The OMB began as the Ontario Railway and Municipal Board (ORMB) created in 1906 to regulate rapidly growing municipal street railways in the province.
The OMB provides that opportunity so that proceedings are less like a court of law and more accessible to citizens, but it has yet to shed the formal court-like setting entrenched since the creation of ORMB. The other important tenet of the Board--de novo--means that each case is treated as a new consideration of the facts, applicable laws, and by-laws and/or regulations.