The short answer
In Ontario, the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 lets an electronic signature meet a legal requirement for a signature, for most documents. The main exceptions are wills, powers of attorney, negotiable instruments such as cheques, and documents of title. Since July 1, 2015, agreements of purchase and sale and other real estate documents can be signed electronically too.
What the law says
Ontario's Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 says that a legal requirement for a signature can be met by an electronic signature, and that a document isn't invalid just because it is electronic. It also says nobody has to use or accept electronic documents: the people involved have to agree, and that agreement can be shown by what they do, such as replying to an email and signing from its link.
The other provinces have similar laws, such as British Columbia's and Alberta's Electronic Transactions Acts and Quebec's Act to establish a legal framework for information technology. Federally, Part 2 of PIPEDA covers documents under federal law. In the United States, the ESIGN Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act do the same job.
The documents the Ontario Act leaves out
Section 31 of the Act says it does not apply to:
- wills and codicils, and trusts created by them;
- powers of attorney, as far as they deal with a person's financial affairs or personal care;
- negotiable instruments, such as cheques and promissory notes;
- documents of title, such as bills of lading and warehouse receipts;
- documents a regulation names.
Being left out of the Act doesn't make an electronic signature on these documents automatically invalid: it means the rules come from the law that governs that kind of document, which usually asks for ink. Treat them as paper documents unless your lawyer tells you otherwise.
Wills and powers of attorney
Wills in Ontario still need handwritten signatures. Since January 1, 2022, the Succession Law Reform Act allows a will to be witnessed over video, if one witness is a lawyer or paralegal and everyone signs paper copies (counterparts) at the same time. That is remote witnessing, not an electronic signature. Powers of attorney follow similar rules; ask the lawyer preparing them.
Real estate: agreements of purchase and sale
Until 2015, documents that create or transfer an interest in land were excluded too. Since July 1, 2015, agreements of purchase and sale, leases and most documents that create or transfer an interest in land can be signed electronically in Ontario, as long as the parties agree to it. Registration in the land registry system has its own electronic process, run by lawyers.
Making an electronic signature easy to prove
If a signature is ever questioned, what matters is evidence: who signed, that they meant to sign, and that the document hasn't changed since. A good e-signature tool keeps that evidence for you:
- each signer gets their own link, sent to their own email address, and can be asked for a one-time code before the document opens;
- every step is recorded: sent, opened, signed, with dates, times and IP addresses;
- the finished PDF is sealed, so any later change shows;
- a certificate of completion lists who signed and how.
bSign does all four on every plan, and keeps documents on servers in Canada. A signature image pasted into a PDF, by contrast, shows a signature but proves little about who added it.
Sources
- Electronic Commerce Act, 2000, S.O. 2000, c. 17 (Ontario e-Laws)
- Succession Law Reform Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.26 (Ontario e-Laws)
- OREA: Ontario allows real estate documents to be signed electronically (June 29, 2015)
- Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall: Validity of electronic signatures in Ontario
This guide is general information, not legal advice; for a particular document, ask a lawyer. Published 2026-10-03 by Binarium, the Ontario IT services company behind bSign.