Over the last few years, there has
been a sea change in the way the
Human Resources Professionals
Association (HRPA) governs
and regulates its members. Yet, much of
this transformation has been and remains
invisible to members. Here is a quick recapitulation
of what has transpired over the
last few years.
Although HRPA became a professional
regulatory body in 1990 with the passage
of the Human Resources Professionals
Association of Ontario Act, 1990, the realization
of what this actually meant would
take a long time. In 1990, the Act was seen
as recognition of the then-new CHRP
designation by the Ontario Legislature.
It was, in fact, much more than that – it
made HRPA a professional regulatory
body, although HRPA hadn’t quite processed
that at the time. Consider the graph
on the following page – it shows the number
of times the words regulate, regulation,
regulator or regulatory appeared in HRPA’s
annual reports, excluding the instances
when those words were used referring to
something other than HRPA’s mandate as
a professional regulatory body. Although
HRPA was a professional regulatory body,
it certainly doesn’t look like it knew it was
at the time.
Starting in 2008, there was a growing
realization that HRPA was indeed a regulatory
body. One turning point was when
HRPA received a letter from the Ministry
of Training, Colleges and Universities
(MTCU) informing HRPA that our professional
occupation had been identified as
being subject to the labour mobility chapter
of the Agreement on Internal Trade
(AIT). The letter invited HRPA to participate
in orientation sessions to discuss the
implementation of what would become
the Ontario Labour Mobility Act, 2010.
Most notably, however, the letter began
with “Dear Regulator.”
Already in 2008, the idea had begun
to take hold that HRPA should one day
pursue a public act. At that time, it was
thought that this would be a 10- to 15-
year project. Nonetheless, HRPA set out
to upgrade its regulatory processes in anticipation
of this possibility. The idea was
that by doing all we could to regulate the
profession under our private act, it would
make it more likely that HRPA would
be successful in getting a public act. This
turned out to be a good idea.
The upgrade started with the HRPA
Rules of Professional Conduct, first published
in January 2009 and taking effect
in June 2009. Among other things, these
rules introduced the professional liability
insurance requirement for members in independent
practice. Also in January 2009,
HRPA placed its public register online,
which was by then already common practice
among professional regulatory bodies
in Ontario. Soon after, in March 2009, the
Legislature passed Bill 158 – An Act to repeal
and replace the statutes governing The
Certified General Accountants Association
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Becoming a
Professional
Regulatory Body
24 ❚ MAY/JUNE 2016 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL