The Council of Ontario Construction Associations (to which all Barrie Construction Association (BCA) members belong) has been pushing hard for a review of the policies of the Ontario College of Trades (OCOT), BCA executive director Alison Smith has reported in an email to BCA members.
“Last week, the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities announced that this review will take place immediately. It is expected that this review will give stakeholders the opportunity to comment, and information on how that process will work will be forwarded to you as it becomes available.
Additional information can be found below and at: www.deanreview.com.
Smith posted the following email from COCA president Ian Cunningham:
Dear COCA Members,
The Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities today announced the appointment of Tony Dean to lead a review of key areas of the province’s skilled trades system that fall within the mandate of the Ontario College of Trades.
Dean is a former Secretary of Cabinet and Head of the Ontario Public Service and a former Deputy Minister of Labour. He is well remembered and widely respected for the review of Ontario’s occupational health and safety system which he lead. In that review Dean was supported by an Expert panel and it concluded with the Tony Dean Expert Panel Report. Among its 40+ recommendations were the establishment of the role of Chief Prevention Officer to head up a new Prevention Office in the Ministry of Labour and the transfer of responsibility for prevention services and programs from the WSIB to the new Prevention Office within the Ministry of Labour headed up by a Chief Prevention Officer. He was able to achieve the support of most stakeholder in the process.
The mandate of the review announced today will include:
· Issues relating to the scopes of work or types of work performed by a trade
· The process for determining whether a trade should be certified as compulsory or voluntary
Dean will function independently, without the benefit of an expert panel or advisors in this review which will start in October 2014 and conclude in 12 months.
COCA’s experience with Dean has been extremely positive. During the health and safety system review he focused on practical solutions that we implementable with little difficulty. He consulted openly and widely with stakeholders. We have no reason to think he will follow a different process this time.
COCA looks forward to meeting with Dean to share our views.
See this related story in Ontario Construction Report.
