Escalator Field Guide
Elevator Field Guide
iOSOntario's elevator code adoption timeline
Every edition Ontario has adopted since 1954, when each one actually started binding, and why an Ontario adoption never has just one date. All on one timeline, with every document linked.
Every edition of the elevator and escalator code Ontario has adopted since 1954: when each one actually started binding, which document did it, and why an Ontario adoption never has just one date.
Two things to know before the timeline. Ontario does not list its codes in its regulation. It points at a separate that TSSA amends. And the date an amendment is signed is almost never the date it takes effect. The gap runs four to six months, and the trigger is usually .
The question this page answers: which edition of the elevator code is Ontario law right now, and when did it start binding? Here is where things stand.
Ontario is on ASME A17.1-2019 / CSA B44:19. The current document is amendment 295/22r1, dated 1 May 2024.
“In force” is not one date — it is three. Parts 1 and 2 began 1 February 2022. The design and construction parts began 1 August 2022. The maintenance requirements began 1 January 2023. One adoption, spread across eleven months.
Your job’s edition is set by the submission date, not today’s date. Ontario ties adoptions to when a design was submitted for registration. A unit sold while B44-10 was in force can still be built to B44-10 if a signed contract goes to TSSA.
The obvious page gives you the wrong document. TSSA’s code-adoption page serves amendment 295/22 from February 2022. That was superseded on 1 May 2024 by revision r1, which lives in their document search instead.
Every edition Ontario has adopted since 1954
Two signals to read. The dot on the line is the legal status: a book published, or a book that became Ontario law. The coloured ribbon down the left of each card is which book the entry is about, and a card can carry several when one amendment moved more than one book. Dates on the line are the dates a code started binding, not the dates it was signed. Where those differ, the entry says so.
B44-1951: where Ontario’s record begins
Ontario’s own published table of code editions reaches back seventy-two years. That is further back than British Columbia’s, the only other province whose record we have gone through in full. Five editions governed before the numbered rulings began.
- B44-1951: in force 17 June 1954
- B44-1960: 1 January 1962
- B44-1966: 1 September 1967
- B44-1971: 1 July 1972
- B44-1975: 1 July 1976, then supplements in 1978, 1981 and 1983
B44-M85 takes over
The first edition in this record adopted by a numbered Director’s Ruling, 31/86. Supplement 1-1987 follows two years later under ruling 57/87.
B44-M90 takes over
Adopted by Director’s Ruling 78/90, which was issued in June 1990, ten months before it began to bind. Supplement 1-1992 follows in April 1993.
B44-94, and the rule that catches people out
Ruling 115/94 was signed 4 November 1994. It did not bind then. Its own wording: the code applies to every device “for which the DESIGN is submitted… on or after the 23rd day of March 1995.” Four and a half months between signature and effect. And the trigger is the submission date, not the work date.
Ontario stops naming codes in rulings
The Elevating Devices Code Adoption Document is issued. From here the codes in force are not listed in Ontario’s regulation at all. The regulation points at this separate document, and the document is amended instead. It is why you cannot learn which code Ontario is on by reading Ontario’s law.
B44-00: for new installations
Amendment 161/01 was issued 16 August 2001. New installations move to B44-00 on this date.
B44-00: for alterations, ten weeks later
The same amendment gives alterations a different date from new installations. One adoption, two effective dates, depending on what kind of work you are doing.
B44-00 Update No. 1
Adopted by amendment 181/03, issued 27 June 2003, six months ahead of the date it bit.
B44-04 takes over
Amendment 198/05, issued 30 June 2005. Six months again. Three weeks later a separate amendment, 204/06, adopts a supplement to A17.1-2005 for machine-room-less elevators only, a book that applied to one type of equipment and nothing else.
B44-07, and the maintenance book alongside it
Amendment 225/07 was issued 16 July 2007 and revised three times. Designs submitted between 1 October and 31 December 2007 could use either the old code or the new one. The maintenance requirements of section 8.6 — and the separate maintenance book CSA B44.2-07 — took effect on 1 January 2008.
B44-10 takes over
Amendment 250/11, issued 1 November 2011, effective six months later.
Ontario runs two editions at once
Ontario adopts section 8.6 of B44-13: the maintenance part, and nothing else. Construction work stays on B44-10. For the next nine years — until B44:19 arrives in 2022 — the province is on one edition for building elevators and a newer one for maintaining them.
B44-16: the edition Ontario skips
Ontario never adopts this edition. It stays on B44-10 for construction and jumps straight to B44:19 six years later. British Columbia adopted B44-16 in 2020 and is still on it today. So the two provinces have not shared a code edition since.
