The Plan to Build Act (Budget Measures), 2022 is an omnibus Ontario statute implementing a mix of budget and housekeeping measures. Key substantive items: it creates a standalone Ontario Loan Act authorizing up to $24.2 billion of Crown borrowing, adds an Insurance Act obligation for insurers to provide prescribed automobile-insurance-fraud information to the regulator’s CEO or a designated agency, allows the Toronto Transit Commission to enter agreements authorizing municipalities or local boards to operate parts of local passenger systems within Toronto, and establishes a refundable Ontario seniors care-at-home tax credit tied to medical expense claims and capped at $1,500.
The package also renames the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation, adjusts several targeted tax-credit rules (including a modest change to the low-income individuals and families credit), and repeals a statutory requirement that the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s main offices be located in Toronto. These changes create new compliance obligations for insurers, shift operational flexibility for transit and WSIB, expand provincial borrowing capacity for the government’s capital agenda, and alter the structure of a seniors-targeted refundable tax benefit—each with distinct implementation and fiscal consequences for stakeholders across government, insurers, municipalities and seniors’ service providers.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act adds multiple Schedules that together: authorize the Crown to borrow up to $24.2 billion under the new Ontario Loan Act with explicit year-end limits on orders and contractual commitments; require insurers to report prescribed automobile-insurance-fraud information to the regulator’s CEO or a designated agency and authorize limited collection/use/disclosure of personal information for that purpose; permit the TTC to contract municipalities or local boards to operate or maintain parts of local passenger systems within Toronto without triggering a deemed sale or a 'contracting out' under collective agreements; introduce a refundable Ontario seniors care-at-home tax credit capped at $1,500 and tied to medical expense credits; rename a provincial corporation; and repeal the WSIB main-office location requirement.
Who It Affects
Directly affected parties include provincial finance officials and Treasury operations managing the new borrowing authority; insurers doing automobile business in Ontario and the regulator that will prescribe reporting rules; the TTC plus municipalities and local boards that might enter operating agreements; Ontario seniors who claim medical expenses and their tax preparers; publishers eligible for targeted book credits and employers/WSIB relating to office location changes.
Why It Matters
The legislation allocates operational flexibility (transit contracting and WSIB location), creates new regulatory compliance and data-sharing obligations for insurers, and materially increases the province’s short-term borrowing headroom to support budgeted capital or operating needs. The seniors credit is refundable and calculated from claimed medical expenses, so it reorganizes how provincial support for in-home care is delivered to older Ontarians and creates interaction points with federal tax rules and existing medical-expense claims.
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What This Bill Actually Does
Schedule-by-schedule, the Act stitches a set of budget and administrative changes into the statute book rather than creating one large program. The Ontario Loan Act gives the Lieutenant Governor in Council power to borrow up to $24.2 billion for Crown liabilities and authorized payments; that authority is explicitly time-limited for new orders (no authorizing orders after December 31, 2024) and requires that borrowings under those orders be contracted or covered by a borrowing program by December 31, 2025 unless the Crown has an agreement in place.
Practically, this is a delegated borrowing ceiling for the executive to finance items tied to the budget, but the Act leaves the precise instruments, schedules and debt-management choices to Financial Administration Act processes and orders in council.
On insurance, the Act adds a new section requiring every insurer to provide information prescribed by regulator rules to the Chief Executive Officer or to an agency the CEO designates for the specific purpose of assessing and detecting automobile insurance fraud. The CEO and any designated agency are authorized to collect, use and disclose personal information for that fraud-detection purpose, and the bill ties the definition of “personal information” to Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
The regulator gets rulemaking authority to specify what information insurers must provide and when, which means the practical reporting burden, data formats, security and timetables will be established in subsequent rules rather than in the statute itself.The Taxation Act amendments make several targeted changes. The low-income individuals and families credit calculation is tweaked to alter the deductible-from-tax-payable threshold (to a maximum of $875 under a formula).
The bill creates an Ontario seniors care-at-home tax credit that eligible seniors can claim if they meet residency and age/spouse-age conditions; the credit is refundable, capped at $1,500 and computed from the amount the taxpayer has already claimed as a medical-expense tax credit, subject to an income-based reduction that phases in when combined household income exceeds $35,000. The statute also clarifies interaction with federal rules, treats credit amounts as nil in bankruptcy, and extends a window for certain regional investment expenditures to the end of 2023.On municipal and workplace matters, the City of Toronto Act amendment allows the TTC to enter agreements granting a municipality or local board authority to operate or maintain parts of that body’s local passenger system within Toronto when the parties agree to integration conditions; the legislation expressly says such agreements are not a sale/transfer of TTC operations under the Labour Relations Act and do not count as contracting out under TTC collective agreements.
