CNNAR

Mandate and History

CNNAR's mandate is to support the self-regulation of professionals and occupations. We strive to increase the understanding of the Canadian public, governments and others, of the value of self-regulation; facilitate collaboration at the national level amongst our members, federal government agencies and other national and international groups; monitor and respond to federal legislation and policy; serve as an information clearing house on common issues; and develop and share resources.

In 2000, Engineers Canada and the Canadian Nurses Association discussed responding to Bill C-11, changes to the Immigration Act. They invited other national associations of regulators to join and created, CORA, the Coalition of Regulatory-related Agencies.

Early discussions within CORA were very successful and in 2000 fourteen national organizations with a regulatory interest met in Ottawa to network and exchange views on common issues.

They continued to meet as the Network of Regulatory Agencies for informal discussions, roundtables and information sharing. With the increasing need to address common issues at the national level, it was decided to provide more structure and formality to meetings and CNNAR was created in June 2003.

Subsequently terms of reference were drafted and an executive committee formed. Membership criteria for full and affiliate member status and a supporting application form were also developed. List serves were also created to ease communication. In 2006 CNNAR was federally incorporated and a bilingual website was launched.

In April 2007, the Conference Board of Canada released a report entitled "Achieving Public Protection through Collaborative Self-regulation: Reflections for a New Paradigm". One of their five recommendations was to "federally fund an arm's length organization dedicated to creating and sharing information among regulators" (p. iii). Within this recommendation they suggest that CNNAR could serve as an archetype on which to build such an organization.

Also, in April 2007, CNNAR hosted a Canadian regulatory conference entitled "The Future of Professional Regulation in Canada" with international, national and provincial presenters and participants.

Building on the success of the inaugural conference, CNNAR held its second conference entitled: "Ethical Regulation: Doing the right things for the right reason," in November 2008. Speakers included representation from the following professional groups: lawyers, engineers, teachers, physicians, government staff and a provincial Fairness Commissioner.

In March 2009, CNNAR, with funding from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), organized the National Forum on Mobility. About 75 CNNAR members and representatives from their respective provincial associations participated in the Forum. Those participating learned about the changes to Chapter 7 of the Agreement on Internal Trade and other trade agreements. Delegates gained an understanding of the challenges to mobility and discussed strategies to move toward achieving full labour mobility within their occupations.

Participants identified the need to continue exchanging at the national level and across professions about strategies and best practices. Participants also felt that CNNAR was the appropriate organization to convene such fora and an event should be opened to a larger constituency.

Since the March 2009 forum, a number of milestones were achieved by governments that have a direct impact on the professions. The Chapter 7 amendments of the AIT have come into force, the federal government is proceeding with negotiations toward a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union and recently the Forum of Labour Market Ministers has given the green light to a new framework to enhance foreign qualification recognition for internationally trained workers. While the framework will be implemented within eight professions by December 2010, it will, over time, impact all occupations.

At its quarterly meeting in November 2009, CNNAR members identified foreign qualification recognition – the process of verifying that knowledge, skills, work experience and education obtained in another country are comparable to the standards established for Canadian professionals and tradespersons – as the priority issue for the professions. CNNAR members also recognized that they felt ill-equipped to address the challenges facing them.

As a result, CNNAR submitted a proposal to HRSDC to hold up a two day forum in November 2010 with the overarching goal of enabling Canadian regulated professional groups to share information and best practices of foreign qualification assessment and recognition. The event will be held within the ambit of CNNAR's national conference.