CSA Home Inspection Standard - New

From the PHPIC February 2016 Newsletter
**CSA Home Inspection Standard - News **

CSA recently held a meeting to confirm that all revisions and any last minute issues have been addressed before going to print. The plan is to have both French & English printed at the same time. The target date is end of Feb or very early March. The CSA is starting the process to get the national standard designation from the Standards Council of Canada](http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001uC_cw7vpkuGl3RHuOuCKSr65hSdyvjcHwM6ow886RzLLgGpZkjhi_TB_OJmdt-jSXmGcHCEyWdxduzwTfMzpEj9TZvs-lfEupLF9vxnDieeIDkZM9jWuK_WnVZ1DzUcmi_ER_Z9UirVpPmg9_FZxxDkFgwFj3Ilm6GIumvEPRRHOJXdCjL1cLpgU15ESYTRGrszc9piJYbaZuhpuzO3XH2KYJPkqRkbg&c=2Fc_NWEjA0M38EsH-K7VlbMIfiY1JAFFT7GOKgFKBu375jirPt_CiA==&ch=mjDFV8uvc7997BlIQcj15iosmOiPOwXje4mWJHq5kC9YJzDVS0nDqA==).

The annex portion of the standard is going to be worked on for further discussion and public review before it will be printed. Since the legal system may use it as a descriptive process of an inspection it needs to be very clear and have reasonable processes. The annex is not supposed to be a best practice guide, just a tool to use.
PHPIC will always keep you advised of the latest news.

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Allan Spisak - Chair PHPIC

Thanks for the upgrade much appreciated … Roy

Thanks Allen.
Update much appreciated.:slight_smile:

Just to add to Allan’s very good update, Committee members are now reviewing the application (to the Standards Council of Canada) before it is sent to be endorsed by the Technical Committee .

G
A-770 Committee Member

Although the CSA Standard is now pretty much a done deal, remember that it is still not a “nationally” endorsed standard unless mandated by each province.

So far it would appear that BC, Alberta and likely Ontario will be the first ones to make it so.

Another thing to consider carefully is the language issue and how it will impact Quebec.

Of course what will be the cost and conditions of use? Afterall CSA typically charges a fee for “legal” use of what is claimed a copyright material.

The other point being how is an inspection defined? - “A visual inspection is where we walk into a room and touch nothing just simply look around, we don’t do that. What our contracts and SOP’s should state is; the inspection and report are primarily visual, but not technically exhaustive and addresses the readily and visually observable features of the home at the time of the inspection.”

“The CSA is starting the process to get the national standard designation from the Standards Council of Canada.”
Does anyone know whether SCC designation is a next step before CSA releases the standard, or whether national standard designation is something that is done after CSA releases the standard?
This is getting confusing, Unlike CSA which is a private not for profit, SCC is a crown corporation. What happens if the SCC does not approve the CSA standard? Why would AB ON or BC approve a standard that does not meet SCC approval, (actually AB might, but probly not ON :-))

There are two different mandates going on here Erik.

As I read it, the CSA as a standards development agency are tasked with developing standards. These standards are given a CSA designation and can be referred to in their entirety or in part by any local or provincial regulatory authority. These standards do not need further designation from the Standards Council of Canada.

Again, from my understanding, the SCC as a Government entity are tasked with providing support Canada wide for a standard and for the advice to ministers with respect to adoption of the standards. Although this comes across as a bit of a wooly mandate, it’s designed to protect the standard in Canada and promote the standard internationally. Section G1 of their mandate specifically states “provide advice and assistance to the Government of Canada in the negotiation of standards-related aspects of international trade agreements

Once the SCC has a standard deisgnated, it can be mandated in regulations, again in part of in whole, at the federal level. This power can be used to push the standard to other countries who are part of the International Agreement on Standards namely:
(a) any country that is a member economy of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation;
(b) any country that is a member state of the European Free Trade Association;
(c) any country that is a member state of the European Union;
(d) any NAFTA country, as defined in subsection 2(1) of the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act;
(e) any country that is a member state of the Organization of American States, including Cuba; and
(f) any country that is a member of the World Trade Organization.

It can also be used to either protect the profession from foreign workers with similar, but not identical training, or to allow the influx of foreign workers based upon the same criteria.

I hope this helps.

Little more to CSA than meets the eye Len.
It is subject to the national regulations as a not for profit entity is it not?
Others as well.

There is a red herring here everyone, shareholders, wish to avoid.
It is of my opinion the CSA has no right to implement a so call National standard.

As for Alberta and BC. They made licensing errors trying to regulate an unknown industry in a hurry.
No one is looking at all the players meaning, RE walks away again unscathed.

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) recently launched a lawsuit to eliminate its only competitor, P.S. Knight Co. As a regulatory entity however, CSA shouldn’t be competing commercially at all. In this affair and a host of others, CSA has been compromising the rule of law for commercial advantage and abusing its regulatory position for profit
CSA has financially exploited the electrical sector and has undermined its own authority and legitimacy in Canada and around the world.
CSA should be returned to the rule of law and restored to its intended purpose.

As for the SCC

January 31st, 2016
We recently submitted an Access to Information filing to the Standards Council of Canada, a regulatory body of Industry Canada.

Though not our first experience of Access to Information stonewalling, their latest response is perhaps the most egregious.

