On April 28, RCCAO, in partnership with GTSWCA, held a webinar on the recent changes to the underground utilities process. For a copy of the webinar presentations, click here and here and to watch a recording of the webinar, click here. 

After years of engagement and advocacy with provincial officials, RCCAO is happy to share that legislative reforms to Ontario One Call through Bill 93, the Getting Ontario Connected Act will become law on April 1, 2023.
 
“RCCAO members welcome these reforms that focus on lowering project costs and reducing delays, getting critical infrastructure built faster for all Ontarians,” said Nadia Todorova, Executive Director of RCCAO.
 
For years, our industry has faced costly disruptions while waiting for delayed utility locates to be fulfilled. With these reforms, several long-standing issues will be addressed:
 

• The validity of locates has been extended to 60 days.
• Contractors and subcontractors working on the same job site will be able to share locates, eliminating duplication that causes delays.
• Members contravening legislated timelines for fulfilling utility locates can be fined daily penalties by Ontario One Call.

 
The previous lack of enforcement and accountability is reflected in the fact that half of call tickets for September 2021 took longer than 15 days across the province, with only 14 percent being completed within the legislated five-day timeline. This means that over 80 percent of all locate requests were delivered “late”, a trend which has not only continued, but has gotten worse over the 2022 digging season.
 
The full list of changes are available here: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/12o04#BK24
 
Specific breakdown of the administrative penalties can be found here: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/230014