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If passed, the Getting Ontario Connected Act, 2022 would reduce barriers and bring high-speed internet infrastructure to communities faster across the province. This legislation would reduce delays to help meet the province’s commitment to ensure all communities in Ontario have access to reliable high-speed internet by the end of 2025. It would also help build better infrastructure faster, strengthen communities and boost local economies.

In addition, the legislation would improve Ontario One Call’s processes of determining the location of underground infrastructure like telecommunications lines, water mains and gas pipelines, known as locates. The new locate process, for some situations, would ensure that infrastructure owners use one service jointly rather than their own services, would avoid duplicate inspections and ensure that locates remain valid for 60 days. This is expected to significantly reduce waiting periods for builders, strengthen safety for workers and improve the accuracy of results, enabling internet service providers to more quickly plan and start their broadband infrastructure projects and finish them faster.

Reducing Barriers and Expediting High-Speed Internet Access in Communities

This legislation, if passed, would amend the Building Broadband Faster Act, 2021 (BBFA) to:

• Set required service standards to ensure municipalities provide timely responses to right-of-way permits for high-speed internet infrastructure deployment. This includes 10 business days to respond to right of way permits with distances of up to 30 kilometers and 15 business days to respond with distances of 30 kilometers or more.
• Require information sharing by ensuring municipalities and stakeholders use Broadband One Window. This is an online platform, developed by Infrastructure Ontario, which would provide stakeholders with easy and secure access to datasets, while helping to manage right of way access applications.
• Ensure organizations that own utility infrastructure near a designated high-speed internet project provide timely access to infrastructure data. This would allow internet service providers to quickly start work on laying down underground high-speed internet infrastructure.

If passed, Ontario would also propose a regulation under the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, to support the expedited deployment of high-speed internet projects. This includes setting timelines for Local Distribution Companies to facilitate hydro pole attachment requests and requiring companies to use the Broadband One Window tool when an Internet Service Provider with a designated broadband project elects to use the platform.

Improving the process for locating underground infrastructure

In addition to companies building broadband infrastructure, the legislation, if passed, would also reduce delays and duplication for anyone who needs information about the location of underground infrastructure including housing developments, commercial real estate projects and road works. Amending the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, 2012 would:

• Make it faster and easier for construction and infrastructure projects to obtain underground infrastructure location information, also known as locates.
• Provide excavators with greater control over completing locates by mandating the use of a dedicated locator model for certain construction and infrastructure projects where a single locator is pre-identified to provide locate information.
• Ensure high safety standards and improve the accuracy of locates.
• Reduce duplication and waiting periods by allowing contractors on the same dig site to share underground infrastructure location details.
• Provide certainty for excavators and reduce the frequency of locating underground infrastructure by extending and standardizing the validity period of locates for a minimum of 60 days.
• Improve Ontario One Call’s compliance and enforcement tools, such as providing Ontario One Call the authority to issue administrative penalties against non-compliant members and excavators in the industry. Ontario One Call is a not-profit organization overseen by the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services.
• Enhance the governance and oversight of Ontario One Call with requirements that are consistent with administrative authorities overseen by the ministry.

Additional Resources