Bill 226 amends Ontario’s adjudicative tribunals statute, the Human Rights Code and the Residential Tenancies Act to accelerate resolution of tribunal backlogs and change how tribunal members are appointed. It reinstates and expands appointment rules, requires a public, weekly-updated list of appointees and intended appointees, and makes the chair of each tribunal the gatekeeper for all appointments and reappointments.
The bill also creates two temporary Backlog Reduction Panels — one for the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and one for the Landlord and Tenant Board — and an Access to Justice Panel charged with recommending system-level reforms, including whether to create an independent oversight council and how to expand access to in-person and virtual hearings. These measures centralize case-selection and panel appointments with the legislative Standing Committee on Government Agencies and place specific reporting and timeline obligations on the Attorney General and ministers.
At a Glance
What It Does
Re-enacts and tightens appointment criteria for adjudicative tribunal members, requires the Public Appointments Secretariat to publish and weekly-update a list of appointees and intended appointees (including appearance details before the Standing Committee), and requires tribunal chairs to approve appointments and reappointments. It mandates an Access to Justice Panel to produce recommendations, and creates temporary Backlog Reduction Panels for the Human Rights Tribunal and the Landlord and Tenant Board to resolve cases selected by the Standing Committee.
Who It Affects
Adjudicative tribunals across Ontario (their chairs, members and administrations), the Public Appointments Secretariat, the Attorney General’s office, the Standing Committee on Government Agencies, parties before the Human Rights Tribunal and Landlord and Tenant Board, legal aid and community legal clinics, and provincial budget offices responsible for remuneration appropriations.
Why It Matters
The bill pairs procedural reforms (appointment transparency and chair oversight) with ad hoc capacity increases (temporary panels) and a formal review mechanism (Access to Justice Panel). For lawyers, adjudicators and tribunal managers it changes who selects members, who chooses which cases get expedited, and creates new reporting obligations and potential funding requirements.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill rewrites the statute governing tribunal appointments to insist on a competitive, merit-based selection process and lists the minimum assessment criteria: subject-matter experience, impartial adjudicative aptitude and the ability to use alternative adjudicative practices. It requires responsible ministers to publish how they will recruit for tribunal posts and what qualifications they seek.
Crucially, the Public Appointments Secretariat must compile and maintain a publicly available list of all appointed and intended appointees, updated weekly, and must record whether intended appointees appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Agencies (and explanations if they did not).
Appointments and reappointments cannot proceed without the tribunal chair’s approval after the chair assesses the candidate against the stated criteria; in reappointments the chair must also assess the member’s prior performance. The bill includes a carve-out saying that if another statute or regulation conflicts with these appointment rules, the other statute or regulation controls.
Members already appointed remain until their existing terms expire.The Access to Justice Panel is a short-lived advisory body the Attorney General must establish within 60 days; the Standing Committee appoints its members. The panel must consult stakeholders (including Legal Aid Ontario-funded community legal clinics and the Ontario Bar Association’s Administrative Justice Section) and report recommendations within six months about enhancing tribunal independence, improving in-person and virtual access for people without reliable internet, and expanding access to legal services.
The Attorney General must publish those recommendations within 30 days of receipt, say within 90 days which recommendations the government proposes to implement, and report back on implementation progress within one year.To address immediate caseload pressure, the bill creates two temporary Backlog Reduction Panels: one for the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and one for the Landlord and Tenant Board. The Standing Committee on Government Agencies both appoints members to these panels and sets the criteria to decide which cases the panels will hear.
Each panel’s mandate ends once the cases assigned to it are resolved. The Human Rights panel requires a ministerial report on scope and caseload six months after establishment.
For any remuneration of appointees, the bill allows the Lieutenant Governor in Council to set pay and expenses but only if the Legislature appropriates funds first.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Public Appointments Secretariat must publish and update weekly a list of all appointed and intended adjudicative tribunal appointees, including biographical details, positions and terms.
No appointment or reappointment to an adjudicative tribunal may proceed without the tribunal chair’s approval after assessing statutory qualifications; reappointments require a performance assessment.
The Attorney General must establish an Access to Justice Panel within 60 days and that panel must report recommendations to the Attorney General within six months.
The Standing Committee on Government Agencies both appoints members to the Access and Backlog panels and determines which cases the Human Rights and Landlord & Tenant Backlog Reduction Panels will resolve.
