Evolving Regulatory Landscape
Professional regulation, while in existence internationally since the late
1700’s and in Canada since the 1860’s, has experienced some of its
greatest evolution and debate over the last 20 years. The United Kingdom
and Australia have fundamentally altered their models to ensure greater
public accountability and efficiency, with an aim to consolidate the
functions of multiple regulators under one agency. Meta-regulation, or
umbrella legislation, was also introduced in Ontario with the Regulated
Health Professions Act (RHPA) in 1993 and the Fairness Commission
under the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades
Act in 2006. More specifically, however, all of these changes speak to
several trends in occupational regulation:
• a decrease in exclusive scope of practice models, acknowledging
team based care and public demand for direct access to lower risk
services by practitioners of the public’s choosing,
• an increase in mandatory quality assurance programs as
continuing competence has clearly become a factor in assuring
safe practice over time,
Achieving a
Modern Approach
to the Regulation
of Veterinary
Medicine in
Ontario
EVOLVING
REGULATORY
LANDSCAPE
• an increased focus on public risk and harm and ensuring
professional standards and programs are developed with these in
mind,
• an increased emphasis on regulating the system, and not just the
individual licensee, to ensure that risks are mitigated. In the case
of veterinary medicine, this speaks to the regulation of veterinary
technicians within the model to better ensure standards of animal
care are met,
• an increased role of public members on Councils and Boards of
Directors, demonstrating a strong balanced public voice in overall
regulatory governance and decision making,
• an increasing preference for legislation that is less prescriptive;
providing powers in regulation and bylaw that afford for greater
nimbleness in change over time,
• an increase in the regulator’s accountability to the public through
government, and
• an increase in public expectation of the transparency of regulatory
processes and the appropriate legislative tools to manage risk
within the respective profession.
Achieving a Modern Approach to the Regulation of Veterinary Medicine in Ontario 7