Ontario has tabled new legislation that will allow out-of-province Realtors to more easily work in the province, but some are warning the move could lower Ontario’s high standards and open the door to underprepared agents working in unfamiliar markets.
The Protect Ontario Through Free Trade Within Canada Act, 2025 (Bill 2) has passed its second reading.
It proposes Realtors in co-operating provinces, which include New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, do not need to take an exam to begin working in Ontario. Instead, the Realtor simply has to apply to work in Ontario with the certification from their province.
If their registration is approved, they can then work in Ontario without even having to be physically present in the province.
A threat to high standards?
Some working in the field fear the bill has the potential to weaken the high standards Ontario sets out for its real estate sector.
“Technically, (the bill) does (lower standards),” real estate agent Danny Dawson told REM. “You’re letting someone into a new province that has a whole different set of regulations and rules, and different systems, and they’re not trained on it yet.”
Dawson has a practice in both Ottawa and the Outaouais region in southwestern Quebec. He warns that if there’s no process in place to make sure the Realtor knows the regulations for Ontario to a tee, problems could arise.
“The consumer expects a Realtor to be educated in the law and the systems to buy a house,” Dawson said. “If you don’t know that, that’s a fail to the consumer. So there does need to be a system in place… if it’s just a simple transfer of license, then I see that being a problem.”
Toronto-based Realtor Scott Ingram agrees that simply airdropping into a different jurisdiction without a deep knowledge of the market may not work as Ford envisions.
He said even going from Toronto to Port Hope, both in Ontario, means very different customs, and it took adjustments to make it work for him.
For example, in a recent deal in Port Hope, he got a personal cheque for the deposit, which he said never happens in Toronto, and the deposit was a lot less than the five per cent he usually receives.
Ingram imagines an out-of-province Realtor trying to manage a bidding war in Toronto.
“It could be a real shit show,” he said. “Real estate is an area of local specialization.”
He foresees younger, hungrier agents taking advantage of working in a different province rather than more experienced agents.
How it would work
In the proposed new process, the Realtor notifies the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) that they want to practise in Ontario under the Labour Mobility Act.
The regulator has 10 days to approve their request, according to an official with knowledge of the matter but who is not authorized to speak on it.
The Realtor is then considered registered for up to six months and must submit a complete labour mobility application within 30 days, which RECO also has 30 days to approve or reject. If approved, the Realtor can continue to work in Ontario.
The current process requires the Realtor to be present in Ontario and take an exam that proves they are familiar with the Trust in Real Estate Services Act, or TRESA, the legislation that governs Ontario’s real estate industry.
A bill to remove barriers
Bill 2 doesn’t specifically say anything about real estate. Instead, it is a blanket decree to remove barriers for the free flow of goods and services between provinces, and real estate is just one of those services caught in its net.
“What we want to do is standardize right across the country,” Premier Doug Ford said during an April news conference in which Ontario signed a memorandum of understanding with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. “If it’s good for one province… why isn’t it good for all provinces and territories?”
Ford, though, was talking about first aid kits when he posed that question, and real estate is much more complicated.
Overall impact remains unclear
Regulations for the bill, which will be informed by input from industry experts and associations, are set to begin shortly, and they may restrict the free flow that the province intends.
Cathy Polan, president of the Ontario Real Estate Association, said in a statement to REM that they are “working with the provincial government to understand the impact that this Bill may have on Ontario real estate.”
“As we move forward, OREA will continue to work alongside the Ontario government and RECO to ensure a smooth transition during this process and assist with labour mobility across Canada,” she said.
Matthew Thornton, founder of public affairs firm Real North Strategies, which has clients working on this file, noted that at the very minimum, Realtors working in Ontario will still have to follow the rules of TRESA. He said the province can still protect consumers through that legislation.
“I can’t see standards being decreased,” he said. “It would be a step backwards and I think the industry is looking to ensure that our standards remain very high.”
Thornton noted that real estate is different from other industries in that consumer protection is a huge element, and it involves sensitive transactions that often deal with people’s life savings.
A RECO spokesperson told REM in a statement that they will communicate any changes with the sector as they review the details of the legislation.
Ford has indicated he’d like all barriers between provincial trade removed by Canada Day, according to the source with knowledge of the matter, and Thornton said there’s some urgency in the government to get the bill through.
Both Dawson and Ingram don’t see the bill having too great an impact on the industry and predicted that not many Realtors will take the province up on its offer.
Dawson noted that Realtors can already work in different provinces just by taking an exam, which he says is not a large barrier, but not many do it.
Working in more than one province involves paying multiple membership fees to real estate boards, which Dawson said isn’t financially viable if they’re not active in both markets.
“(Bill 2) is not going to have a major impact,” Dawson said.
Eric Stober has over 10 years experience as a journalist and writer at publications big and small, including Global News, Toronto Life, Post City Magazine, Greencamp.com, the Toronto Star and The Grid.
Threat to high standards. Ontario has minimal standards and the quality of professional competence is not high as a function of the education delivered by the registrar. ORE has the opportunity to distinguish its members from those not members via setting its own standards of care and competence to remain a member. Like the time OREA lost the education contract and cried fowl over that, only to not have any effect on the outcome or the advancement of competency, there is an opportunity for ORE to step up and fill the gap it appears to suggest will occur if the provincial government proposal is passed.
