Bill 129 explained in plain English
Safe and Healthy Communities Act (Addressing Gun Violence), 2019
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 42nd Parliament, 1st 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 Safe and Healthy Communities Act (Addressing Gun Violence), 2019, amends the Health Insurance Act and the Health Protection and Promotion Act to include services for gun violence survivors and require health boards to address gun violence.
This bill, known as the Safe and Healthy Communities Act (Addressing Gun Violence), 2019, makes changes to two Ontario laws: the Health Insurance Act and the Health Protection and Promotion Act. The amendments aim to address gun violence and its impacts. The Health Insurance Act will be updated to include certain hospital-based violence intervention programs and trauma-informed counselling for survivors of gun violence and their families as insured services. The Health Protection and Promotion Act will require boards of health to develop programs and services focused on reducing gun violence and supporting individuals affected by it. The Act comes into effect six months after receiving Royal Assent.
- Amends the Health Insurance Act to include certain hospital-based violence intervention programs as insured services.
- Amends the Health Insurance Act to include trauma-informed counselling for survivors of gun violence and their family members and observers as insured services, with no time limit for accessing the counselling.
- Amends the Health Protection and Promotion Act to require boards of health to establish programs and services aimed at reducing gun violence.
- Amends the Health Protection and Promotion Act to require boards of health to establish programs and services that increase community capacity to support survivors of gun violence and those with trauma related to gun violence.
- Sets the commencement date for the Act to be six months after it receives Royal Assent.
- Survivors of gun violence
- Family members and observers impacted by gun violence
- Boards of health
- Prescribed practitioners providing counselling and intervention programs
- Survivors of gun violence and their family members and observers have the right to access trauma-informed counselling as an insured service without a time limit.
- Boards of health have an obligation to establish programs and services for the reduction of gun violence and to support survivors.
- The Act comes into force six months after the day it receives Royal Assent.
- The Health Insurance Act will cover prescribed hospital-based violence intervention programs and trauma-informed counselling for gun violence survivors and impacted individuals as insured services.
- The specific details of what constitutes 'prescribed' hospital-based violence intervention programs, 'prescribed' trauma-informed counselling, 'prescribed' practitioners, and the conditions and limitations for these services are not detailed in this text and would be set out in regulations.
- The bill does not specify the funding mechanisms or resource allocation for the programs boards of health are required to establish.
Adds provisions to include prescribed hospital-based violence intervention programs and prescribed trauma-informed counselling for survivors of gun violence and their family members and observers as insured services, without a time limit for accessing the counselling.
Source: Section 1
Adds provisions requiring boards of health to have programs and services for the reduction of gun violence and for increasing the community's capacity to enhance the well-being of survivors of gun violence and people with trauma associated with gun violence.
Source: Section 2
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