Bill 32 explained in plain English
Carbon Budget Accountability Act, 2021
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 42nd 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
This Act establishes carbon budget limits for Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions and requires annual reporting and oversight to ensure compliance.
Bill 32, the Carbon Budget Accountability Act, 2021, sets limits on Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions and requires reports on progress towards these limits. The Act mandates that the Premier and the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks ensure total net emissions do not exceed specific carbon budgets for different periods, starting from 2023. The Minister must annually report on emissions and the policies to stay within the budget. Failure to meet the reporting deadline results in a financial penalty for both the Minister and the Premier. The Auditor General will review carbon budget reports before elections and issue annual reports on compliance.
- Sets overall and specific carbon budget limits for Ontario's total net greenhouse gas emissions from 2023 onwards.
- Requires the Premier and the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to ensure emissions do not exceed these budgets.
- Mandates the Minister to prepare an annual carbon budget report comparing emissions to the budget and outlining policies for compliance.
- Requires the annual report to be presented to the Legislative Assembly and published online by March 31 each year.
- Imposes a financial penalty on the Minister and the Premier if the annual report deadline is missed.
- Requires the Auditor General to review the most recent carbon budget report before a general election and release a statement on the review's findings.
- Requires the Auditor General to issue annual written reports on compliance with the Act.
- Defines 'carbon budget', 'greenhouse gas', and 'Minister'.
- The Premier of Ontario
- The Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (or assigned minister)
- The Legislative Assembly of Ontario
- The Auditor General of Ontario
- The Government of Ontario
- The people of Ontario, through the setting of greenhouse gas emission limits
- The Premier and Minister have a duty to ensure Ontario's total net greenhouse gas emissions do not exceed specified carbon budgets.
- The Minister has a duty to prepare and publish an annual carbon budget report.
- The Minister and Premier have a duty to pay a penalty if the annual report deadline is missed.
- The Auditor General has a duty to review the carbon budget report before a general election and release a statement.
- The Auditor General has a duty to release annual reports on compliance.
- Carbon sequestrations can only be used to offset actual emissions if they remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere for at least 100 years, and can only offset a maximum of 10% of actual emissions.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- Carbon budgets apply from 2023 onwards.
- The Minister must lay the report before the Assembly and publish it no later than March 31 each year.
- The Minister and Premier must make penalty payments within 30 days of a missed deadline.
- The Auditor General's pre-election review occurs before a general election under section 9 (2) of the Election Act.
- The Minister and Premier must personally pay a penalty equal to 10 per cent of their annual salary into the Consolidated Revenue Fund if the annual carbon budget report deadline is missed.
- Financial penalty of 10 per cent of annual salary for the Minister and the Premier if the annual carbon budget report deadline is not met.
- The specific guidelines for calculating greenhouse gas emissions are subject to the most recent guidelines published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
- The Act allows for 'any other prescribed gas' to be considered a greenhouse gas, the specifics of which would be determined by regulation.
- The specific year of Royal Assent for the Act is not provided in the text.
Specifies the basis for calculating the annual salaries of the Minister and the Premier, which are used to determine penalty amounts if the carbon budget report deadline is missed.
Source: Section 5 (1)
Sections 10, 11, and 11.1 of this Act will apply to the Auditor General's review of the carbon budget reports.
Source: Section 6 (2)
Specifies the timing for the Auditor General's pre-election review of the carbon budget report by referencing the definition of a general election in this Act.
Source: Section 6 (1)
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 does not have a published recorded division in the current official sources, so representative-by-representative vote counts are not shown.
No published representative vote breakdown
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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