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Vitual AGMs and Electronic voting are here to stay!

The “Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act” (Bill 91) received royal assent yesterday, which will amend the Condo Act to:

  • permit condos to hold virtual or hybrid meetings;
  • permit voting to be done electronically; and,
  • facilitate how notices and other documents are sent to owners.

The above will be allowed without the requirement of passing a by-law, but corportions will be able to tweak or restrict the above to meet their  needs.

These changes will come into effect on October 1, 2023. [Until then, these measures continue to be permitted by the temporary schedule to the Condo Act.]

You can review Bill 91 here.

Read on for more details.

Virtual meetings

The amended Condo Act will permit both board meetings and owners meetings to be held by electronic means or in a hybrid manner (with some in-person and others by electronic means).

The corporation’s by-laws may limit the manners by which these meetings may be held and may specify requirements that apply.

Board meetings

Virtual or hybrid directors’ meetings will be allowed but provided that all persons participating to the meeting are able to communicate with each other simultaneously and instantaneously. (So no meetings by emails.)

Also of interest, boards will no longer require the consent of all directors before being able to proceed virtually.

Owners meetings

Virtual or hybrid owners‘ meetings will be allowed – provided that all persons entitled to participate to the meeting can reasonably participate.   There is no definition of what “reasonable participation” entails.

Electronic voting

Owners will be able to vote electronically or in person (or by proxy).  Electronic voting will include electronic ballots or voting by phone, in addition to many more modern methods such as…. (I’m not making this up)… fax.

The corporation will be able to pass by-laws to limit the manners by which a vote may be conducted.

There will also be changes to record keeping of ballots.

Notifying owners by emails

With the coming changes, condo corporations will be able to communicate and send notices to owners electronically – unless they have in place a by-law preventing it.