Real estate transactions are critical to the economic well being of property owners. It is not, more important than what a tradesperson produces…let us say a structural trade, an electric trade, or a other critical to health and well being work carried out by one….and yet the federal and provincial governments found a way to recognize the work in each province may be regulatorily different, but in practice is less than different…so they created the Interprovincial Interprovincial Standards Red Seal Program as a set of common standards which allows tradespeople who pass the Red Seal qualification in one jurisdiction are entitled to work in other jurisdictions in Canada.
Created in 1959 it has been widely successful, even though building codes, fire codes, and municipal obligations varied between jurisdictions. What possible reason could exist to not work towards a common standard for real estate conduct, or mostly common standard, across Canada…after all which Canadian deserves more regulation than another because of where in Canada they live?
Chapter 7 of the Canada Free Trade Agreement (formerly the Agreement on Internal Trade) generally requires provincial and territorial governments to recognize individuals who hold certain trade certificates issued by a Canadian province or territory as having met the requirements to practice their occupation elsewhere in Canada. That applies to trades. It could be it should be amended to include professional REALTORS®.
Waiting to see if OREA and ORE acts out of progressive intent or seeks to retain a monopoly in the face of the obvious free trade debate that shows, while Canadians are upset about inter country free trade, they forgot to look themselves in the mirror and see the intra-country limits to free trade that exist. Now faced with the reality, Ontario is seeking to make corrections. Which of us REALTORS® will stand for correcting the trade barriers, it appears OREA is starting on the path of not being interested to correct what is an obvious limit to trade.
Excellent!
I can soon register in a different province, practice in Ontario and get away from the “health” plan burden.
That is a marvelous observation, Ken. It speaks to why OREA might be objecting!!
Will get license in AB and work in ON without paying too much in “fees” to the scammers of OREA, TRREB.
ON , OREA should worry about the unethical practices done by many realtors.
Ontario’s high standards? What a laugh. I can tell you from experience that NB Realtors are way more ethical than the Ontario realtors. At least when you have a first meeting with a realtor in NB. The first question asked is not if you are willing to commit fraud.
Okay, so honestly it’s a bit rich to see GTA agents preaching about “local specialization” as some sort of panacea of excellence, while the same agent is simultaneously pointing out key differences while performing deals in remote communities…. Fyi, a simple Google maps search shows that Port Hope is a 260km drive from the realtor’s office address.
Kindof ironic that an article about local specialization actually highlights one of the issues that smaller town Realtors face on a regular basis.
This isn’t new or a big deal. I know agents who are licensed in Ontario as ‘broker of records’ however they live in Alberta. They oversee brokerages from 3500 km away.
This is an absolutely ludacris idea. I’m all for removing trade barriers on goods manufactured or grown in other provinces to be able to sell them across the country, but even sellers of goods need to know the laws in the areas they will be selling those goods. For some things that a simple search, for others is quite complex. Real estate is one such area with complex regulations that are completely different from province to province. Agents can already trade in multiple provinces so long as they take the courses applicable to those provinces. Why would anyone want looser regulations then that bare minimum? Trading in an area with laws that you aren’t familiar with is a recipe for disaster. What’s next, lawyers trained in US law arguing before Canadien courts? If you want to trade in Ontario great, but put in the work and learn the Ontario regulations. Seems simple enough.
About time. The provinces and the industry need to understand that Commercial Real estate is completely different than residential. While I understand the need for ‘local’ oversight and knowledge in residential real estate, commercial real estate operates on a national scale and as such the inter-provincial trade barriers to serving national companies needs to fall.
Is this ideal for CRE? Not by a long way, but it is a start.
I think you will find that a delay in following through on establishing “uniformity of real property and civil law” (as anticipated in s.97 of BNA/Constitution Act 1867) is the root of this problem that is being awkwardly-worked around at this time.
Why are not all provinces (except Quebec) as yet being served by the same set of property and civil rights laws and what is the reason a person cannot learn that one set of rules and then be registered to trade in Real Estate in all Canadian provinces (except Quebec)?
97 Until the Laws relative to Property and Civil Rights in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the Procedure of the Courts in those Provinces, are made uniform, the Judges of the Courts of those Provinces appointed by the Governor General shall be selected from the respective Bars of those Provinces.
I predict:
1) it will be more popular than anticipated with a flood of advertisements by inter-provincial agents. I think though this opens the door to more scammers.
2) brokerages will offer recruitment incentives or high fees.
3) a new tier of board and provincial membership will arise and likely at a higher fee when calculated on a per diem basis that will also give the parking brokerages a boost in business.
4) new search models will also come about.
This all raises the question about ethical advertising of properties across provinces now which will be very difficult to track and how each provincial authority will enforce their regulations is going to be a headache to iron it.
It’s a necessary provision though to remove trade barriers, it just exposes flaws in the system.
This makes zero sense for residential real estate. However, the “high standards” rebuttal is an unsubstantiated insult to other jurisdictions that very likely have higher standards.
REALTORS® need to understand housing and real estate contract standards in their jurisdiction, which is a provincial mandate.
This proposal is backwards. If you want to break down the barriers, then standardize the provincial real estate acts into a national program. Don’t have different acts with agents who understand bits and pieces of the respective Acts.