The CAD is re-issued, and picks up wind turbines
Amendment 277/19 re-issues most of the document. It also brings in ASME A17.8 / CSA B44.8, the standard for elevators inside wind turbine towers — a book most people in the trade have never had reason to open.
B44:19 begins, in stages
Amendment 295/22. Parts 1 and 2 begin on this date. Everything else waits. Ontario adopts more of the code family than British Columbia does: alongside the core code it takes the performance-based code, the suspension and governor standard, and the electrical-equipment standard.
… the design and construction parts follow
Parts 3 through 7 (the bulk of the code) begin six months after Parts 1 and 2. Units sold while B44-10 was in force may still be built to B44-10 if a signed contract is sent to TSSA.
… and maintenance last of all
Section 8.6, the maintenance requirements, begins eleven months after the first parts of the same adoption. One code edition, three start dates, spread over almost a year.
The current document is a revision most people miss
Amendment 295/22r1 replaces the February 2022 version. Both are still online. TSSA’s own code-adoption page serves the 2022 one. The revision sits in their document search instead. If you have checked the obvious page, you have the superseded document.
B44:25, the newest edition
Ontario law still points at B44:19. As of today neither B44:22 nor B44:25 has been adopted here.
Two dates, never one
Every Ontario adoption on this page has at least two dates, and mixing them up is the easiest mistake to make.
The issue date is when the Director signed the amendment. It tells you nothing about what you must build to.
The effective date is when it starts binding, typically four to six months later.
And the trigger is usually the design submission date. B44-94’s ruling put it plainly: the code applies to every device “for which the DESIGN is submitted… on or after the 23rd day of March 1995.” Not work performed after that date — paperwork filed after it. Two crews working side by side on the same morning can owe their jobs to different editions, because the designs went in on different days.
The standard covering suspension means and governor ropes is on Ontario’s adopted list, so the whole book binds here. In BC it appears nowhere in the adopted codes, but BC’s own maintenance rules point at it as the test for when ropes must be replaced. Same book, same country, two entirely different legal footings. Compare: BC’s elevator code adoption timeline
What else Ontario adopts
Ontario takes up more of the code family than British Columbia, the only other province whose record we have gone through in full. Beyond the core code it adopts the suspension and governor standard (A17.6‑2017), the performance-based code (A17.7 / B44.7) as an alternative route where the prescriptive rules can't be met, and the wind turbine tower elevator standard (A17.8 / B44.8). Electrical equipment must be certified to the electrical-equipment standard (B44.1 / A17.5).
Two books people expect to find in that list and won't. The has never been adopted here. The was adopted back in 2008, but is not carried in the current document; maintenance requirements now sit in Section 8.6 of the core code itself.
Outside the A17 family it also adopts CSA B355 for platform and stair lifts, B311 for manlifts, Z98 for passenger ropeways and Z185 for personnel hoists. Private residence lifts had their own book, . B355 absorbed it at the 2019 edition, so it is covered through B355 now rather than named on its own.
How Ontario compares to British Columbia
The two provinces have not been on the same edition of the code since 2012. Ontario went B44-07, then B44-10, then B44:19. British Columbia went B44-07, then B44-16 — an edition Ontario skipped entirely, and the one BC still runs today. Neither province has ever adopted the other’s current book. See BC’s elevator code adoption timeline for that side of the story. Alberta is on the same edition as Ontario right now, but leaves it in 2027: Alberta’s elevator code timeline. All three side by side: BC vs Ontario vs Alberta.
Every source behind this page
Page numbers are given because several of these run to hundreds of pages. Most browsers jump straight to the page when you follow the link; the number is written out as well, for any viewer that doesn’t.
- The pre-1986 dates come from TSSA’s table, not from the rulings themselves. TSSA publishes effective dates back to 1954, but the documents behind the earliest of them are not online. We have shown the dates as TSSA states them.
- TSSA’s table stops at the 2019 amendment. It was compiled in 2022 and marks that amendment “current.” Everything from 2022 onward on this page comes from the Code Adoption Documents themselves instead.
- Archive 2, covering 1997 to 2006, is not publicly linked. TSSA references it but we could not find it. The dates in that window are taken from TSSA’s effective-dates table and its cumulative index, both of which cover the period.
- This is a research summary, not legal advice. For a binding answer about a specific unit, ask TSSA or your authority having jurisdiction.
Working to the escalator code on the job?
Escalator Field Command carries the Escalator Field Guide: the escalator code in plain English, searchable and offline. It does not cover the adoption history on this page.