Payments to members of the new panels may be set by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, but only where the Legislature has first appropriated funds for those remunerations.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Merit-based appointment standards and public listing of appointees
This provision reinstates and expands the tribunal appointment framework. It specifies three statutory criteria for assessing candidates and requires responsible ministers to publish recruitment steps and required qualifications when filling tribunal posts. The Public Appointments Secretariat must maintain a weekly public list of all appointees and intended appointees, with biographical information and terms. Practically, ministries will need to align recruitment notices and candidate vetting processes with the statute and feed data into the Secretariat on a weekly cadence.
Chair approval becomes a statutory gate for appointments and reappointments
Before any appointment or reappointment, the tribunal chair must approve the candidate after assessing the person against the statutory criteria; for reappointments the chair must assess past performance. This inserts tribunal leadership directly into the selection loop and creates a new institutional check on executive appointments. It also creates a discrete workflow requirement—ministers and appointment teams must secure chair sign-off and document performance assessments for reappointments.
Access to Justice Panel: mandate, composition, timelines and reporting
The Attorney General must establish an Access to Justice Panel within 60 days; members are appointed by the Standing Committee on Government Agencies and must have dispute-resolution expertise. The panel must consult specified stakeholders and report recommendations within six months on independence, in-person and virtual access, and legal-service access. The Attorney General must publish the panel’s recommendations within 30 days of receipt, tell the Assembly within 90 days which recommendations the government recommends implementing, and report back on progress within one year. These concrete deadlines compress policy work into a fast timetable and create multiple public reporting obligations.
Human Rights Tribunal Backlog Reduction Panel to resolve assigned applications
This new section requires the Minister to establish a temporary panel, with members appointed by the Standing Committee, that functions as a dedicated adjudicative body to resolve Human Rights Tribunal applications chosen by the Standing Committee. The panel dissolves when its assigned cases are resolved. The minister must report to the Assembly on the panel’s scope and caseload six months after establishment, and the panel reports to the Attorney General. The structure effectively adds ad hoc adjudicative capacity controlled in membership and caseload by the legislature’s Standing Committee.
Landlord and Tenant Board Backlog Reduction Panel with similar mechanics
Mirroring the Human Rights panel, this section requires the Attorney General to establish a temporary Landlord and Tenant Board Backlog Reduction Panel appointed by the Standing Committee that resolves cases the Committee assigns. The panel reports to the Attorney General and dissolves when its assigned caseload is complete. For both backlog panels, remuneration can be set by order but only if the Legislature has appropriated funds, which makes financing contingent on separate budgetary action.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Parties with long-pending matters at the Human Rights Tribunal and Landlord and Tenant Board — faster resolution via dedicated backlog panels should shorten wait times for decisions on selected cases.
- Legal aid and community legal clinics — the Access to Justice Panel must consult them and may produce reforms that increase access to legal services or create better supports for low-income litigants.
- Tribunal chairs and administrations — the statutory requirement for chair approval and public appointment lists increases their formal oversight role and transparency about roster composition.
Who Bears the Cost
- The Government of Ontario (Attorney General’s office and central budget) — establishing panels, paying appointees and funding implementation of recommendations requires appropriation and operational resources.
- Tribunal staff and case managers — integrating temporary panels, transferring files, and meeting new reporting requirements will create short-term administrative load and coordination costs.
- Parties and lawyers facing compressed dockets — expedited panels can impose tighter hearing timetables and procedural trade-offs that require more immediate preparation and possibly limit adjournments.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill's central dilemma is speed versus institutional independence and procedural quality: it seeks fast relief of case backlogs through temporary, committee-selected adjudicators while simultaneously tightening appointment oversight and transparency — an approach that can reduce waits but risks politicizing appointments, compressing procedural safeguards, and depending on contingent appropriations to deliver promised capacity.
The bill accelerates capacity and increases transparency, but it leaves several implementation levers ambiguous. The Standing Committee on Government Agencies appoints members to both the Access Panel and the Backlog Reduction Panels and also determines which cases those temporary panels will hear; that consolidates significant influence in a legislative committee rather than in independent appointment bodies or tribunal chairs.
The statute lets the Lieutenant Governor in Council set remuneration for panel members only when the Legislature has appropriated funds, which means political budgeting decisions will directly affect whether promised capacity materializes and when.
Operational questions are unresolved: how files will be transferred to backlog panels without disrupting ongoing case management, how consistency of adjudication will be maintained between temporary panels and permanent tribunals, and what standards will govern expedited hearings. The weekly public listing requirement improves transparency but raises practical data-handling tasks for ministries and the Secretariat and possible privacy trade-offs for intended appointees who are publicly listed before being formally appointed.
Finally, the conflict clause (other Acts or regulations prevail) creates legal uncertainty where existing appointment rules differ, potentially spawning transitional disputes over which statute controls particular tribunals.
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