On Wednesday, June 16, OAA President Susan Speigel hosted the Association’s online Annual General Meeting (AGM) of members for 2021. (To watch the video or read more of the highlights, click here.) Immediate Past-President Kathleen Kurtin reflected on last year, referring to the 2020 Annual Report. Her speaking notes are below.

Hello, everyone. As with last year, I won’t restate the details of the Annual Report, as I am hopeful most of you have read it, or intend to soon. It’s referenced on the OAA website, and was linked to the announcement of this meeting.

While I’m sure many of us have numerous distractions as we find ourselves amid noticeable shifts in the tone of the pandemic, I do hope you were able to review the report. Once again, it continues to reflect the OAA’s new visual identity, and focuses on the most important information using a pared-back approach. As the official summary of our profession’s past year, we do want the content to feel accessible so you are able to learn of all that transpired in 2020.

I would like to start with the major priorities Council set in 2020 to guide us in achieving our mission.

In 2020, Council continued its commitment to priorities established in 2019, but expanded them to include the education continuum, member engagement, and climate stability—all viewed through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Fortunately, these priorities had been set before the pandemic hit Ontario in March, making it possible to focus on these long-term priorities while still responding on a daily basis to the unfolding COVID-19 crisis.

Protecting the public interest continues to be at the forefront of our actions, and providing support to the membership so they can continue to uphold their professional duties is a key part of that effort. The OAA quickly recognized the impact of the pandemic and responded with a series of strategies to help us all through this period. The OAA’s Executive Committee, Council, and staff promptly transitioned to working from home, Conference was cancelled, and the ConEd cycle and Certificate of Practice fee payment deadlines were extended.

We leveraged online tools, moving a number of services to virtual platforms including the AGM, Celebration of Excellence awards, and a new (and highly successful) webinar series. We all learned how to use Zoom and stayed connected as best we could during waves of uncertainty. We successfully launched a new visual identity and website, which, alongside our e-newsletters and social media, became even more essential to communicate with our audiences, with things like our COVID-19 Updates page becoming a crucial site for ensuring relevant updates were shared in a timely manner.

While the pandemic was undoubtedly both traumatic and a major disruption, we were resolute in addressing our set priorities. The OAA remains committed to applying the lens of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion across its programs, priorities, and initiatives. Improving the accessibility to our profession was one of the reasons why I first ran for President back in 2018.

Throughout the year, we received candid, constructive criticism on how to do better—both collectively and individually—to confront unconscious biases. In response, we hosted free webinars on topics like harassment in the workplace and addressing diversity, along with virtual roundtables on equity, diversity, and inclusion. The OAA held Indigenous cultural competency training for Council, staff, and members of our Reconciliation Working Group while continuing important work on an environmental survey of the profession. We also updated the OAA website to meet Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) standards and introduced closed captioning for webinars. As well, the OAA changed registration forms and standards for correspondence to remove prefixes and gender binary language. The goal has remained to ensure Ontario’s diverse voices are represented in the profession.

As leaders charged with protecting the public interest, architects must play a significant role in improving the environmental impacts of both existing and new buildings. The OAA remains vigilant in its efforts to promote climate stability—an issue I feel is one of the defining challenges of our times—and has been collaborating with experts in the field, integrating sustainability criteria into its awards programs and other initiatives, and adding its voice to the call for climate action.

Also, our renewed and refreshed OAA Headquarters is more than offices and meeting spaces—it is the public and physical embodiment of an architect's skill and what is achievable in sustainable design. For OAA members, it is also your space, and I look forward to inviting you all to our grand public opening, once we’re safely able to do so.

The OAA continued to focus on expanding knowledge of and within the profession in 2020. Our comprehensive education approach ensures students have the information they need to become great architects, provides resources to members to augment their skills, and expands outreach efforts to build public awareness. For example, in response to the pandemic, we launched an online webinar series, which ensured learning opportunities are more widely available to our members. This program has been highly successful and continues to expand.

Also, our annual Queen’s Park Picks event, celebrating and showcasing treasured architectural landmarks nominated by MPPs from across Ontario, was reimagined as an online exhibition which garnered unprecedented public, media, and political attention. On that note, our social media numbers and engagement continued to see accelerated growth as well—an exciting indicator that our audiences are listening and engaged.

Given that self-regulated professions continue to face increased scrutiny, I am happy to say in addition to continuing to support legislation reflecting the public interest relative to the built environment, we installed a new Registrar and Deputy Registrar, introduced a new Governance Committee, formalized succession planning, and improved transparency by allowing the public to see individual members’ and practices’ discipline history on the online Member Registry.

Throughout the year, we continued to find ways to engage the membership, but we do hear feedback that some feel disconnected from the OAA. This information signals that we must continue to work to find a balance between membership services and our primary responsibilities as the regulator of the profession. Certainly, the privilege of self-regulation is only possible with the direct involvement of our members. The OAA continues to strive to increase participation, while understanding the challenge inherent in achieving this goal.

Again, I encourage you to read this Annual Report and I welcome you to seek out ways in which you can participate and contribute to the Association.
Thank you.