The Ontario Building,…

The Ontario Building, recently updated in 2024 and issued in 2025, has not harmonized with the National Energy Code for Buildings and is actually using old 2017 energy efficiency values from the previous 2012 Ontario Building Code, SB-10 update.

The lack of harmonization with the broader Canadian market and codes has made Ontario a laggard in energy efficiency for new buildings, in particular allowing many buildings that will be less resilient as climate change continues.

Municipalities stepped into this leadership void and implemented standards that has encouraged the market to adapt and are reasonable given the carbon and climate crisis we collectively face. Removing the ability of municipalities to attempt to address this collective issue is a further abdication of action in this space.

The province should be aware that there is no benefit to quickly building inefficient homes for the public as these buildings become stranded assets requiring more repairs, costs, and risk than one building for the same cost which is more energy efficient. Furthermore, the barriers to home building speed are not energy efficiency, but rather development charges, approvals, and the like which the province should concentrate on removing.

Building energy poor homes mandates poor buildings for the public saddling them with risk and higher costs for the foreseeable future and does not allow our buildings industry to deliver innovative solutions, rather it encourages the same old poor practices that leave Ontario further behind.