Can a court order that I don't have to serve someone at all in Ontario?

In limited circumstances, yes — Ontario courts can dispense with service entirely, meaning a party isn't required to serve a document on someone at all before proceeding. This is a step beyond substituted service, which still requires notifying someone through some alternative method; dispensing with service means skipping notice altogether, and courts grant it cautiously because of how directly it affects a person's basic right to know a claim exists against them. It tends to come up where every reasonable method of locating or notifying someone has genuinely failed, where the person's whereabouts truly cannot be determined despite real effort, or in narrow procedural contexts where the missing party's interests are minimal or already otherwise protected.

Because this order effectively removes someone's chance to respond before things move forward, a party asking for it generally needs to show a thorough, well-documented search and explain why even alternative service methods, such as email, social media, or publication, wouldn't realistically work either. Courts weigh this heavily against the risk of an unfair result if the missing party later turns up and says they never knew about the case. This is a genuinely uncommon order, reserved for situations where continuing to require some form of notice would be pointless rather than merely inconvenient.