Stewardship Ontario placed into Court-supervised liquidation after blue box transition

Stewardship Ontario was ordered wound up on July 17, 2026, after completing the operational transition of Ontario’s legacy Blue Box Program to a producer-responsibility model.

The liquidation is not a response to insolvency or business failure. Stewardship Ontario ceased operating the Blue Box Program on December 31, 2025, as contemplated by a government-directed wind-up plan developed over several years. Justice Dietrich found that court supervision would provide certainty over the transfer and control of the organization’s property, maintain an open and fair process and create a mechanism for resolving any issues arising during the final phase of the wind-up.

Stewardship Ontario was a corporation without share capital and an industry funding organization responsible for administering the Blue Box Program for packaging and printed paper collected through municipal recycling systems. Businesses supplying those materials into Ontario, known as stewards, paid fees based on the amount they placed into the residential market. Stewardship Ontario collected supply data, calculated and invoiced fees, distributed funds to municipalities and First Nations communities, managed program reserves and completed required regulatory reporting.

Its role was primarily financial and administrative. Stewardship Ontario did not collect or process recyclable materials and did not own material recycling facilities, equipment or supply-chain assets. Municipalities, recycling associations and First Nations communities operated the collection and processing systems, while Stewardship Ontario funded part of their net costs through annual payments determined under the regulated program.

The organization began making Blue Box payments to municipalities and First Nations communities in 2004. The legacy program operated as a shared-cost model, under which obligated businesses funded up to 50% of participating communities’ net operating costs for recycling packaging and printed paper. Stewardship Ontario also previously operated the Municipal Hazardous or Special Waste program, although that program is not part of the assets or mandate addressed in the July 2026 liquidation record.

The wind-up originated with an August 15, 2019 direction from Ontario’s Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. The Minister instructed Stewardship Ontario to prepare a transition plan for the Blue Box Program and a plan to wind up the organization itself as Ontario moved to a model under which producers would assume full financial and operational responsibility for recycling printed paper and packaging.

The original submission deadline was June 30, 2020. The Minister extended it to August 31, 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing additional time for stakeholder consultation. Stewardship Ontario submitted its Blue Box Program Transition and Stewardship Ontario Windup Plan on August 31, and the Resource Productivity and Recovery Authority conditionally approved it on December 21, 2020. Subsequent responses, amendments and a revised fee-setting methodology were also approved and became part of the consolidated wind-up plan.

The plan established a three-year transition period running from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025. Participating communities moved from Stewardship Ontario funding to Ontario’s new producer-responsibility framework at different points during that period. Stewardship Ontario’s final year of Blue Box operations was 2025, corporate wind-up activities began January 1, 2026 and dissolution was originally targeted for completion by the end of the third quarter of 2026.

RPRA appointed Susan Lo as Stewardship Ontario’s administrator in June 2021. She assumed the powers and responsibilities that would otherwise have been exercised by the organization’s board and officers and oversaw implementation of the transition plan. An independent management team continued carrying out the organization’s day-to-day transition work under her supervision and with RPRA input.

Stewardship Ontario accumulated reserve funds during the life of the Blue Box Program to support liquidity, payments to participating communities and the cost of the transition. Between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2025, it returned $29.5 million of general reserve funds to stewards through fee reductions and refunds. It retained $3,932,858 as a holdback for cash flow, transition costs and corporate wind-up expenses.

That holdback, defined as the Wind-Up Funds, will be transferred to Grant Thornton. After claims, professional costs, taxes and other liabilities are resolved, the liquidator will seek further court approval before distributing any residual balance. Stewardship Ontario has no material physical assets. Its remaining property and obligations consist principally of cash and investments, receivables and payables, reserve funds, tax records, intellectual property, confidential steward information, contractual arrangements and regulatory filings.

The administrator launched a request for proposals on January 13, 2025 for a firm to advise on and implement the liquidation. Grant Thornton was selected, and RPRA approved that selection on November 28, 2025. On June 10, 2026, the administrator authorized Stewardship Ontario to seek a court order appointing Grant Thornton, subject to completion of several financial and operational hand-off tasks.

Those closing tasks included arranging run-off insurance for the administrator, former directors and management, approving corporate minutes, completing a first-quarter 2026 regulatory report and compliance certificate, transferring the Wind-Up Funds to a trust account, resolving an outstanding steward question, extending the remaining transition-management contracts and maintaining the administrator’s appointment until authority passed to the liquidator. All were completed before the application was heard.

Grant Thornton’s mandate includes taking control of Stewardship Ontario’s property and records, collecting amounts owing, determining claims and, if necessary, returning to court for approval of a formal claims process. It will also complete final financial statements, tax returns and regulatory reports, obtain required CRA clearances, manage record retention and destruction and transfer specified data and intellectual property to RPRA.

Grant Thornton is the liquidator. Counsel includes Gowling WLG for Stewardship Ontario and Miller Thomson for RPRA.