Finally, the Act renames the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation to Venture Ontario (and the French equivalent) and repeals the statutory requirement that the WSIB maintain its main offices in the City of Toronto, enabling relocation or decentralization decisions without legislative amendment.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Ontario Loan Act authorizes up to $24.2 billion in Crown borrowing but bars new orders in council authorizing borrowing after December 31, 2024 and requires borrowings under those orders to be contracted or covered by a program by December 31, 2025.
New Insurance Act section 101.3 requires every insurer to provide fraud-related data prescribed by regulator rules to the Chief Executive Officer or a CEO‑designated agency and permits those bodies to collect, use and disclose personal information for fraud assessment and detection.
The Ontario seniors care-at-home tax credit is refundable, capped at $1,500, and its value is calculated from the taxpayer’s medical-expense tax credit claim subject to a reduction equal to 5% of combined income above a $35,000 threshold.
The TTC may enter agreements that authorize municipalities or local boards to operate or maintain parts of their local passenger systems within Toronto; such agreements are explicitly excluded from being treated as a sale/transfer under the Labour Relations Act or as 'contracting out' under TTC collective agreements.
The Act renames the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation to Venture Ontario and removes the statutory requirement that the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board keep its main offices in Toronto—legal changes that clear administrative and branding obstacles to corporate and operational moves.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Permitting the TTC to delegate local system operation without triggering LRA transfer rules
This schedule adds two subsections to section 395 of the City of Toronto Act allowing the TTC to enter agreements authorizing a municipality or local board to operate and/or maintain parts of that municipality’s local passenger system within Toronto. Importantly, the schedule inserts an integration carve‑out: when the agreement’s purpose is service integration with the TTC system, the arrangement is not a sale or transfer under the Labour Relations Act and does not constitute contracting out for purposes of collective agreements to which the TTC is party. Practically, this creates legal room for service-sharing or contracted operation models while attempting to preserve existing labour-law protections—yet it shifts much of the operational governance to the agreement terms rather than statutory prescription.
Insurer reporting duty and regulator rulemaking for automobile-insurance-fraud information
Schedule 2 inserts section 101.3 into the Insurance Act requiring every insurer to provide fraud-related information 'prescribed by the Authority rules' to the Chief Executive Officer or an agency the CEO designates. The schedule also amends the Authority’s rulemaking powers to allow the Authority to prescribe the content and timing of those reports. The CEO and any designated agency are authorized to collect, use and disclose personal information 'for the purpose of assessing and detecting automobile insurance fraud' and the bill defines personal information by reference to Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. This structure delegates significant detail (fields, formats, submission frequency, security expectations) to future Authority rules, meaning insurers must watch the regulator’s rulemaking closely to design compliance systems and data‑sharing agreements.
Corporate renaming and continuity for Ontario Capital Growth Corporation
Schedule 3 continues the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation as a corporation without share capital but under a new legal name—Venture Ontario (Croissance Ontario in French). The schedule affects corporate identity in statute and implies that existing powers, obligations and agreements continue under the new name. For counterparties, funding recipients and internal governance, this is largely a continuity amendment that nonetheless requires administrative steps—amending contracts, bank accounts, signs and any statutory references elsewhere that name the former corporation.
Ontario Loan Act: delegated borrowing authority with explicit sunset mechanics
Schedule 4 enacts the standalone Ontario Loan Act authorizing the Lieutenant Governor in Council to borrow up to an aggregate of $24.2 billion 'in any manner provided by the Financial Administration Act.' The Act is careful to add temporal limits: no authorizing order in council may be made after December 31, 2024, and the Crown may not borrow under such an order after December 31, 2025 unless it has executed a borrowing agreement or a program agreement enabling drawdowns. Those two deadlines create a contracting and execution timetable for debt managers and signal that the authority is intended to be used within a defined planning window rather than left open-ended.
Multiple Taxation Act changes including a refundable seniors care-at-home credit
Schedule 5 contains a series of technical and programmatic tax changes. It tweaks the low‑income individuals and families tax credit calculation (revising the deductible ceiling to a formula with a $875 cap), updates eligibility windows for the regional opportunities investment tax credit, and replaces a small‑edition publishing disqualification so that the rule applies only to works published before 2020. The headline item is the new refundable Ontario seniors care-at-home tax credit (section 103.0.6). Eligibility depends on residency and age or spouse-age thresholds; credit value is computed from the amount the taxpayer already used to claim medical expenses and is capped at $1,500, but it is reduced by 5% of combined household income above $35,000—and the credit is set to be nil in cases of bankruptcy. The schedule also adds the credit to the list of tax expenditures and clarifies interactions with federal provisions.
