Steve Payne
Ontario College of Trades “Dean Review”: What contractor groups (and unions) are saying
Canadian ContractorLots of reading here if you want to see what various groups think about the Ontario College of Trades. Lots of unions urging it on. All of them, in fact.
Editor’s Note: It’s been clear to us folks at Canadian Contractor that the vast majority of our renovator and custom homebuilder readers want the Ontario College of Trades (OCOT) broken up and hauled out to the dump.
OCOT collects stiff fees from “compulsory” trades – and provides questionable/non-existent value in return, we are told again and again.
Our readers do not, for the most part, want the OCOT to be renovated.
But that’s exactly what’s going to happen with a majority Liberal government at Queen’s Park. Plans for the renovation are being drawn up by Tony Dean, a longstanding bureaucrat who is being paid God-knows-what to conduct endless consultations with construction unions and associations and other bodies.
Some of these bodies, like the Progressive Contractors Association, have been highly critical of the OCOT.
Others, like the carpenters’ unions, have been salivating at the mouth at the thought of making it illegal for non-licensed trades to engage in connecting pieces of wood together.
To read these various viewpoints, see the dozens of submissions to Tony Dean’s review process here – with more to come.
Advertisement
Print this page
882 Danforth PL.
Union run
Union ideology
Government bowing to its union masters.
unwanted by majority of public
unwanted by the majority of tradesman
ideology over against whats logical and pragmatic.
So far no trades man/women compulsory certified or not were never asked to vote for this insane monster.
The fantasy of their writing ( OCOT) is amazing, only can be compared with the work of sycophants trying to coerce their victims.
This Liberal government became so corrupted, to a point of no retuned.
The new tax, carbon tax, or credits which ever they named, big polluters can buy carbon credits and pollute whatever they wish.
Its not about protect the public using side ways agencies, labeled what ever they wish, or our environment pollution, its all about making money, for these crooks and destroying all the middle class.
They seems to be part of the game, rich and poor, not middle class, the economy will sink in the blink of the eye, that’s one thing these crooks do not understand. Its already in a chaotic situation.
Rich people wouldn’t buy much, nor pay much tax, they will always find tax havens, to secure the economy levels middle class its need, and the poor will not afford buy anything.
The Liberals are doing a great job so far, destroying everything they touch, the damage its over bearing, for sure will get worse, with more pill up debt.
Let see if the Sudbury election intifada, will trigger some Liberals out of their ring, then Miss, O LLL will start to say I am sorry again and again, time to send all of them to the wild, where they belong.
The college of bullshit and all their Liberal creations, I wouldn’t buy your lies, and I believe thousands like me will do the same.
Where are the protection of the tax payers for the waste of money you the Liberals f,,,,, up? remember they are the public too.
Have anyone of you Liberals been charge for abuse of public founds yet? been to court, and got jail term?
Contrary to that, looks like allowed to f,,,,, up, but when any trades man/women, f,, up, their reward its jail terms, enormous pay fines, where is the sense?
The college of traitors and others alike should all be abolished, they exist to collect money and apparent employee a lot of people just to be there with no knowledge of their duties, unqualified, unlicensed, uncertified, great Hollywood display, fakery.
Nanny state governments like the liberals need poor people and as many as possible, ambitious, well informed people don’t want nanny state governments and don’t need them. Sadly, the proof is in the pudding as to where Ontario is heading unless a total 180 degree turn around takes place very quickly.
Thankfully, not all unions. Our friends at LiUNA have a great submission. I read through it, its written by their counsel, and they are dead set against Ocot. Why? It jeopordizes a lot of their 40,000 members’ jobs. They don’t want to lose any work to any other trades, and have made a great case to explain that their trained workers are more than competent to use a skillsaw to make a concrete form.
