OHA+M is an award-winning blog about the Ontario Heritage Act, heritage policy in Ontario and related topics. New posts monthly. Comments on posts and suggestions for new posts are most welcome! All posts copyright © 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Dan Schneider. To subscribe to OHA+M, on the menu to the left, click on "Subscribe to OHA+M" under "Blog".
First, before heading on down to the Lake Ontario waterfront, some context. My two previous posts tell the story of how Ontario ended up with a different protection regime for cultural heritage property in the hands of the Crown. Provincial standards and guidelines, developed and made mandatory under Part III.1 of the Ontario Heritage Act, now apply to all provincial ministries, as well as to other “public bodies” prescribed in regulation. To keep things clear, the designation regime under Parts IV and V of the Act does not apply to these public owners.
As we saw last time, the 1975 Ontario Heritage Act made no provision for the protection of provincially owned heritage property. Bilateral agreements had been struck between the culture ministry and a few of the main property-owning ministries and, later, the Crown agency that was created to manage much of the government’s property — the Ontario Realty Corporation. But these arrangements were limited in their scope and certainly in their clout.
