A little-known section of Ontario’s new public safety legislation is setting off alarm bells for housing providers and legal experts, who say it could expose landlords, including non-profits, to major fines or even jail time if drugs are produced or trafficked in the units they rent out.
The implications of the Measures Respecting Premises with Illegal Drug Activity Act, a section of Schedule 8 of the newly passed Bill 10, has been a hard push-back from supportive housing providers and landlords.
As it is written: "The Schedule enacts the Measures Respecting Premises with Illegal Drug Activity Act, 2025, which prohibits a person from knowingly permitting a premises of which the person is a landlord to be used in relation to offences under Acts of Parliament that relate to the production or trafficking of a controlled substance or precursor, or of cannabis."