Bill 13 explained in plain English
Sustainable Water and Waste Water Systems Improvement and Maintenance Act, 2010
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. Representative vote breakdowns appear when the Assembly publishes an Ayes and Nays page for the bill.
Our plain-language take, written for civic education.
Source: By PoliticalData.ca
The Sustainable Water and Waste Water Systems Improvement and Maintenance Act, 2010 establishes the Ontario Water Board to regulate water and wastewater services, repeals a previous act, and sets new requirements for municipalities regarding service delivery, financial planning, and corporate structures.
This bill, called the Sustainable Water and Waste Water Systems Improvement and Maintenance Act, 2010, aims to ensure public ownership of water and wastewater services, promote full-cost recovery, encourage efficiency and scale, improve transparency through publicly-owned corporations, and establish an independent economic regulator. It repeals the Sustainable Water and Sewage Systems Act, 2002. The bill creates the Ontario Water Board to regulate these services and sets out responsibilities for municipalities or groups of municipalities designated as 'regulated entities.' These entities must prepare business plans, consider amalgamating services if serving fewer than 10,000 customers, and establish corporations to deliver services. The Board has powers to issue orders and the Minister can intervene if orders are not followed. The bill also includes provisions for reporting, audits, and fees to fund the Board.
- Establishes the Ontario Water Board as an agent of the Crown to regulate water and wastewater services.
- Repeals the Sustainable Water and Sewage Systems Act, 2002.
- Requires regulated entities (municipalities or groups of municipalities) to prepare and submit business plans for water and wastewater services.
- Mandates that regulated entities serving fewer than 10,000 customers consider or be directed to amalgamate their services.
- Requires regulated entities to establish corporations to deliver water and wastewater services, with the regulated entity as the sole shareholder.
- Empowers the Ontario Water Board to issue orders to regulated entities and allows the Minister to intervene if orders are not followed.
- Sets out objectives for the Board, including protecting consumer interests, promoting economic efficiency, and encouraging water conservation.
- Allows the Board to charge fees to regulated entities to recover its costs.
- Requires regulated entities to make business plans, updated plans, and progress reports available to the public.
- Municipalities and groups of municipalities designated as 'regulated entities'
- Consumers of water and wastewater services
- The Ontario Water Board
- The Minister of the Environment
- The public
- Regulated entities must prepare and submit business plans.
- Regulated entities must consider or amalgamate services if serving fewer than 10,000 customers.
- Regulated entities must establish corporations to deliver services and be their sole shareholders.
- The Ontario Water Board must review and approve business plans, monitor charges, and oversee progress reports.
- Consumers have rights related to prices, adequacy, reliability, and quality of services.
- The Minister can exercise control over services if a regulated entity fails to comply with a Board order.
- Regulated entities must make approved business plans and progress reports available to the public.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- Regulated entities are required to assess and pay the full cost of providing water and wastewater services.
- The Ontario Water Board may charge fees to regulated entities to cover its operational costs.
- The cost of funding the Board will be paid from funds appropriated by the Legislature.
- The Ontario Water Board may issue orders requiring regulated entities to do or refrain from doing certain things.
- A regulated entity can request reconsideration of a Board order, followed by a hearing.
- The Minister can take control of a regulated entity's services if it fails to comply with a Board order and reconsideration or appeals are exhausted.
- The specific details of regulations, such as the maximum allowable increase in charges or specific requirements for business plans and progress reports, are not provided in this Act and will be set out in future regulations.
- The definition of 'professional engineer' is prescribed by regulations.
- The specific circumstances under which the Board may direct an update to a business plan more than once every five years are prescribed by regulations.
This Act is no longer in force.
Source: Section 43
This is the new Act that creates the framework for regulating water and wastewater systems.
Source: General
Generated using AI from official bill text. Not legal advice. It is written by PoliticalData.ca for civic education, automatically checked and spot-reviewed before publishing.
Official textProcess Snapshot
Vote Summary
This bill is still active. We only show vote counts after the legislature publishes a recorded division.
No published representative vote breakdown
This bill is still moving through the process. When a recorded division is published, representative positions can be listed here.
Official sources
Status, sponsor, votes, and timeline on this page are drawn from these official legislative sources and public records. Each summary above is attributed to its own source.
How this data is sourced