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INTRODUCTION
Purpose
This guide presents the Office of the Fairness Commissioner's (OFC) expectations of regulators in meeting the specific-duty and general-duty obligations under:
- the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act, 2006 (FARPACTA), which applies to non-health regulators
- Schedule 2 to the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 (RHPA), which applies to the health regulators
These statutes are collectively referred to as "fair-access legislation."
This guide helps regulators to better understand the OFC's expectations about how regulators are to meet their obligations in the OFC's assessment of their registration practices.
Background
The ultimate objective of the OFC assessment process is to help regulatory bodies to meet their fair-access obligations by:
- identifying regulators' strengths and weaknesses in fulfilling their duties set out in the fair-access legislation
- making recommendations to address any weaknesses
- requiring regulatory bodies to commit to actions to enhance the fairness of their practices
To guide regulators during the assessments, the OFC developed the following tools and guidelines:
This revised guide reflects:
- the OFC's broadened fair-access and assessment expertise following the two assessment cycles in 2011–2012 and 2013–2014
- feedback received from regulators during their evaluations of the assessment program
- recent amendments to Schedule 2 to the RHPA
Using this guide
Overview
The OFC's assessments look objectively at the state of professional registration practices in Ontario at a point in time, measuring those practices against regulatory bodies' specific-duty and general-duty obligations.
This guide translates the legislative obligations into 69 practice-based expectations. Each practice describes a particular action or a series of actions that regulators must take to fulfil the expectation. Together, these practices establish what constitutes a transparent, objective, impartial and fair registration process and form the basis for assessment.
Regulators must provide evidence that they are fulfilling each practice.
The guide applies to both health and non-health regulators. Where the requirements in FARPACTA differ from those in the RHPA, the differences are noted.
Organization of this guide
This guide is organized according to the specific and general duties of the fair-access legislation. Each duty is broken down into discrete, numbered practices.
Specific duties
Practices listed in the specific-duty sections (sections 1–8) correspond to the regulatory body's specific duties identified in the legislation. The regulatory body must demonstrate these practices in order to fulfil the specific duties identified in the legislation.
Note that each specific-duty practice corresponds to one or more general-duty principles. The appropriate general-duty principle or principles are indicated in brackets after each specific-duty practice.
General duty
The general duty is in a distinct section in the fair-access legislation and is much broader than the specific duties. The fair-access legislation states that the regulatory body must provide registration practices that are transparent, objective, impartial and fair.
Practices related to these principles appear in sections 9 to 12.
OFC's interpretation of transparency, objectivity, impartiality and fairness
The legislation's general duty requires that regulators' registration practices be transparent, objective, impartial and fair. The OFC has developed interpretations of these principles, and they are provided in the appropriate general-duty sections as a reference.
These interpretations are the practical mechanisms that regulatory bodies can use to demonstrate that they are applying the principles.
For more information...
For more information about the OFC's assessment process, refer to the OFC's document about the assessment of regulatory bodies' registration practices.
