Introduction

In November 2011, Ontario’s Office of the Fairness Commissioner assessed the way the Ontario Association of Architects registers people who apply for a licence to practise in Ontario, to ensure that the registration practices are fair and continue to improve.  

This summary of the assessment includes commendable practices that are under way and recommendations for improvement.

The Ontario Association of Architects is subject to Ontario's fair access law, the Fair Access to Regulated Professions Act, 2006 (FARPA). The law spells out the association's obligation to have transparent, objective, impartial and fair registration methods and requirements.

The Office of the Fairness Commissioner

To encourage accountability under the fair access law, the Office of the Fairness Commissioner (OFC) works with professions’ regulatory bodies to improve the way they register people who apply for professional licences. As a result of the OFC’s work, qualified people, no matter where they were originally trained, will have faster, fairer access to their licence to practise here.

In its work with regulators so far, the OFC has found that they have succeeded in streamlining their registration processes, but they need to do more. For example, regulators need to be more transparent and hold their assessment agencies more accountable for fairness.

To encourage, and hold regulators accountable for, continuous improvement, the OFC assesses their licensing practices in a two-year cycle. This cycle includes recommending improvements where needed and monitoring the bodies’ action plans that address the OFC’s concerns. This approach benefits applicants, the professions and the province.

You can read more about the OFC’s strategy for continuous improvement and its guide for assessments elsewhere on this site.

For more information about this particular assessment, contact the OFC.

Note: The words license, register and certify all refer to authorizing a person to practise a profession.

Commendable Practices

The Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) is demonstrating many commendable practices, in the following areas. (These areas correspond to the sections of the assessment guide, and are derived from the fair access legislation.)

Information for Applicants

• The OAA website provides examples of common deficiencies in reporting work experience. These examples may help interns to make accurate entries in the Canadian Experience Record Book and avoid delays in the processing of these reports.

Timely Decisions, Responses and Reasons

• In the past, the OAA registrar's office could not communicate the council's decision about an applicant until the minutes were approved at the next council meeting. In 2010, to expedite communication of registration decisions, the OAA's council empowered the registrar to communicate council's decision to the applicant immediately after the council meeting where the decision is made.

Assessment of Qualifications

• Applicants can choose between the Examination for Architects in Canada (ExAC) and the Architect Registration Examination (ARE). These exams have different fee scales and scheduling patterns. This flexibility enables applicants to choose a registration pathway that meets their specific circumstances.
• To create additional transparency around its process for assessing qualifications, the OAA publishes the ExAC success rates. This information is also used to maintain the validity and reliability of the OAA's exam system.
• The OAA has established training and qualifying procedures to ensure that those involved in marking exam papers produce consistent and objective assessments.

Fairness

• The OAA enables its potential applicants to start the qualification assessment process while they are still outside Canada.
• In 2011, the OAA reduced its experience requirement from 5600 to 3720 hours (from three to two years).
• In 2010, the OAA reduced its admission course from five days to three days, and cut the cost by half, making the course more accessible and affordable.

Recommendations

The OFC recommends improvements in the following areas. (These areas correspond to the sections of the assessment guide, and are derived from the fair access legislation. Recommendations marked "Required" correspond to the practices regulators must demonstrate in order to meet the specific duties in the legislation. Recommendations marked "Good" correspond to the practices the OFC encourages a regulatory body to adopt in order to meet the general duty to provide registration practices that are transparent, objective, impartial and fair.)

Information for Applicants	Status
Make the following changes to the registration information on the OAA's website:
Add a statement indicating that the criterion for completing the OAA admission course is attendance. [Required]
Explain how applicants can contact the OAA for information about opportunities for special considerations under exceptional circumstances. [Good]
Provide more specific information about meeting the “good character” requirement. [Good]
Explain how applicants can request a review of their work experience assessment. [Required]
Provide more specific information about the interview process for the work experience assessment, including details about any applicable assessment criteria. [Good]
Internal Review or Appeal
Provide information on the website about how applicants can request an internal review or appeal from registration decisions. [Good]
Assessment of Qualifications
Examine qualifications assessment criteria in the context of the recent regulation change, to ensure a direct link between the assessment criteria and the standards for entering the profession. As this review is completed, inform applicants of any changes to the qualifications assessment criteria. [Required]
Training
Establish and follow definite timelines for providing staff and committee members with training that:
addresses special considerations that may apply in the assessment of applicants, and addresses the process for applying those considerations [Required]
informs the registrar's staff or committee members whenever there is a change in regulations, policies or procedures [Good]
explains the objectives of FARPA to staff and committee members [Good]

Blank = Implementation is in progress.
= Recommendation is implemented.
Acceptable alternative = Regulator implements acceptable alternative to this recommendation.