Ontario Election 2025
Nonprofits, a snap election has been announced – let’s advocate!
The Ontario election is taking place on February 27, 2025.
The election period is an opportunity for nonprofits to connect with residents, and work together on shared issues and opportunities for collective community impact, but with a snap election being called these opportunities are compressed as often planning for an election is limited by various factors, but this does not mean that nonprofits cannot still engage.
Nonprofits play a vital role in fostering an inclusive democracy. As the bridge between our communities and government, nonprofits engage and amplify community voices, provide unique public policy insight, and hold governments and decision-makers accountable. As trusted messengers with deep community roots, nonprofits are uniquely positioned to reach underrepresented voters and build a more inclusive and equitable democracy.
Read more about how democracy cannot thrive without the nonprofit sector in this blog.
Effective election advocacy does not follow a one-size-fits-all formula.
ONN encourages nonprofits to engage in election advocacy work, share the impact you are having, and talk about the issues your nonprofit and community care about, before, during and after the election. Let’s not be humble!
Even with a limited timeframe, there are ways for nonprofits to act, such as:
- Combating misinformation and disinformation during elections
- Communicating the value of nonprofits
- Election advocacy
- Encouraging non-partisan voter engagement
Get more info about ONN’s upcoming webinar: Recognizing, analyzing, and neutralizing disinformation.
Ontario’s Election Finances Act – Third party election advertising
Before the 2022 Ontario election, the Government of Ontario changed the Election Finances Act (s.37.10(2)) to extend the limits on how much third parties like nonprofits can spend on election advertising to include the election period and 12 months before the writ dropped. A union-led coalition successfully challenged this in the Ontario Superior Court and Ontario Court of Appeal, which struck down this rule about the spending limit in the pre-election period. The Government has appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada which heard the case in May of 2024 but has not yet given their decision. In the meantime, the spending limit on the pre-election period does not apply.
However, if an election is called before this government’s term is up, the above court battle will not be relevant. This is because the spending limits during the pre-election period are only relevant when there is a fixed date election (i.e. an election that happens at the end of a government’s full term). For elections that happen before the end of a government’s full term, there is no spending limit on third party advertising until the writ is dropped (see page 16 of the Election Finances CFO Handbook for Third Parties 2025).
Additional resources:
- Webinar – Snap election: Navigating rules and building strategies for action
- Political Advertising Spending Chart
- Webinar – Engaging Communities in Advocacy
- Infographic – Vibrant Democracy. Vital Communities.
ONN’s Ontario election priorities
Communities must be front-and-centre in this provincial election. It is vital that all parties focus on ensuring the nonprofit sector thrives, so organizations can continue to feed, shelter, heal, inspire, educate, and nurture communities across Ontario.
This election, ONN is calling on all political party leaders to:
- Create a home in government for the nonprofit sector to effectively work with Ontario’s 58,000 nonprofits and charities.
- Kick-start an Ontario Nonprofit Housing Acquisition Fund to protect affordable rental housing stock.
- Prioritize nonprofit and public systems to deliver care in Ontario and build safeguards to protect Ontario’s vital care infrastructure from commercialization.
Download ONN’s election priorities.
If ONN’s election priorities resonate with you, we encourage you to:
- Share them on social media, newsletters, and with your networks.
- Amplify ONN’s election priorities during your meetings with candidates, and/or include them in your election priorities. Connect the dots between your policy priorities and ONN’s election priorities to show
ONN’s party platform analysis
As the parties release information about their platforms, ONN will provide ongoing analysis.
You can also check out the party pages for more information about their priorities and platforms:
