In December 2025, Bill 46 (Protect Ontario by Cutting Red Tape Act) came into effect. One of the various impacts of this Bill was to amend Ontario’s Succession Law Reform Act (“SLRA”)[1].

New Amendment

The new change concerns a portion of section 51 of the SLRA, which governs designation of beneficiaries:

Designation of beneficiaries

51 (1) A participant may designate a person to receive a benefit payable under a plan on the participant’s death,

(a) by an instrument signed by him or her or signed on his or her behalf by another person in his or her presence and by his or her direction; or

(b) by will,

and may revoke the designation by either of those methods.

(1.1) If a participant has designated a person by an instrument referred to in clause (1)(a) to receive a benefit payable under a plan on the participant’s death and if the plan is being converted, renewed, replaced or transferred, the participant’s attorney under a continuing power of attorney for property or the participant’s guardian of property may make a designation under subsection (1), by instrument signed by the attorney or guardian, in order to permit the same person to be designated under the plan that results from the conversion, renewal, replacement or transfer.

(1.2) For greater certainty, nothing in subsection 7 (2) or 31 (1) of the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 prevents an attorney under a continuing power of attorney for property or a guardian of property from making a designation under subsection (1) in the circumstances set out in subsection (1.1).[2]

The powers and duties of an attorney for property and guardian of the property are governed in part by the Substitute Decisions Act (“SDA”).[3] Section 7(2) and section 31(1) of the SDA provide that:

The continuing power of attorney may authorize the person named as attorney to do on the grantor’s behalf anything in respect of property that the grantor could do if capable, except make a will.[4] (emphasis added)

The historic view has been that a beneficiary designation, such as a life insurance policy or an RRSP, is testamentary in nature such that a substitute decision maker should not be able to alter the grantor’s choice of beneficiary.

The effect of the recent amendment to the SLRA is to provide some flexibility to an attorney or guardian to designate the same choice of beneficiary as the grantor originally intended before their incapacity. The new amendment to the SLRA is a welcome change, one that the Ontario Bar Association has recommended for some time.

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[1] Succession Law Reform Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.26.

[2] Ibid. at section 51.

[3] Substitute Decisions Act, 1992, S.O. 1992, c. 30.

[4] Ibid. at section 7(2).