Bill 307 explained in plain English
Protecting Elections and Defending Democracy 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, 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 Protecting Elections and Defending Democracy Act, 2021, amends Ontario's Election Finances Act to define political advertising, set third-party spending limits, mandate interim financial reporting, and assert the Act's supremacy over certain Charter and Human Rights Code provisions.
This bill amends the Election Finances Act in Ontario. It provides guidelines for determining what constitutes a political advertisement, sets spending limits for third parties during election periods, requires interim financial reporting from third parties, and clarifies that the Act operates despite certain sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code.
- Establishes criteria for the Chief Electoral Officer to consider when determining if an advertisement is political.
- Re-enacts provisions setting spending limits for third parties on political advertising during the 12 months before an election writ is issued.
- Introduces rules to prevent third parties from circumventing spending limits, including through collusion or by splitting into multiple parties.
- Requires third parties to file interim reports with the Chief Electoral Officer when they spend or commit to spending certain amounts on paid political advertising.
- Mandates the Chief Electoral Officer to publish these interim reports and calculate the spending as a percentage of the maximum allowed.
- Prohibits the sale of advertising to a third party if the seller knows it would cause the third party to exceed its spending limit.
- Declares that the Election Finances Act operates notwithstanding sections 2 and 7 to 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code.
- Third parties engaging in political advertising in Ontario.
- The Chief Electoral Officer of Ontario.
- Persons or entities that sell advertising.
- Registered political parties, constituency associations, candidates, and leadership contestants (indirectly through rules on collusion).
- Third parties must not exceed spending limits in any electoral district ($24,000 multiplied by an indexation factor) or in total ($600,000 multiplied by an indexation factor) in the 12 months before an election writ is issued.
- Third parties must file interim reports when spending or committing to spend $1,000 or more on paid political advertising, or upon reaching their spending limit.
- Persons selling advertising must not do so if they know it would cause a third party to exceed its spending limit, based on published interim reports.
- The Chief Electoral Officer must publish interim reports and spending percentages.
- The Act is declared to operate notwithstanding certain Charter and Human Rights Code provisions.
- The Act came into force on the day it received Royal Assent (June 14, 2021).
- For the 2022 general election, the relevant 12-month period for third-party spending limits begins on the day the Act received Royal Assent.
- Sets specific spending limits for third-party political advertising.
- Requires reporting of expenditures and commitments for political advertising.
- The bill text does not specify penalties for contraventions of these provisions.
- The specific amounts for spending limits are subject to an annual indexation factor, the details of which are not provided in this bill text.
- The bill text does not specify the penalties for violating the spending limits or reporting requirements.
- The bill text does not detail the prescribed form for interim reports.
Changes definitions and rules related to political advertising, third-party spending limits, and reporting requirements.
Source: Section 1, 2, 3
References subsections related to the timing of general elections when setting third-party spending limits.
Source: Section 2(2)
States that the Election Finances Act applies despite sections 2 and 7 to 15 of the Charter.
Source: Section 4
States that the Election Finances Act applies despite the Human Rights Code.
Source: Section 4
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
The current official sources do not publish a recorded division breakdown for this bill, so there is no representative-by-representative table to show.
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