Bill 135 explained in plain English
Swahili Heritage Month 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
Bill 135, the Swahili Heritage Month Act, 2026, if passed, would proclaim the month of July annually as Swahili Heritage Month in Ontario.
This bill, if passed, would proclaim the month of July each year as Swahili Heritage Month in Ontario. The preamble to the bill notes that Swahili is a Bantu language spoken in eastern and central Africa and by the African diaspora, including in Ontario. It states that this proclamation recognizes the cultural, artistic, and economic contributions of Swahili speakers to the province, their increasing role in Ontario's linguistic and cultural landscape, and aligns with UNESCO's World Swahili Language Day on July 7.
- Proclaims the month of July in each year as Swahili Heritage Month.
- States that the Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- Swahili speakers in Ontario
- The Province of Ontario
- The month of July is proclaimed as Swahili Heritage Month annually.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.
- The bill does not specify any particular activities or events that must or may take place during Swahili Heritage Month.
- The bill does not outline any specific funding or resource allocations related to Swahili Heritage Month.
This would be a new Act that proclaims July as Swahili Heritage Month.
Source: Section 1
The Act will come into effect on the day it receives Royal Assent.
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