Fairness Commissioner (Ontario)

The Fairness Commissioner is the head of the Office of the Fairness Commissioner (OFC), created by the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006 to ensure that everyone who is qualified to practise in a profession or trade that is regulated in Ontario can get a licence to practise here. This need arose because some professionals, particularly those trained outside of Ontario, were encountering unnecessary obstacles.

The OFC works with the regulatory bodies that oversee the regulated professions and trades, to ensure that their licensing processes are transparent, objective, impartial and fair. Ultimately, the OFC's goal is to ensure that anyone qualified in a regulated profession or trade who wishes to practise in Ontario is not prevented from doing so by an unduly complex, costly or time-consuming licensing system.

Four principles

The fair-access law outlines the broad, general duty of regulatory bodies to have transparent, objective, impartial and fair registration practices. Neither the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006, nor the Regulated Health Professions Act, includes definitions of these principles. The Office of the Fairness Commissioner has set out the interpretations below so it may assess registration practices in a consistent and transparent way.

Transparency

A process is transparent if it is conducted in such a way that it is easy to see what actions are being taken to complete the process, why these actions are taken, and what results from these actions. In the regulatory context, transparency of the registration process encompasses the following:

Openness: having measures and structures in place that make it easy to see how the registration process operates

Access: making registration information easily available

Clarity: ensuring that information used to communicate about registration is complete, accurate and easy to understand

Objectivity

A process or decision is objective if it is based on formal systems, such as criteria, tools, and procedures that have been repeatedly tested during their development, administration and review and have been found to be valid and reliable. In the regulatory context, objectivity of systems encompasses the following:

Reliability: ensuring that the criteria, training, tools and procedures deliver consistent decision outcomes regardless of who makes the decision, when the decision is made, and in whatever context the decision is made

Validity: ensuring that the criteria, training, tools and procedures measure what they intend to

Impartiality

A process or decision is impartial if the position from which it is undertaken is neutral. Neutrality occurs when actions or behaviours that may result in subjective assessments or decisions are mitigated. Impartiality may be achieved by ensuring that all sources of bias are identified and that steps are taken to address those biases. In the regulatory context, impartiality encompasses the following:

Identification: having systems to identify potential sources of bias in the assessment or decision-making process (for example, sources of conflict of interest, preconceived notions, and lack of understanding of issues related to diversity)

Strategies: having systems to address bias and enable neutrality during the assessment and decisionmaking process (for example, training policies that address conflict of interest, procedures to follow if bias is identified, and using group deliberation and consensus strategies to come to decisions)

Fairness

A process or decision is considered fair in the regulatory context when all of the following are demonstrated:

Substantive fairness: ensuring the fairness of the decision itself. The decision itself must be fair, and to be fair it must meet pre-determined and defensible criteria. The decision must be reasonable and the reasoning behind the decision must be understandable to the people affected.

Procedural fairness: ensuring the fairness of the decision-making process. There is a structure in place to ensure that fairness is embedded in the steps to be followed before, during and after decisions are made. This structure ensures that the process is timely and that individuals have equal opportunity to participate in the registration process and demonstrate their ability to practise.

Relational fairness: ensuring that people are treated fairly during the decision-making process by considering and addressing their perception about the process and decision.

Mandate

The Office of the Fairness Commissioner assesses the registration practices of certain regulated professions and trades to make sure they are transparent, objective, impartial and fair for anyone applying to practise his or her profession in Ontario.

The office requires the bodies that regulate the professions and trades to review their own registration processes, submit reports about them and implement the commissioner’s recommendations for improvement.

The prime responsibilities of the office are to:

• advise the regulatory bodies about registration and other issues
• set out guidelines for the content and form of the regulatory bodies' reports to the office
• assess registration practices
• advise provincial government ministries about issues relating to the professions and trades in their jurisdictions
• issue compliance orders to the non-health professions and to the trades, if necessary
• report to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care about a health profession's non-compliance, if necessary
• report to the public and to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade about its work.

In addition, the office:

• monitors labour mobility in Canada
• monitors the activities of certain agencies that assess qualifications
• does research

The mandate of the office and the responsibilities of the regulatory bodies are outlined in the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006 and the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991, as amended.

Commissioners

• Helen Angus, 2015-
• Jean Augustine, 2007-2015

See also

• Ontario's Immigration Strategy
• Work in Your Profession

External links

• Commissioner's website
• Provincial backgrounder on Fair Access to Regulated Professions Act
• Regulated Professions Act, full text