Grey Areas

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.

January 2023, Issue No. 274– Measuring Regulatory Performance Part 2– Less Common Features

How should regulators measure their regulatory performance? As noted last month, we were surprised at a newspaper reporter’s observation that securities regulators were less effective regulators because they obtained lower fines and less prison time than in previous years. We have conducted a review of the most recent annual reports (all for 2021) of ten Ontario regulators. Five were for

December 2022, Issue No. 273– Measuring Regulatory Performance Part 1– Recurring Features

How should regulators measure their regulatory performance? We were surprised at a newspaper reporter’s observation that securities regulators were less effective regulators because they obtained lower fines and less prison time than in previous years. We have conducted a review of the most recent annual reports (all for 2021) of ten Ontario regulators. Five were for regulators of health professions

November 2022, Issue No. 272– A Long Time Coming

In May of 2019 we predicted that Harry Cayton’s report on the regulation of health professions in British Columbia would be transformative: The Cayton Report: The Wolf Finally Arrives. That prediction is coming true.

October 2022, Issue No. 271– Identifying “Serious” Misconduct

Characterizing certain behaviour as “serious” professional misconduct has significant consequences. It may affect whether a complaint or investigation report will be referred to a discipline hearing. It can also determine the gravity of a sanction imposed upon a registrant if a finding is made. Earlier this year the regulators for the dental, nursing and midwifery professions in the UK released

September 2022, Issue No. 270– Applied Governance

While there is a lot of talk about governance principles and governance reform, there are precious few resources on how governance principles should be applied to a specific regulator. Last spring two experienced regulatory experts, Harry Cayton from the UK and Deanna Williams from Ontario, conducted a review of the governance approach taken at the Ontario College of Social Workers

July 2022 Special Edition, Issue No. 269– Regulators Breathe a Sigh of Relief

The Supreme Court of Canada has just released its most significant decision for professional regulators since Green v. Law Society of Manitoba, 2017 SCC 20 (CanLII), [2017] 1 SCR 360, https://canlii.ca/t/h2wx1. The issue of when inordinate delay constitutes an abuse of process in the professional disciplinary context has been uncertain since some very restrictive rules were imposed in criminal proceedings.