Last reviewed: 14 September 2026
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CanadaOntario's future performance agreement rules for vehicle warranties
Our Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan pages each describe a province that treats an extended vehicle warranty as insurance, licensed through an insurance regulator. Ontario — Canada's largest province, and one we haven't covered until now — takes a genuinely different approach: it regulates an extended vehicle warranty as a category of consumer contract, not as an insurance product, under a law currently in the middle of being replaced.
A "future performance agreement," not an insurance policy
Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002 applies its future-performance-agreement rules (sections 21 through 26) to any consumer agreement — including an extended vehicle warranty or service contract — where the consumer's total potential payment obligation exceeds $50 and the goods or services aren't fully supplied at the time the agreement is made. A qualifying agreement must be in writing and delivered to the consumer in a form meeting the Act's prescribed content requirements under section 22. Section 23 gives the consumer a real remedy if that doesn't happen: the right to cancel the agreement within one year of entering it, if the consumer never received a copy meeting those requirements — a cancellation right tied specifically to the supplier's own compliance failure, not a general change-of-mind window.
A dealer-sold warranty adds a second regulator on top
The Consumer Protection Act's future-performance-agreement rules apply to any supplier selling a qualifying agreement in Ontario, regardless of who sells it. But if the warranty is sold by a registered motor vehicle dealer specifically, a second layer applies: the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council (OMVIC) administers the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act and enforces the CPA's relevant provisions specifically as they apply to registered-dealer transactions, on behalf of Ontario's Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement. A warranty bought from a non-dealer third party — a standalone warranty company, for instance — is still covered by the CPA's future-performance-agreement rules on their own, just without OMVIC's added dealer-specific enforcement layer.
A replacement law has been passed but isn't in force yet
Bill 142, the Better for Consumers, Better for Businesses Act, 2023, received Royal Assent on December 6, 2023, enacting a new Consumer Protection Act, 2023 that will eventually repeal and replace the 2002 Act described above. As of this writing, the new Act has not been proclaimed into force — the government has said it is developing the regulations needed to implement it, with businesses told to expect changes to take effect sometime in 2026. Until a specific proclamation date is set, the CPA, 2002 rules described here remain the actual, currently operating law for a vehicle warranty bought in Ontario — one of the changes the new Act is expected to make is barring a consumer contract from capping the monetary liability available for breach of a statutory warranty or condition, which would be a real change from the current regime.
What this means for an Ontario buyer, right now
Ask for the written agreement meeting the Act's content requirements before you pay — not after — since your one-year cancellation right under section 23 is tied directly to whether you actually received one. If you bought through a registered dealer, OMVIC's own registrant lookup is the direct way to confirm that dealer status, the same "verify with the regulator, not the seller's claim" principle behind point 3 of our standard. And because the law itself is mid-transition, don't assume a rule you read about the CPA, 2023 already applies — check the effective date before relying on it.