SML’s Grey Areas newsletter has been in publication since July 1992 and discusses the latest developments in professional regulation. New issues are published monthly – subscribe below to learn more about recent studies, case law and legislative updates in the regulatory world. Explore our catalogue below.
Issues published before 2020 can be found on CanLII.
Policy makers have long relied upon briefing notes to assist in making good decisions. Boards, councils and even committees of regulators have often used briefing notes to enable staff and preparatory teams to concisely convey the information that decision-makers need.
The time has come to break away from criminal sentencing concepts when determining the appropriate sanction in a discipline matter. In the October and November issues of Grey Areas, my colleague Natasha Danson discussed how a registrant’s degree of insight should be adopted as the guiding factor in sanction over the perceived remorse, or lack thereof, of a registrant.
In Part 1 of this article, we examined how Canadian courts have approached a registrant’s lack of remorse for (or “acknowledgement” of) allegations when imposing disciplinary sanctions. We posited that the approach has been technical, inconsistent, and difficult to apply. In this article we propose that a “degree of insight” approach can sidestep the issue and bring a principled approach
Despite some strong pronouncements from the courts, ambiguity remains for disciplinary panels considering a lack of “remorse” by a registrant when imposing sanctions.
A recent research paper concludes that even extensive transparency requirements are not enough to ensure that self-regulating professions effectively protect the public from serious safety concerns.
As discussed in the July edition of Grey Areas, whistleblowers are insiders within an organization who disclose apparent wrongdoing to outsiders because the organization is unable or unwilling to address the issue.