Wynne promised a review of the college while campaigning in the last election. The review ended up being culled to a very narrow scope of two issues being that of voluntary vs. compulsory trade reviews and the public safety aspect. Had the review been a complete review, where the tradesperson could actually voice their own concerns and opinions regarding the OCOT, I think our voices might have finally been heard. What they said to tradespeople to sell it before the legislation was pushed through Queens Park doesn’t match what the OCOT is now.
The original seed sown by the McGuinty government back in 2007 was in fact an attempt at getting a “new revenue tool” in place, although they didn’t say it as such.
http://news.ontario.ca/archive/en/2007/05/16/McGuinty-Government-to-Review-Whether-to-Expand-Compulsory-Certification-in-Skil.html
The plan from the beginning was to make all trades compulsory, hence more revenue through exam and licence fees as well as additional funds through educational institutions. In about 2 years of planning from 2007 to 2009, the Ontario College of Trades was dreamt up and implemented. It’s mindboggling how quickly this was legislated into place with very few of the tradespeople knowing about it. Our own industries failed us as along with our provincial government, they both kept us in the dark about it. The government, as well as the industries are the main benefactors of this thing. Industries being big business, corporations, unions and associations, educational institutions and our present provincial government. We the tradespeople who have been mandated to fund this new bureaucracy have no control, vote or say in anything the OCOT decides or does.
For most of us the Dean review isn’t really even worth consideration – the actual “review” as per the stakeholder consultation isn’t relevant to any of the concerns consistently voiced by members in regard to the college. In effect it is a PR tool empowered by the Wynne government to appear to address these concerns but simply doesn’t.
This review is actually in areas related to roles of the College as a public trust and scope of work jurisdictional issues more of interest to trade unions that regularly quarrel over them. In fact trade union concerns seem to be disproportionately the large part of what this review covers. I suppose that should be of no surprise.
With the current framework and government I am quite confident the OCOT will remain as loathsome an organisation after the Dean as review as it was before. It would be foolish to think otherwise.
In truth there was no need for a “Dean Review”, Google already has conducted one –
1.1/5 star average.
Says everything.
Hey guys, great comments, but the Dean review was another public waste of money. I have a high suspicious is not even qualified to do that job.
This is another front of consolation acts done by these Liberals, another fakery review, get lost, face reality cooks, take responsibility for your insane actions, stop wasting public money in fantasy dreams.
Clearly can be seen as the work of psychopaths, lies, cheaters, coercers, power hungry foolishness.
Soon will became clear, the only way to stop all these illegal tax collectors side ways agencies, attached to the trades people, in all sizes and shapes, is the occupy movement, at Queens park and in front of these insane tax collector locations too, until they close their doors for ever. Also demanding these Liberal crooks out in asp.
Only what they have been doing and still is economic damage nothing more, The future generations of this Ontario Province will be affected in very bad economic future. Which isn’t fair, just to satisfy the power glory of some psychos.
One can spend many hours reading the submissions.
I spent some time and scanned some submission to Mr Dean that are union and others non-union. For example, DR-34 Unifor, DR-35 Ontario Hairstylists Association, DR-39 Colleges Ontario, D-48 Toronto and Area Road Builders Association, DR-77 Ontario Home Builders Association, and DR-78 Chamber of Commerce amongst a few others.
Conclusion: The Ontario College of Trades (OCOT) should see itself in these submissions as being reprimanded and on the edge of extinction.
The reason I make this conclusion is, if you just take a few of the responses to say question 11, 14, 15, 17, 21, and 22 you’ll find that the ones responded to by unions generally contradict themselves and those opposed to the OCOT, in general, are well thought out and don’t contradict each other. It’ll be interesting to see how the OCOT will make, (my opinion) General Carpenter a compulsory trade, despite the fact that the majority of carpenters (particularly non-union or 77% of Ontarian carpenters) are opposed to the trade being made compulsory. But hey, if they can come up with the ratios for apprentices to journey persons the way they did I’m sure they have got other tricks up their sleeves. Thanks for the article Steve. A friendly and concerned Ontarian/ Canadian carpenter with a C of Q in General Carpentry