But first, and in point form, here’s some background:

The Standards Council of Canada (SCC) is the regulatory body responsible for policing standards development organizations, including the most dominant of these, an Agency of Industry Canada called the Canadian Standards Association (CSA).
Approximately one thousand CSA standards have been passed into law in Canada.
The CSA retains the right to amend certain of these laws at their own discretion and without approval or review by legislative bodies.
For decades, the SCC regulations governing the activities of CSA mandated that any new standard, or any amendment or update to any standard, must be subjected to a full 60-day public review.
Given that so many CSA standards form part of public law in Canada, and given that CSA can change so many of these laws at their discretion, the SCC’s public review requirement is the only public vetting for CSA drafted legislation.
The CSA however, has also been allowed to run a commercial operation, selling access to legislation. That is, CSA is the only source for public access to approximately one thousand laws in Canada. The CSA sells this access to the public.
The 60-day public review requirement undercuts CSA revenues (if the law is publicly available, even briefly, there’s no need to pay money to CSA for access to it).
In 2015, the SCC rephrased the public review requirement. Whereas prior to 2015, the CSA was required to post all standards for public review, save for emergencies of “health, safety or environment,” the rephrased text allows CSA to waive public review entirely for “appropriate rationale” which “may” include health, safety or environment reasons.
The SCC changed the location of the word “may” in the regulations, grammatically altering the meaning and thereby giving CSA the power to prevent public review of new or amended legislation.
On Dec. 14, 2015, we filed an ATIP request for all correspondence and related documents pertaining to the change in the SCC’s public review regulations. Here is the text of our original submission:
Kindly provide for the most recent edition of the Standards Council of Canada document Requirements & Guidance - Accreditation of Standards Development Organizations, as dated 2015-10-01, all documentation including but not restricted to records, notes, corporate plans, reports, studies, briefing papers, working papers, communication of all types and in all formats, whether physical or digital, concerning or relating to; 1) the rephrasing and reorganization of article 6.6.2 - Notice of Public Review of Table 1 (formerly CAN-P-1:2012’s 6.6.2 - Notice of Public Review, and CAN-P-1F 2008’s 8.6.2 - Notice of Public Review), and; 2) the severance of what is currently referred to as “SCC Guidance” from “SCC Requirement” in Table 1 as between the 2012 and 2015 editions.
Alright, with that background, what do you suppose the SCC was willing to release? Well, not much. The SCC sent a large binder of papers, mostly photocopies of already publicly available documents and paperwork showing grammatical edits. Their release included only three emails directly relevant to the decision to change public review laws and nothing at all of relevance to the splitting of “guidance” from “requirement.”

The SCC’s response was so limited and so heavily censored as to conclude that; 1) most of the documentation on this issue has likely been withheld, and; 2) the scale of censorship suggests that whatever the SCC is concealing is both significant and worrying to them.

What do you think? Go ahead, take a moment and read the emails for yourself. They’re so edited, it won’t take long.

The first SCC email is here.

The second SCC email requests internal “clarification” on public review and “some trends that we have noted and want advice on.”

The second SCC email is here.

The third SCC email contains a table showing the specific changes to the law requested by CSA (and other, less dominant entities). Why do you suppose they’d conceal CSA’s requests to change the law?

The third SCC email is here.

Tell us what you think using the Comment button below. We might not respond directly, given our volume of email, but we warmly appreciate any feedback, insight or information that you feel comfortable providing.

Sorry I forgot the link.
http://www.restorecsa.com/news/article/access-to-information-again

1: We will see.
2: I have said that from the onset of the National Standard and the party that fist put the National Standard buzz in the ear the not for profit group.

Robert, When one is trying to make an argument for or against something, it’s always best to do one’s homework rather than just repeat and paraphrase what you’ve read somewhere else on the Internet.

Unlike the comment you made (transcribed from the front page of http://www.restorecsa.com/) the CSA is not a regulatory entity at all. It is, as you rightly stated, a not-for-profit organisation that sets standards and yes, they are government by the same NPO laws as every other NPO.

The regulatory entities are, in fact, the Federal, Provincial and Local Jurisdictional governments that cite these standards into regulations.

Likewise the SCC is also NOT a regulatory body, but unlike the CSA it is not an NPO. It is a Federal Crown Corporation created at the Federal level by the Standards Council of Canada Act.

The SCC doesn’t regulate anything, they are themselves regulated. What the are is a Crown Corporation that have special access to the Federal and International Governments to lobby for the adoption of Standards from other Standards bodies to have them incorporated into Law. (Regulation)

Again, it is (in this case) the Federal and International governments that regulate the standards proposed by the SCC.

The case of CSA vs P.S. Knight is a simple case of copyright theft. The CSA produces a Standard, and then makes money from publishing that standard. P.S. Knight copied intact large portions of the standard in order to produce it’s publications. CSA wants to stop that practice.

Now, the case in law looks pretty straightforward. However in my opnion the questions should be asked “Should an NPO, which draws the majority of it’s standards development funds from the public purse (i.e you and I as taxpayers) be allowed to have protected copyright over the works we have paid for?” The answer to that is pre-empted by the zillions of Crown Copyright and other Government Agency copyrighted works.

Morally it’s wrong, but it’s the Law. The Law is in this case, in my opinion, an ***.