Commissioners by office: Ontario's list since March 1, 2026

Most people picture a commissioner for taking affidavits as someone who applied for the title and bought a stamp. A large share of Ontario's commissioners never applied for anything. They hold the power because of the job they do, for as long as they do it, and a short regulation lists those jobs one by one. That regulation was amended on March 1, 2026, and the list is now longer than most pages describing it.

The Act names nobody; a regulation holds the list

Section 1 of the Commissioners for Taking Affidavits Act is one sentence. It says that persons who hold an office prescribed by the regulations are, by virtue of office, commissioners for taking affidavits in Ontario. The offices themselves are in Ontario Regulation 386/12, whose first section opens with these words:

The following, by virtue of office, are commissioners for taking affidavits in Ontario

Twelve numbered paragraphs follow, and then a second subsection for municipal officers. Section 13 of the Act lets a regulation say two more things about each office: the part of Ontario in which its holder may act, and the purpose for which they may act. Both kinds of limit appear in the list, and they are written into the paragraphs themselves.

Twelve paragraphs, eleven of them good anywhere in Ontario

This is subsection 1 (1) of the regulation as it reads in the consolidation dated March 1, 2026. The right-hand column gives the limit in the regulation's own wording, or says that the paragraph has none.

Para.	Office	Limit written into the paragraph
1	Members of the Assembly (MPPs)	None
1.1	Persons employed in an MPP's constituency office to assist constituents	Only in connection with work done for that purpose
2	Judges of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Justice	None
3	Justices of the peace	None
4	Persons licensed under the Law Society Act to practise law in Ontario	None
4.1	Persons licensed under the Law Society Act to provide legal services in Ontario	None
4.2	Persons under articles of clerkship or in the law practice program	Only in connection with work done as part of the clerkship or program
5	Persons acting as a registrar or court clerk under section 73 of the Courts of Justice Act	Only in connection with their work in a court, for documents to be filed in, or arising from, proceedings in an Ontario court
6	First Nation Officers and police officers	Only as part of their employment or duties at the Ontario police service they belong to
7	Members of the council of the band of a First Nation	Only in the geographic area in Ontario in which the reserve is situate
8	Superintendents, conservation reserve managers, assistant superintendents and park wardens of provincial parks and conservation reserves	Only as part of that role
9	Public servants who work in ServiceOntario	Only when providing services directly to the public as part of their work

Paragraph 4 describes lawyers and paragraph 4.1 describes paralegals, in the language the Law Society Act uses for the two licences. Neither paragraph carries a limit of purpose. Paragraph 7 is the only one of the twelve that is tied to a place.

What Ontario Regulation 20/26 changed

The amending regulation was made on January 29, 2026 and filed on February 4, and it came into force on March 1. It did three things to the list above:

1. It added paragraph 1.1, for constituency office staff.
2. It added paragraph 4.2, for articling students and candidates in the law practice program.
3. It revoked the old paragraphs 5 and 6 and put the present paragraphs 5 to 9 in their place.

It also rewrote section 2 of the regulation, which now says that nothing in the list affects an appointment made under section 4 of the Act before the amendment took effect. A person who had applied for and received a commission before March 2026 kept it.

Municipal officers hold the power only inside their own area

Subsection 1 (2) works differently. The people in it are commissioners in the geographic area, established under the Territorial Division Act, 2002, in which their municipality is situate. A clerk's power stops at that boundary. The subsection has three groups:

• Clerks, deputy clerks, treasurers and deputy treasurers of municipalities.
• The administrative heads and deputy heads of the departments responsible for building standards, welfare, assessment or planning, and the medical officer of health. This group acts for the purposes of the affairs of the municipality, and it exists only in municipalities with a population of at least 100,000 and in seven named ones, among them the City of Greater Sudbury and the City of Kawartha Lakes.
• Heads of municipal councils, members of lower-tier councils who also sit on the upper-tier council, and members of the councils of municipalities with a population of at least 15,000.

The third group is why a city councillor in Toronto or Pickering is a commissioner without holding any certificate. The regulation gives the power to the office. It does not require the office to offer commissioning to the public, and it sets no fee and no list of documents. Each municipality decides what its counter will take, which is why two city halls a short drive apart can publish different lists.

How far the words "but only" reach

Seven of the twelve paragraphs contain the words "but only". Read closely, they describe a power that belongs to a task and not to a person.

A court clerk is the clearest case. Paragraph 5 covers documents that are to be filed in a proceeding in an Ontario court, or that arise from one, and only in connection with the clerk's work in a court. An affidavit for a Small Claims Court file fits that description. A statutory declaration for an insurer or a pension fund is not a court document, so it sits outside the paragraph however willing the clerk may be.

Paragraph 9 turns on the moment, not on the document. A ServiceOntario public servant is a commissioner when providing services directly to the public as part of their work. Paragraph 6 ties a police officer's power to employment or duties at their own police service. Paragraph 1.1 ties a constituency assistant's power to helping constituents. In each case the same person, away from that work, is not a commissioner at all.

Paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4 and 4.1 have no such words. An MPP, a judge, a justice of the peace, a lawyer and a paralegal hold the power for any affidavit or declaration the Act covers.

Appointed commissioners are a separate group

Everyone not on the list who commissions documents was appointed individually under section 4 of the Act. The Attorney General may appoint any person aged 18 or over, and may set limits of duration, territory or purpose in the appointment. The appointment runs for three years and can be renewed for further three-year periods.

Section 5 explains the stamp that appointed commissioners use. A commissioner whose appointment is limited has to show the limitation with an approved stamp placed under the signature. That requirement is written for appointed commissioners. The regulation that lists office holders says nothing about a stamp, which is why a councillor's or a judge's signature on a jurat may carry only a printed name and title.

The duty at the signature is the same for all of them

Whoever takes the affidavit, section 9 of the Act sets out what has to happen. It applies in the same words to a commissioner, a notary public and any other person administering an oath or declaration:

1. The deponent or declarant takes the oath or declaration in the physical presence of the person administering it. A regulation, O. Reg. 431/20, allows it to be done remotely when the conditions in that regulation are met.
2. The person administering it satisfies themselves that the signature is genuine.
3. The oath or declaration is administered in the manner required by law.
4. Only then does the commissioner sign the jurat.

Section 10 makes it an offence to sign a jurat without having administered the oath or declaration. So a form signed at home and dropped off at a counter cannot be commissioned by anyone on the list. The article on oaths and affirmations describes the two forms the ceremony can take.

What the list does not give anyone: a certified copy

The Act gives a commissioner two powers. Section 6 covers affidavits and section 7 covers declarations. Neither section mentions copies, and neither mentions witnessing a signature on a document that is not sworn.

Those acts are in a different statute. Section 3 of the Notaries Act says a notary public may witness or certify, and attest, the execution of a document, may certify and attest a true copy of a document, and may exercise the powers of a commissioner for taking affidavits in Ontario. A notary holds the commissioner's power as one of three. The reverse is not true: nobody becomes a notary by holding an office in Regulation 386/12.

That is the line between this office's two main services. Commissioning is the act every person in the table can perform within their limit. A certified true copy is a notarial act. The earlier article on notaries and commissioners sets the two roles side by side.