The OAA’s 133rd Annual General Meeting of Members (AGM) was held as a virtual event on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. Approximately 250 people participated in the Zoom meeting, which can now be viewed on the OAA’s YouTube channel.
The event was hosted by OAA President Settimo Vilardi. His Presidential Address is as follows:
This is the part of the AGM where I get a chance to address those in the profession, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for participating today.
For many years, the Annual General Meeting has been part of our annual Conference—an event you can attend in person and, if you’re a licensed member, vote on matters. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we pivoted to an online format for a couple of years before opting for a hybrid approach in 2022. After exploring a few different options and combinations, we’ve made a decision to keep the AGM virtual. It improves our accessibility and inclusiveness, helping ensure those in the profession can attend from across the province.
Immediate Past President Susan Speigel spoke earlier about the development and the implementation of the OAA’s five-year Strategic Plan, which we had the pleasure of announcing at last year’s AGM. Again, If you haven’t seen the plan, you can visit OAA.on.ca and scroll down a bit to click on “Vision, Mandate, and Strategic Plan” and learn more.
For this afternoon, I would like to take a few moments to look at the strategic plan’s four pillars in a little more detail and provide insight into a few of the specific activities and initiatives we have accomplished or have underway.
The Strategic Plan’s first pillar is to bring the OAA’s regulatory framework into alignment with current legal principles for professional regulators. It is also to modernize our legislative and governing documents and ensure the public interest continues to be served and protected.
This involves a range of activities, including examining how someone is licensed in this province, whether they were educated in Ontario or outside Canada. It encompasses how the OAA approaches complaints, discipline, and Act enforcement, as well those Council elections I mentioned earlier.
Over the last year, the OAA has ensured we remain in full compliance with the requirements of the Office of the Fairness Commissioner, and through the Office of the Registrar, we continue to respond to ongoing consultation with respect to the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act or FARPACTA.
We’ve put in new policies and procedures and enhanced our training for regulatory committees and functions. We continue to share options for broadly experienced foreign-trained architects to achieve their license in Ontario. And we have also transitioned our experience requirement recording programs to online, rather than pen and paper.
I’m pleased to say we’ve had such a good response to our newly launched Mentor Directory, which allows Interns to search for mentors based on not only practice-based information, but also other types of identity criteria. Our annual demographic surveys have shown there is value in enabling mentors to voluntarily share more info about who they are in order to foster a supportive, more inclusive, equitable profession.
We have begun our work on modernization of the Architects Act, Regulations, and Bylaws. A considerable task with many moving pieces, and Council has made a clear commitment to this project and time and resources necessary to see this project through.
On the Policy & Government Relations front, we continue our legislative monitoring for regulatory matters affecting the built environment, the profession, and the public. We have been able to have our voices heard when it comes to topics like Site Plan Approval Reform, long-term care research, housing affordability, and building code changes. We have also shared concerns about the environmental impacts of Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, and found other productive ways to keep working with all levels of government.
The OAA’s Practice Advisory Service team, which includes both architects and retired members, has participated in multiple public reviews related to the National Codes or the Ontario code, exploring and suggesting proposals related to harmonization, accessibility, and climate action.
The Association is closely tracking the 2024 OBC revisions, especially the items related to changing energy efficiency code requirements. We have participated in all Ministry feedback rounds and continue to be proactive in educating the membership on the changes.
I myself operate a practice in Windsor, and I take part in every aspect of a project, from schematic design through to construction administration. Like many of you, I’m working daily with these codes and therefore these items are very important and personal for me.
Speaking of work, we’re also continuing to voice concerns about Employment Standards Act reform to ensure fair treatment of those in the profession and also remind of the importance of fair pay and truly valuing our interns and newly licensed professionals.
The next pillar, Member Competency, involves ensuring the continued and current professional skill sets of OAA licensed members so we all maintain our leadership role in the built environment while being accountable to the public interest.
This can take many forms, such as the Association’s mandatory Continuing Education program, as well as its biweekly ConEd Webinar Series, which allows members to learn from industry experts on a wide variety of topics. This includes “Climate Action,” which was made a required credit for the current cycle.
For intern architects, there’s the Admission Course—and its information can also be accessed by members via our Self-Study Series offered through the University of Toronto. We also offer the virtual, and always very popular, Fundamentals of Running an Architectural Practice course. I’m actually one of the instructors for that, and if you’re thinking about starting your own practice or leveling up at your current one, I can’t recommend it enough.
In terms of help for both members and also the public, the OAA’s Practice Advisory Services team answered more than 2100 calls or emails to the free OAA Hotline last year. They also reviewed unfair RFPs and updated numerous documents, Practice Tips, publications, and other member resources found on the OAA Website.
The Practice Advisory Services team led the renewal and updating of our entire suite of OAA Standard Contracts, which were revised and rewritten in consultation with construction law specialists representing owners, contractors, and consultants. These fair, balanced contracts are available on the website for both members and the public.
As well, it’s through Practice Advisory Services that the OAA offers its licensed members free access to all the CSA standards mentioned in the building code, along with other standards related to aspects like bird-safe design and modular construction. This speaks to not only ensuring member competency, but also our mandate to protect the public interest. We’re removing barriers to accessing these standards for all architecture practices to help ensure a built environment that meets stringent requirements.
The third pillar calls for enhancing our governance and operational practices to make sure we have an effective, inclusive, resilient, and transparent organization.
