Summary#

Bill 218, Supporting Ontario’s Recovery and Municipal Elections Act, 2020, was enacted as Chapter 26 of Ontario’s 2020 statutes. It creates the Supporting Ontario’s Recovery Act, 2020 and amends the Municipal Elections Act, 1996. Its stated goal is to address certain legal claims related to COVID-19 and change parts of the municipal-election framework.

• A person generally cannot be sued over someone being or potentially being infected with or exposed to COVID-19 on or after March 17, 2020, if the person acted or made a good-faith effort to act in line with applicable public-health guidance and laws, and did not act with gross negligence.
• The protection applies despite conflicts between applicable guidance or laws. “Good faith effort” includes an honest effort, whether or not reasonable.
• The protection does not apply to acts or omissions related to operations that a law required to close. It also does not apply to specified employment and work-related claims.
• The Act removes the Municipal Elections Act framework for ranked-ballot municipal elections and revokes the related regulation.
• It changes specified election timing rules: one date in section 31 moves from the fourth Friday in July to the third Friday in August. Two timing references in section 42 also move from the year before an election to the election year, including a date moved from before December 31 to before June 1.

What it means for you#

• People considering a COVID-19-related claim: The law can bar a claim if its conditions are met. A claim already underway that falls within the bar is deemed dismissed without costs. The law also says no compensation or other remedy is payable for rights ended by this protection.
• Businesses, public bodies and other people or entities: The protection can apply to them, including Ontario’s Crown, and can extend to someone held responsible for another person’s acts or omissions. It is not a blanket immunity: the conditions and exceptions matter.
• Workers and people doing work or providing services: The protection does not apply to specified claims by workers or their survivors under workplace-injury rules, or to an individual’s claim about COVID-19 exposure or infection in the course of employment, work, or providing services. This means the protection does not decide whether such a claim succeeds.
• Municipalities, candidates and voters: The bill removes the statutory framework for ranked-ballot municipal elections. It also changes election timing provisions, but the materials do not include the full parent Act needed to verify what each timing change means in practice.
• General public: The law does not create a COVID-19 compensation program or require people to apply for protection.

Money#

No cost information is in the available material.

• The bill provides no cost estimate, spending amount, fee, fine or funding source.
• The materials do not identify staffing or enforcement costs.

What is unclear#

• The bill does not set out a process for deciding whether a person met the good-faith and other conditions.
• It does not define “gross negligence” in the text supplied.
• The parent Municipal Elections Act, 1996 is not included, so the full practical effect of the changed election dates and timing rules cannot be verified here.
• The materials do not explain how the removed ranked-ballot framework interacts with any other election rules.

Case for#

• The bill appears intended to limit COVID-19-related lawsuits against people and organizations that tried to follow applicable public-health guidance and laws.
• A possible argument for the protection is that it leaves a route for claims involving gross negligence, while protecting qualifying acts or omissions made in good faith.
• The work-related exceptions preserve specified claims rather than extending the protection to every COVID-19 exposure or infection claim.

Case against#

• The protection can end legal rights and dismiss existing proceedings, including claims tied indirectly to COVID-19 exposure or infection.
• “Good faith effort” includes an honest effort even if it was not reasonable. The bill also says conflicts between applicable guidance or laws do not remove the protection.
• A person’s claim may be barred even where the person believes the conduct caused harm, if the legal conditions for the protection are met.
• The bill removes the ranked-ballot election framework, while the supplied materials do not explain the practical effect of the related timing changes.