Local Government Act

And understanding what other provinces do differently kind of helps undersea Ontario's deliberate choices, not as the natural, inevitable order of things.

Okay, so let's start with the West Coast and BC's framework, which is governed by the Local Government Act.

It's structurally similar to Ontario's in a lot of respects.

There's standing committees, public hearings, formal delegations.

The basic architecture is recognizable.

But BC has historically had a stronger statutory public hearing requirement for land use changes.

Under the Local Government Act, a public hearing must be generally held before council adopts an amendment to the official community planning bylaw or certain zoning amendments.

Ontario's planning public meeting requirements are also statutory, but they've been progressively narrowed in recent years, largely through housing legislation changes, which, if you're connecting the dots with earlier episodes, is very much the same broader current that produced the strong mayor powers.

So thank you.

But we do have news to tidy up, particularly around the new local government act changes that have passed through the parliament as we record this yet to get royal assent.

But that's pretty much a formality, isn't it?

Yeah, so that's Stronger Communities Bill, as you say, through the Legislative Assembly, through the Legislative Council, back to the Legislative Assembly, past all those processes.