Repeal of statutory requirement for WSIB main offices in Toronto
Schedule 6 repeals subsection 165(1) of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, which previously required the main offices of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to be located in the City of Toronto. That repeal removes a statutory location constraint and gives the WSIB and government administrative flexibility to relocate or decentralize head office functions without a legislative amendment—affecting staffing, municipal economic impacts and service delivery logistics.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Ontario seniors who claim medical expenses: Eligible seniors can receive a refundable credit up to $1,500 tied to their medical-expense tax credit, providing a direct, refundable top-up for in‑home care spending to low- and moderate-income older Ontarians.
- Municipalities and local transit bodies: Municipalities or local boards that already operate local passenger systems gain a new legal pathway to formalize operation or maintenance arrangements with the TTC inside Toronto, opening revenue or operational roles without triggering automatic deemed transfers.
- Provincial borrowing and capital managers: Treasury staff and program delivery teams gain short-term flexibility to finance capital and budgeted obligations through an explicit $24.2 billion borrowing headroom, facilitating front‑loaded capital programs.
- Small‑edition book publishers with post‑2019 publications: Changes to the publishing credit’s applicability mean that publishers of literary works published in 2020 and later are treated differently than pre‑2020 publications, potentially restoring credit access for more recent small-edition works.
- Venture ecosystem administrators and counterparties: The renaming to Venture Ontario is a continuity measure that may help rebrand and reposition the corporation for investment activities without disrupting its statutory continuity.
Who Bears the Cost
- Insurers writing automobile business in Ontario: They face new reporting obligations (content, timing and delivery) once the regulator prescribes rules, requiring data pipelines, compliance staffing and potential legal work to manage privacy and disclosure.
- Regulator and designated agencies: The Chief Executive Officer and any designated agency will absorb responsibilities to collect, secure and analyze large volumes of insurer-supplied data—requiring technical capacity, governance and clear privacy safeguards.
- Province of Ontario (debt-servicing): Increased borrowing authority expands fiscal flexibility but brings future interest and principal repayment obligations that add to the province’s debt-servicing profile and constrain future budgets.
- TTC and affected workers: Although the Act tries to avoid automatic transfers under labour law, operational changes and agreements with municipalities/local boards could shift work arrangements and require renegotiation of labour, service and safety practices.
- WSIB staff and the City of Toronto: Repealing the main-office location requirement may create relocation or decentralization costs for WSIB employees and reduce municipal benefits that accompanied having the Board headquartered in Toronto.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma in the Act is balancing administrative and fiscal flexibility (expanded borrowing authority, delegated insurer reporting, and transit/WSIB operational freedom) against the need for firm safeguards and predictable legal boundaries: greater executive and regulator discretion speeds program delivery but raises privacy, labour and fiscal-accountability questions that the statute defers to rulemaking and agreements rather than resolving on the face of the law.
Several implementation choices are deliberately left to regulators and the executive, creating policy trade-offs and operational uncertainty. The Insurance Act change vests broad prescription power in the regulator to define the data fields, frequency and privacy safeguards; until rules are published insurers and the designated agency lack clarity on compliance scope, data‑security standards and the thresholds for retention and disclosure.
Because the bill allows collection, use and disclosure of personal information for fraud detection but references the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act only for definition, questions remain about the applicable safeguards, oversight, access rights and how privacy complaints will be handled in practice.
The borrowing authority and its sunset mechanics present a different tension. The $24.2 billion ceiling creates near‑term capacity to fund budgetary priorities but the statutory cut‑offs for orders in council and contracting create a compressed timeline for debt issuance planning; that may force the Crown to choose between hastened borrowing (with market timing and cost implications) or complex program agreements to preserve flexibility.
On the operational side, the TTC integration carve‑out avoids automatic Labour Relations Act transfer consequences, yet it relocates much of the balance-of-power to negotiated agreements—agreements that will determine labour, pensions, contracting chains and service levels. Finally, the seniors credit ties its value to medical-expense claims and phases out based on combined household income; this design favors seniors who incur and claim eligible medical expenses and introduces administrative complexity for taxfilers and preparers, potentially leaving some in-need seniors without full benefit if they lack qualifying medical-expense claims or simple tax-filing capacity.
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