The OAA has more than 6,000 members and status holders, and a staff of 37. There are 14 active Committees, all governed by a Council of 21 that meets seven or eight times a year.
As Susan mentioned earlier, out of the Operational Review and Strategic Plan exercises we moved directly into a governance review that resulted in quite a few changes to our various Committees and structures. We needed a realignment to reflect good governance and best practices.
Our five-year Strategic Plan reinforces our focus on our regulatory mandate. It’s a reminder that the OAA and its Council are here to serve not the profession, but rather the public interest. Of course, a strong, skilled architecture profession benefits the public interest, but at the same time, we are not a lobby group or an advocacy body.
We’re happy to support our Local Societies, other stakeholders, and other groups in the industry, but the OAA has a specific mandate under our provincial statute, and we need to make sure our governance and Committee structure speaks to that.
This year, we have continued to make improvements on the OAA Website, the virtual headquarters for members, as well as behind-the-scenes upgrades on our member directories and databases.
While the major renovation and refresh of the OAA Headquarters Building is complete, we continue our commitment as a responsible building owner to address ongoing maintenance and upgrades. This includes additional bird-friendly film for its atrium, building security enhancements, an accessibility audit, and a soon-to-be-officially-announced landscape design competition. We’re also continuing to monitor and will be sharing energy and building performance shortly to substantiate our net zero objective.
In fact, we’ve been looking at ways for members like you to share your own buildings’ climate performance so we can all benefit from innovative ideas and lessons learned. Later this month, the OAA will allow architecture practices to post their own case study projects on the website for the public to view. We also continue to share resources related to climate action on the website, and I am looking forward to unveiling some exciting news about our free Total Energy Use Intensity Calculator 2.0, or TEUI.ca, later this year.
We’ll continue to share news and connect with you via our website and social media, and we’re also looking to update our e-newsletters in terms of look and content. We’ll be reaching out to you all shortly to find out a little bit more about what you need to know, and what you want to see, in your communications from your regulator.
The final pillar calls for advancing the public's understanding and recognition that architecture is integral to the quality of life and well-being of our society. We have been doing this sort of public outreach for a while now, trying to educate about the importance of a sustainable, resilient, and durable built environment, but I’m pleased to say we have greatly begun to amplify our efforts.
Our new Communications & Public Education Committee will be involved with OAA staff in an audit of current ways the OAA communicates with the public. And by “public,” we mean everyone from clients and government to teachers and students to others in the design/construction realm.
Through staff dedicated to public outreach, we will be working more closely with our 14 Local Societies, which really have the most direct ties to their communities and are better equipped to operate a little bit differently than a traditional regulator. In fact, we will soon be co-hosting a big think about the current landscape of K–12 education with the Toronto Society of Architects.
We’re looking to share more resources about climate action outside our membership, and those case studies I mentioned are part of that plan. We’ve also made TEUI metrics a mandatory requirement for our Design Excellence awards to continue to shine a spotlight on that particular aspect of building design.
Speaking of awards, we just announced our jury’s five selections for the SHIFT2023 Health and Architecture Challenge. This program aims to show the public how architectural thinking can be applied to find new approaches to society issues, in this case related to physical and mental health.
Later this month, we’ll welcome the public into our Headquarters for Doors Open, and we’re exploring a similarly public-focused SHIFT event at the building in the fall.
Also I’m excited to announce the OAA will be soon launching a public-facing podcast, Architecturally Speaking, that aims to demystify architecture and the people who practise it. This is in addition to our more focused outreach like Procurement Day with the Construction and Design Alliance of Ontario and special planned Client Education Webinars to springboard off that revised Contract Suite I mentioned earlier.
Meanwhile, we’re continuing to work with the other Regulatory Organizations of Architecture in Canada to support a National Architecture Policy. And we’re well underway with our plans for World Architecture Day in October, which includes the unveiling of this year’s Queen’s Park Picks—favourite buildings as chosen by MPPs.
Finally, I want to remind you registration is open for the 2023 OAA Conference, which takes place next month in Sudbury. We kicked things off a couple of weeks ago, with a wonderful virtual Keynote, which will soon be available on the OAA’s YouTube channel if you missed it live.
The Conference theme is Designing for Dignity, and it’s going to be a really unique three days of networking, learning, and special events, including a celebration of this year’s SHIFT selections, Sudbury Kitchen Party, and a plenary that brings together an array of experts to look at design in the context of Care, Community, Wellness, and Dignity.
You can look at the full lineup of Continuing Education opportunities on the OAA Website. This year, there will be learning sessions at Laurentian University and the McEwen School of Architecture, in award-winning buildings like Place des Arts, and even out in the field—you’ll be able to earn ConEd points while taking part in case studies and exploring architectural sites in and around Sudbury. Also, we have extended our early-bird pricing until Monday, which means you should register now to take advantage of significant discounts. There is also special pricing for those who have OAA student or intern status.
I’ll close this address by reiterating my earlier encouragement to consider running in the upcoming Council elections. There will also be volunteer opportunities to join an OAA Committee, which will be announced in the summer.
Just by the very act of participating virtually in today’s AGM, you are showing that you care about this profession and about its future, as well as how it can best serve the people of Ontario. I hope you continue to think about ways you can further become involved at the Association or Local Society level. As Council continues to make real the priorities of the Strategic Plan, there is a place for you to join us.
Thank you.