The City of Toronto Municipal Code includes new (since 1998) harmonized general administrative and regulatory bylaws. For this reason the existing Codes from the former municipalities (City of York, City of Toronto, and City of Etobicoke) will still be in effect until all chapters have been explicitly repealed.

Supplements will be used to update and amend the Code on a quarterly basis.

Search The City of Toronto Municipal Code

What is The City of Toronto Municipal Code?
A municipal code is a compendium of bylaws presented in plain language and arranged in chapters by subject. Bylaws of a similar nature are grouped in a chapter, along with useful comments and references that make it easy to see the current status of a bylaw and any recent amendments. The Municipal Code will eliminate the need to refer to a base bylaw and its amendments in order to determine the current legislation. Since chapters are organized by subject matter, it is easy to research a topic.

A hardcopy of the complete Code is available for review in the Office of the City Clerk.

Contents of Municipal Code
The chapters of the Municipal Code contain currently effective bylaws of a general and permanent nature enacted by the Council of the City of Toronto. Further information regarding contents of the Code and other bylaws may be obtained by contacting the Office of the City Clerk at clerk@toronto.ca.

Division of Municipal Code
The Municipal Code is divided into parts. Part I, Administrative Bylaws, contains the bylaws of an administrative nature, namely, those that deal with the administration of government, those that deal with establishing or regulating municipal departments and that affect officers and employees of the municipal government and its departments. Part II, General Bylaws, contains other City bylaws of a regulatory nature. Part III, Traffic and Parking Bylaws, contains traffic, parking and related bylaws. Bylaws in Parts II and III generally impose penalties for offences, while those in Part I do not.

Grouping of Bylaws and Arrangement of Chapters
The bylaws are organized into chapters, their order being an alphabetical progression from one subject to another. Wherever there are two or more bylaws dealing with the same subject, they are combined into a single chapter. For example, all bylaws pertaining to taxation may be found in Part II, in the chapter entitled "Taxation." In such chapters, use of article designations has preserved the identity of the bylaws.

Table of Contents
The Table of Contents details the alphabetical arrangement of material by chapter as a means of identifying specific areas of legislation. Wherever a chapter is divided into two or more articles adopted by separate bylaw, titles of the several articles are listed beneath the chapter title.

Reserved Chapters
Space has been provided in the Municipal Code for the convenient insertion, alphabetically, of later enactments. In the Table of Contents, unused chapter numbers are reserved for future enactments. In the body of the Municipal Code, reserved space is provided by breaks in the page-numbering sequence between chapters.

Pagination
A unique page-numbering system has been used, in which each chapter forms an autonomous unit. The first page of each is the number of that chapter followed by the numeral "-1." For example, Chapter 6 begins on page 6-1, Chapter 53 on page 53-1, etc. By use of this system, it is possible to add or to change pages in any chapter without affecting the sequence of subsequent pages in other chapters, and to insert new chapters without affecting the existing organization.

Numbering of Sections
A chapter-related section-numbering system is employed, in which each section of every bylaw is assigned a number which indicates both the number of the chapter in which the legislation is located and the location of the section within that chapter. For example, the first section of Chapter 6 is § 6-1, while the fourth section of Chapter 53 is § 53-4. New sections can then be added between existing sections using a decimal system. For example, if two sections were to be added between §§ 53-4 and 53-5, they would be numbered as §§ 53-4.1 and 53-4.2.

Scheme
The Scheme is the list of section titles which precedes the text of each chapter. These titles are carefully written so that, taken together, they may be considered as a summary of the content of the chapter. Taken separately, each describes the content of a particular section. For ease and precision of reference, the Scheme titles are repeated as section headings in the text.

Histories
At the end of the Scheme in each chapter is located the legislative history for that chapter. This History indicates the specific legislative source from which the chapter was derived, including the bylaw number and the date of adoption. In the case of chapters containing articles or sections derived from more than one bylaw, the source of each article or section is indicated in the text. Amendments to individual sections or subsections are indicated by histories where appropriate in the text.