Can I sue a snow removal contractor instead of the property owner after a fall in Ontario?

Yes, in many cases you can pursue a claim against the contractor hired to clear snow and ice, instead of or in addition to the property owner, because the contractor took on responsibility for maintaining safe conditions and can be independently negligent if it failed to reasonably do that job - for example, not showing up despite a significant snowfall, or leaving an area untreated when its service contract called for it to be cleared. The property owner, as the occupier of the premises, can also remain liable if it failed to reasonably oversee that the contracted maintenance was actually being carried out.

Because responsibility can genuinely be split between the owner and the contractor, and each will often point to the other as the party at fault, these claims frequently end up involving more than one defendant. Determining who was actually at fault, and to what degree, usually requires reviewing the maintenance contract itself, service and visit logs, and weather records from the relevant period - documents an injured person typically cannot get on their own, which is one reason these claims are often better pursued with legal help from an early stage rather than negotiated informally.