Ontario Municipal Act

Ontario: s. 237 of the Municipal Act

The Court of Appeal’s decision in Foley v. St. Marys (Town) is one of the few cases that involve the limitation period in section 273(5) of the Municipal Act:

[28]      To summarize, a party may commence proceedings to quash a bylaw under s. 273 of the Municipal Act, 2001 by way of application. Such a proceeding is captured by the statutory one year limitation period. Alternatively, a party may commence an application or an action for declaratory relief. Such a proceeding is distinct from the statutory remedy of quashing a bylaw under s. 273, and as such, is not captured by the one year limitation period.

This is not particularly revelatory stuff, but it’s unusual enough issue to be of note.

Ontario: notice provisions are not limitation periods

Does the Limitations Act render the notice provision in section 44(10) of the Municipal Act of no force and effect? Nope.  Section 44(10) is a notice provision, notice provisions are not limitation periods, and therefore it’s not subject to the Limitations Act.

In Bourassa v Temiskaming Shores (City), the plaintiff argued that section 44(10) is not listed in section 19 of the Limitations Act (which includes the schedule of limitation periods in other acts which remain in force), and therefore is not a limitation period.  The flawed of premise of this argument is that a notice provision is a limitation period, which it’s not.  Justice Wilcox accepted the defendant’s argument that the legislature did not intend to void all the statutory notice provisions by leaving them out of the section 19 schedule.