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New Tecumseth council reviews report on Buy Ontario Act

February 27, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Town of New Tecumseth Council received a report detailing the Buy Ontario Act 2025, as legislated by the Province of Ontario, during council meeting on Feb. 9.

This legislation grants the Province authority to establish mandatory procurement rules for municipalities and other public-sector organizations.

The stated mission of the Buy Ontario Act is to prioritize Ontario-made goods and services in public procurement, ensuring that provincial tax dollars support Ontario’s workforce.

The act is intentionally broad in scope, with detailed requirements expected to be defined in forthcoming regulations.

Initial implementation is expected to focus on light-duty fleet vehicles and construction procurements.

The legislation is a direct result of the United States increasing its use of tariffs on key sectors, including steel, aluminum, energy, automotive products, and softwood lumber.

These measures caused significant disruptions across the highly integrated North American supply chain.

In response, both the federal and Ontario governments introduced a series of mitigation measures throughout 2025.

The Buy Ontario Act was introduced in Nov. 2025 to safeguard Ontario’s economy.

The proposed policy would require Ontario’s public sector to purchase or lease vehicles that are manufactured in Ontario first.

A vehicle manufactured in Ontario has the number ‘2’ as the first digit of its Vehicle Identification Number (VIN).

When it comes to infrastructure and construction projects, the proposed policy would apply to major goods and services in capital infrastructure and construction projects to encourage vendors to use Ontario-made and Canadian-made goods and services wherever possible when delivering capital infrastructure and construction projects to support key industries.

There are no direct financial impacts associated with this report; however, the implementation of any resulting directives is expected to incur costs.

Anticipated costs include staff time for stakeholder engagement and internal communications, updates to policies and templates, employee training and user support, development of new evaluation tools, extended evaluation processes, and increased responses to supplier inquiries related to the revised policy.

Additional costs may arise from developing compliance-tracking and reporting systems, and from preparing submissions for the province.

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