Governing Ourselves informs members of legal and regulatory matters affecting the profession. This section provides updates on licensing and qualification requirements, notification of Council resolutions and reports from various Council committees, including reports on accreditation and discipline matters.
Fair Registration
Commissioner lauds College for improvements in registration practice
Jean Augustine
Ontario’s Fairness Commissioner had two words for College Council with respect to the College’s online registration system: Bravo! Bravo!
Jean Augustine praised the Ontario College of Teachers for its progress in improving registration practices in an address to Council in December, in which she provided an overview of her office’s mandate, priorities and recommendations and highlighted best practices among Ontario regulators.
Augustine observed that the College was “way ahead of the commission” when it began. “I have cited that leadership on many occasions,” she said.
“You’re the first and only regulator in Ontario to have its own law about fairness in registration,” Augustine added. “This is excellent because it means that you recognize that fairness and impartiality are so essential.”
She called the regulation “groundbreaking” and remarked that a key change involved making timelines clear.
“That’s the biggie,” the commissioner said. “The timelines mean that an individual knows precisely what’s going to happen.”
Last November the College revamped its system, enabling applicants to register online at any time from any part of the world.
The commissioner also congratulated the College for changing work-experience requirements for internationally educated applicants.
“I’m so very pleased that internationally educated teachers no longer have to show a year of teaching experience here in Ontario before they can get a permanent certificate,” Augustine said.
As well, she praised alternative means to recognize the qualifications of refugees from war-torn countries. “People don’t always grab their documents when fleeing their homelands,” she said.
Ontario was the first province to have a fairness commission office, Augustine pointed out, and its birth has spawned similar agencies in Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Québec.
Ontario law requires licensing registration to be transparent, impartial, objective and fair. The commission’s office has a specific mandate to audit and review the relevance and necessity of the required registration practices and report publicly on the province’s 39 regulated licensing agencies.
Since the Office of the Fairness Commissioner opened in 2007, it has issued three annual reports and surveyed 41 assessment agencies. Last year the commission studied applicant experiences. Thirty-eight hundred people participated voluntarily in focus groups and a survey. The results aren’t necessarily statistically representative, the commissioner said, but they provide “enough information to confidently identify issues.”
Problems and successes are not confined to any single regulator, she said. A common complaint of internationally educated applicants is the difficulty they have navigating the system for information. She tells applicants to do their homework before they arrive in Canada, to get correct information themselves and not rely on relatives.
The commissioner said the commission made 17 recommendations last March that were “implementable” and “not costly.” They included improving communication and streamlining processes, examining some to see whether they were really necessary, having the provincial government make loans available to applicants who need to upgrade their education or training and “unclogging” the system to recognize internationally educated doctors.
As a result of the recommendations, regulators must now ensure that their third-party suppliers abide by practices that are fair, impartial and objective.
The commission will track results this year. “Progress is occurring,” Augustine said.
Dentists have developed national assessments and now have two ways to earn licences. The law society now exempts lawyers who were called to the bar in other countries if they have practised for 10 months or more. Accountants have developed web-based tools for registration and marketing.
It’s not a perfect world, but everyone is doing something and making good moves in the right direction, the commissioner said.
Continuous improvement is the goal. “That is the way forward.” In March the commission will begin to assess registration practices according to the law. The expectations of regulators to report will be shorter, and there will be no audits in 2011 or 2012. “We know it is costly,” she said.
“Together, we have truly made progress in improving access to the professions,” Augustine said.
