Bill 226 explained in plain English
Broadband is an Essential Service Act, 2020
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
This Act requires the Minister of Infrastructure to develop and update a Broadband Connectivity Strategy to ensure universal access to high-speed internet in Ontario by specific dates.
Bill 226, the Broadband is an Essential Service Act, 2020, aims to ensure that all Ontarians have access to affordable and reliable high-speed internet. The Act requires the Minister of Infrastructure to create a strategy to achieve universal high-speed internet access, with specific targets for 95% of Ontarians by 2026 and 100% by 2030. The strategy must be updated every two years and involve consultations with various levels of government, Indigenous communities, and the public. The Act defines "high-speed internet" as having download speeds of at least 50 megabits per second and upload speeds of at least 10 megabits per second.
- Enacts the Broadband is an Essential Service Act, 2020.
- Declares that high-speed internet is an essential service.
- Requires the Minister of Infrastructure to develop a Broadband Connectivity Strategy.
- Sets a goal for the strategy to achieve high-speed internet connectivity for 95 per cent of Ontarians by 2026 and for all Ontarians by 2030.
- Requires the strategy to identify Ontarians without high-speed internet access and their locations.
- Requires the strategy to outline actions needed to achieve the targets, roles of partners, timelines, and performance measures.
- Requires the Minister to update the strategy at least every two years.
- Mandates that updated strategies include progress reports and evaluations.
- Requires the Minister to consult with federal and municipal governments, Indigenous communities, and the general public when developing or updating the strategy.
- Requires the strategy and its updates to be published online and tabled before the Legislative Assembly.
- Defines "high-speed internet" as download speeds of 50 megabits per second or faster and upload speeds of 10 megabits per second or faster.
- The Minister of Infrastructure
- Ontarians (residents of Ontario)
- Northern and rural Ontarians
- Federal government
- Municipal governments
- Indigenous communities
- The general public
- Providers of internet services (implicitly, through strategy implementation)
- The Minister has an obligation to develop, update, consult on, publish, and table the Broadband Connectivity Strategy.
- Ontarians have a right to access high-speed internet, as guided by the strategy's goals.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- The strategy aims to achieve high-speed internet connectivity for 95 per cent of Ontarians by 2026.
- The strategy aims to achieve high-speed internet connectivity for all Ontarians by 2030.
- The strategy must be updated at least once every two years.
- The specific actions to be taken to achieve the strategy's targets are not detailed within the Act; these will be identified in the strategy itself.
- The exact roles of partners in implementing the strategy are not specified in the Act.
- The Act does not specify the consequences if the targets are not met or if the Minister fails to fulfill the obligations.
- The Act does not specify the budget or funding mechanisms for developing or implementing the strategy.
This is a new Act that establishes the framework for achieving universal high-speed internet access in Ontario.
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