Bill 128 explained in plain English
Hot Days, Cool Homes Act, 2026
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 44th 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 Hot Days, Cool Homes Act, 2026 proposes to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 to establish a maximum temperature of 26 degrees Celsius in rental units between June 1 and September 30 each year as a vital service.
This bill, titled the Hot Days, Cool Homes Act, 2026, proposes changes to Ontario's Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. The main change is to include "cooling" as a vital service. This means that during the summer months, from June 1 to September 30 each year, rental units must be kept at a maximum temperature of 26 degrees Celsius. The bill also allows for regulations to manage the transition to these new rules. The bill specifies that the requirement for cooling comes into effect on January 1, 2035, or on the day the bill receives Royal Assent, whichever is later. However, other parts of the bill come into effect when it receives Royal Assent.
- Amends the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 to define "cooling" as a vital service.
- Establishes a requirement that rental units must not exceed 26 degrees Celsius between June 1 and September 30 annually.
- Includes provisions for the Lieutenant Governor in Council to make regulations for transitional matters related to these changes.
- Sets the commencement date for the cooling requirement to be no earlier than January 1, 2035.
- Landlords in Ontario
- Tenants in Ontario
- Landlords have a new obligation to ensure rental unit temperatures do not exceed 26 degrees Celsius from June 1 to September 30 annually.
- Tenants have a right to have their rental unit's temperature maintained at or below 26 degrees Celsius during the specified summer period, provided they do not prevent cooling.
- The Lieutenant Governor in Council has the power to make regulations for transitional matters.
- The amendments related to cooling as a vital service (Section 1 of the bill) come into force on the later of January 1, 2035, or the day the Act receives Royal Assent.
- Other parts of the Act (Section 3(1) of the bill) come into force on the day the Act receives Royal Assent.
- The bill does not specify what happens if a tenant is able to regulate the temperature but chooses not to, although subsection 2(6) states the cooling requirement is deemed met in such cases.
- The specific details of the "transitional matters" that may be addressed by regulations are not outlined in the bill itself.
Adds "cooling" to the definition of vital services, requiring rental units to be kept at a maximum of 26 degrees Celsius from June 1 to September 30 each year. Also adds a new section allowing the Lieutenant Governor in Council to make transitional regulations.
Source: Section 1 and 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.
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Vote Summary
This bill is still active. We only show vote counts after the legislature publishes a recorded division.
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