralizes regulatory authority and standard-setting with the Minister while imposing concrete operational duties on the corporation and members — a structural change that shifts how locate work is scheduled, paid for, and governed across Ontario’s construction and utility sectors.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Act recasts the vocabulary and workflow of Ontario’s “call before you dig” system. It introduces four distinct request types so the corporation can treat immediate safety outages (emergency requests), regulator-prescribed categories (specified requests), ordinary asks (standard requests), and project-owner-initiated work (dedicated locator requests) differently.
That categorical architecture is a platform for tailored response times and procedures to be set out in regulations.
Operational controls move in two directions. The Minister gains clearer power to add objects to the corporation and to prescribe types of specified requests and time periods for responses.
The corporation gains explicit authority to establish forms, publish fees and collection rules, and operate under Minister-approved processes — with a transitional rule treating previously set fees as compliant until reset. The Act also requires the corporation to operate at least one call centre located in Northern Ontario and to meet any regulatory standards for its call system operations.The bill alters who pays and when.
It prohibits the corporation from charging excavators to submit locate requests and prohibits members from charging fees for doing the physical locate activities required under the Act (including in certain dedicated-locator situations and for transmission infrastructure affected by project-owner requests). At the same time, funds the corporation collects are not treated as public money, giving the corporation flexibility in using revenues within its objects subject to the Minister’s approval of fee-setting processes.Liability and accountability are rebalanced.
The Act adds a broad good-faith immunity for assessors, directors, officers, employees and agents of the corporation for acts performed under the Act, while preserving the corporation’s own liability for those acts. It also removes the statutory requirement that a member compensate an excavator for losses when a member fails to meet a locate-time limit, narrowing direct compensation remedies in favor of other enforcement or regulatory responses.Practical mechanics are tightened for project works: when a dedicated locator request is submitted by a project owner the corporation must notify the named dedicated locator and any members whose transmission infrastructure may be affected; members must then treat those notifications under specified or standard timelines as if they had received the locate request directly from an excavator.
The Act expands the Minister’s regulation-making authority to tailor how section 7 (project-related procedures) applies and to create further exemptions from the Not-for-Profit Corporations Act for the corporation.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Emergency requests require a member to have a qualified person on-site within two hours or to provide equivalent location information.
The corporation must operate at least one call centre physically located in Northern Ontario (specific territorial districts listed in the Act).
Excavators cannot be charged a fee to submit a locate request; members also cannot charge for performing the locate activities required by law.
The Act grants assessors, directors, officers, employees and agents of the corporation statutory immunity from personal liability for acts done in good faith under the Act, while leaving corporate liability intact.
The Minister can prescribe time limits and types for specified requests, and can add objects to the corporation by order — increasing executive control over system priorities and procedures.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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New definitions and updated terms
The Act replaces and adds key definitions to sort locate requests into four categories and broadens the definition of “excavator” to include entities that intend to carry out digging activities. It also updates the Minister’s title. Those changes are the scaffolding for differentiated treatment of requests and for regulation-driven response rules.
Limited non-application of Not-for-Profit Corporations Act
The bill exempts certain Not-for-Profit Corporations Act provisions (subsections 17(2)–(6)) from applying to the one-call corporation where by-laws are necessary to implement a Minister’s order. In practice this narrows some internal governance constraints when the corporation must adopt by-laws tied to Ministerial directions.
Minister may add objects; commercial-activity restriction
Subsection 3(1)(8) allows the Minister, by order, to add objects to the corporation’s mandate; a companion amendment forbids the corporation from conducting commercial activity through a related entity. Together these provisions expand what the corporation may be asked to do while attempting to limit conflicts arising from profit-making subsidiaries.
Personal-immunity clause for individuals
The new section shields assessors, board members, officers, employees and agents from personal actions for acts done in good faith in carrying out their duties under the Act or regulations. It explicitly preserves corporate liability so injured parties retain a claim against the corporation rather than against individuals.
Fee-setting, publication and use of funds
The re-enacted section allows the corporation to set and collect fees and to make payment rules, but only under processes and criteria the Minister has approved; pre-existing fees are deemed compliant until changed. The collected money is declared not to be public money, which gives the corporation operational flexibility but reduces direct Treasury oversight.
