The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, on behalf of the Building Code Short-Term Advisory Body (“Advisory Body”), is seeking public input as part of a review of Ontario’s Building Code to identify opportunities to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden, improve clarity, support housing construction, and reduce barriers to innovation and interprovincial trade.
Ontario’s Building Code is a large and highly technical regulation that establishes construction requirements for buildings across the province. Stakeholders have identified concerns that some requirements may be unnecessarily complex, difficult to interpret, outdated, duplicative, or inconsistent with requirements in other parts of Canada.
To support this review, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has established the Advisory Body, an independent panel of Building Code experts. The Advisory Body has been asked to identify opportunities to improve the Building Code while maintaining health, safety, accessibility, and performance outcomes.
Purpose of the Consultation
The Advisory Body is seeking feedback on:
- Provisions that are outdated, duplicative, overly prescriptive, or no longer proportionate to risk.
- Opportunities to simplify, streamline, consolidate, or remove requirements while maintaining or improving health, safety, accessibility, and performance outcomes.
- Consideration of alignment with the National Construction Codes and Ontario’s obligations, only where opportunities for burden reduction through further harmonization arise.
- Practical, feasible, and evidence-based ideas that support efficient construction practices, reduce compliance costs, and improve clarity and usability of the Code.
The consultation closes at 11:59 PM on August 14, 2026.
Please visit https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/026-0744 for more information and to learn how you can comment.