Regulating Ontario’s home inspectors

Local Inspection Issues Canadian Home Inspectors
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http://www.thestar.com/life/homes/2016/04/23/regulating-ontarios-home-inspectors-is-taking-too-long-aaron.html

Regulating Ontario’s home inspectors is taking too long: Aaron
In this province, anyone with a business card and a flashlight can be a home inspector. But after more than three years of study, the Liberals are still not ready to proceed with legislation.

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In Ontario, anyone with a business card and a flashlight can be a home inspector. This ultimately hurts consumer confidence and the home-inspection industry as a whole.
By: Bob Aaron Property law, Published on Sat Apr 23 2016

There’s good news and bad news for homebuyers who would like to see a formal licensing protocol instituted for the province’s home inspectors.
The good news is that last month MPP Han Dong (Trinity-Spadina) introduced Bill 165, a private member’s bill, entitled Licensed Home Inspectors Act, 2016.
The bad news is that after more than three years of study, the Ontario government is still not ready to proceed with its own legislation. Instead it has allowed the issue of regulation of home inspectors to be brought to the legislature by a private member’s bill which stands little if any chance of passage.
Buying a home is the largest investment most people will make in their lifetimes. Homebuyers are increasingly reliant on home inspectors.
In Ontario, anyone with a business card and a flashlight can be a home inspector. There is no requirement for training, competence, insurance or regulation. The current situation ultimately hurts consumer confidence and the home inspection industry as a whole.
The government recognized this vacuum and in December, 2013, Tracy MacCharles, the then-minister of consumer services, commissioned a blue-ribbon panel to report on industry regulation. Not surprisingly, the panel’s report, entitled A Closer Look: Qualifying Ontario’s Home Inspectors, recommends the regulation of home inspectors.
The panel reconvened last year and affirmed the 35 recommendations in its earlier report.
It recommended setting up a governing body to license, govern and regulate home inspectors. Mandatory insurance, education standards and a code of ethics would be instituted. Now, more than two years later, the government is still not ready to proceed.
During the debate on second reading for Bill 165 last month, Jim McDonell (Stormont) said: “While I commend the member on finally taking action and not waiting for a government bill, I am concerned that this bill is issued without taking into consideration the results of the expert panel . . . The people of Ontario and the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors deserve more.”
As written, Bill 165 would establish a designated administrative authority (DAA) with the power to regulate the industry. In governing its members, the DAA would act like the Electrical Safety Authority, the Real Estate Council of Ontario, and the proposed governing body under the new Condominium Management Services Act, 2015.
Last week I spoke to David Orazietti, Minister of Government and Consumer Services to ask him about the government’s position on home inspector licensing.
He told me that he feels strongly about the issue, and wants greater regulation in this area.
“I’m committed to introducing legislation as soon as possible,” he said, adding that it would be “within this year.”
While welcoming the advocacy of Han Dong in this field, Orazietti acknowledged that private members are more “nimble” in introducing their own proposed legislation than ministers of the Crown.
He expressed optimism that when his ministry does introduce mandatory regulation for home inspectors, there would be strong support from all parties.
Bill 165 is headed for the Standing Committee on Regulations and Private Bills which is where most private member’s bills die.
But, hopefully, the issue is now on the front burner and Ontarians can look forward to government legislation before we’re again looking at the start of winter in December.
Bob Aaron is a Toronto real-estate lawyer. He can be reached at bob@aaron.ca , on his website aaron.ca, and Twitter @bobaaron2

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If you look at Hansards, you will finds that what Jim McDonnel actually said was

“While I commend the member on finally taking action and not waiting for a government bill, I am concerned that this bill is issued without taking into consideration the results of the expert panel. It is just a renamed copy of the Condominium Management Services Act. The people of Ontario and the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors deserve more. First of all, if the government is indeed writing legislation, as their action might suggest, we ask them to move on it, because the people of Ontario and the home inspectors need protection. Secondly, we need some important amendments to this legislation.
While we acknowledge that it is important legislation, we are very concerned that this bill creates an agency with so much power and so little oversight and accountability. The new authority is under no oversight by the Ombudsman or any other officers of the Legislature, except the Auditor General, who will be unable to review any of the individual cases that arise. When we talk about one’s home and the purchase or sale of it, the issues can be catastrophic to Ontario families.
This bill specifically places the authority outside the review of the Standing Committee on Government Agencies. Since the government is writing its own bill, we would ask for the same amendments to it as to this bill: oversight by the Standing Committee on Government Agencies and all the Legislature’s independent officers; application of the sunshine list; and ministerial power to review and modify the authority’s regulations and bylaws as required.”

When he stated that the bill was issued “without taking into consideration the results of the expert panel” he was actually wrong.

The recommendations actually state that the regulations should be managed by a DAA and not via legislative control. That would make the regulations more agile, and specifically not be reliant on the workings of the assembly to get changes through.

What Mr McDonnell was really worried about is the level of power, without oversight this and many other DAA’s have. Any organisation that is set up as a regulatory authority, should be able to be effectively controlled by those that the people of the country elected.

We only have to look at the lack of control the Minster and Ministry of Labour have over the WSIB to see what can happen when a DAA is created without control. Bill-165 is not to regulate the profession, but more to set-up the framework for regulation.

That the DAA is directly responsible for, and accountable to, the requirements of the Minister and Ministry of government and consumer services.

I quote from the Bill:

**"**The Minister may exercise a power under subsection 3 (4) or 4 (1) only if the Minister is of the opinion that it is advisable to exercise the power in the public interest because at least one of the following conditions is satisfied:
1. The exercise of the power is necessary to prevent serious harm to the interests of the public, home inspectors, owners or purchasers or other affected parties.
2. An event of force majeure has occurred.
3. The administrative authority is insolvent.
4. The number of members of the board is insufficient for a quorum."

This is pretty standard across all DAA acts. I just wish that the politicians would have the gonads to actually utilise the control placed upon them. If they did then the Hon. Kevin Flyyn, MPP - Minister for Labour, would have fixed the inconsistent policies in the WSIB that expose Inspectors, Realtors and are joint clients to huge penalties under the Bill-119 debacle.

Alas, like all the ministers who have a DAA in their portfolio, he chooses to use the mechanism for culpable deniability rather than agile enforcement, the latter of which is the reason the DAA act was sensibly set up in the first place.