Locate-request operations and Northern call-centre requirement
This new section requires the corporation’s call system to meet regulatory standards and expressly requires at least one call centre located in Northern Ontario. It also makes submission format and procedures subject to Ministerial regulations and requires the corporation to notify affected members when it receives emergency, specified or standard requests.
Response times, no-fee locate activities, and emergency rules
The bill makes response times for specified requests subject to Minister-prescribed periods (with parties allowed to agree different timelines in writing), retains separate timelines for standard requests, and mandates a two-hour on-site or information-delivery requirement for emergency requests. It adds an explicit ban on members charging fees for performing the locate activities required by the statute.
Dedicated locator requests and transmission infrastructure rules
New rules govern dedicated locator requests submitted by project owners: the corporation must notify the project’s dedicated locator and any members whose transmission infrastructure could be affected. Members who get those notifications must treat the request under the same timing rules that would apply had an excavator submitted it, and they cannot charge fees for the locate work related to transmission infrastructure on these requests.
Removal of compensatory obligation and expanded regulation-making
The Act repeals the provision that required members to compensate excavators for losses when locates are late and expands the Minister’s regulatory power to modify how section 7 applies and to grant further exemptions from the Not-for-Profit Corporations Act. Those changes shift remedies from statutorily guaranteed compensation toward regulatory enforcement and discretion.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Small excavators and contractors — they cannot be charged to submit locate requests, lowering transactional costs and potentially speeding project starts.
- Project owners running complex or large excavations — the dedicated locator request mechanism centralizes notification responsibilities and clarifies who is the point of contact for large projects.
- Residents and businesses in Northern Ontario — the statutory requirement for at least one locally located call centre aims to improve responsiveness and local employment.
- The one-call corporation — gains clearer fee-setting authority, fewer statutory governance constraints for Minister-driven by-laws and access to revenues not treated as public money, increasing operational flexibility.
Who Bears the Cost
- Member utilities and infrastructure owners — they must meet prescribed response times, cannot recover certain locate-activity costs via fees, and face operational burdens when dedicated project locates require additional coordination.
- The one-call corporation — implementing Minister-approved fee processes, operating Northern call-centre capacity and managing notification flows creates administrative and staffing costs.
- The Minister’s office and regulators — expanded rule-making duties to define specified request types, response periods and system standards will require drafting, stakeholder consultation and oversight resources.
- Excavators and project owners who relied on statutory compensation — the repeal of the compensation provision reduces a direct remedy and shifts the cost of locate failures onto other enforcement mechanisms or private arrangements.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between concentrating authority and flexibility with the Minister to standardize and prioritize locate operations, versus preserving decentralized independence and private remedies that hold members directly accountable; the bill leans toward centralized regulatory control and operational standardization at the cost of reducing individual liability and some direct compensation paths.
The bill balances operational flexibility against concentrated executive control. Letting the Minister add objects, prescribe request types and approve fee-setting processes creates a predictable avenue for policy direction, but it reduces the corporation’s institutional independence and places significant discretion in regulation-making.
That discretion will be consequential: the practical meaning of “specified” requests, the timeline rules for those requests, and precise call-centre standards all depend on future regulations rather than the statute itself.
The statutory immunity for individuals and the removal of the member-compensation requirement trade off individual accountability and a guaranteed private remedy for faster administrative enforcement and centralized governance. Victims of missed locates lose a direct statutory compensation path; their redress will depend on whether regulators use other tools (orders, penalties, licence actions) or whether parties pursue common-law claims against the corporation.
There is a real risk this shift lowers private enforcement pressure on members unless regulators step in effectively.
Operational tension is acute. Proscribing fees for locate activities removes a revenue stream utilities may have used to fund fast response; unless either the Minister-approved fee processes allow alternative revenue models or the corporation allocates funds differently, members may face resource shortfalls just when the statute tightens response obligations.
Finally, implementation logistics — staffing a Northern Ontario call centre, aligning project-owner “dedicated locator” workflows with members’ field crews, and distinguishing emergencies from other requests in real time — will test whether the statute’s goals translate into faster, safer locates or simply more regulation without consistent performance gains.
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