as saying. “Some others felt the College came in in a pretty strong handed way, that boiled down to a dispute over what happens if there is an appeal.” “Somebody shows up on site, says, you are doing something you shouldn’t be doing, here’s a ticket. And someone says, I don’t agree with you, I think I am doing ex- actly what I should be doing. I want to appeal that,” he said in the interview with a construction industry publication. “There was a sense that the appeal didn’t take into ac- count the realities of what happens within organized labour, the realities of the Labour Relations Board, the ongoing dis- cussion that takes place around scopes of practice.” “So the apprentice portion is staying behind with the Ministry of College, Training and Universities, as a reporting structure, but a lot of it came down to scopes of practice, things like enforcement, we enforce those types of things, it’s much more in the bailiwick of the Ministry of Labour,” Flynn was quoted as saying. “And it was felt that a reporting structure that took that into account, where there was some resident expertise al- ready, may be the best way to go.” The decision to make the MOL responsible for enforce- ment probably will be seen as a blow to an alliance of cer- tified trades that had hoped to revise certain Dean Report provisions. The PCTC – representing electricians, plumbers and pip- efitters among other certified trades – has been stepping up its lobbying campaign to alter some of Dean’s key rec- ommendations, and reportedly had achieved some suc- cess, to the point that there was debate within the provincial cabinet about their proposals. In a pre-election promise two years ago, spurred in part by complaints by the Labourers’ Union and several non- union employers about the OCOT’s compulsory certifica- tion process and its enforcement of jobsite jurisdictional issues formerly overseen by the ORLB, premier Kathleen Wynne announced that the OCOT’s compulsory certifica- tion and jurisdictional enforcement process would be put on hold and Dean would complete a comprehensive review of the new organization. After Dean’s multi-month review and the government’s initial announcement late last year, most stakeholders ex- pressed support for Dean’s recommendations, but the cer- tified trades – including electricians and pipe trades – cried foul. Their concern: Dean proposed that jurisdictional issues be heard by the ORLB, which had, according to the Labour- ers’ Union, over the years developed guidelines and re- spected traditional relationships in determining who should do what work, and when. Dean’s recommendations to restore the OLRB as the en- forcement mechanism rankled the certified trades. Certification regulation “has nothing to do with labour relations” but relates to jobsite and consumer safety and whether the work is truly being done by properly qualified tradespeople, said John Grimshaw, executive secretary treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Construction Council of Ontario, one of PCTC’s spokespersons. Grimshaw said, before the OCOT started enforcing the certification rules, the MTCU didn’t really have the re- sources to ensure that the certified trades were done by properly qualified workers. “We wanted to finally see some real and expected enforcement.” He said there are many aspects of a certified trade’s work that require extensive knowledge and training, and that seemingly simple superficial tasks can have severe long range safety implications. Grimshaw said the enforcement/adjudication process was one of three issues among Dean’s 31 recommenda- tions that caused concern for the certified trades. He said the second Dean recommendation the PCTC op- posed was that independent, non-trades adjudicators should have responsibility for determining the certified trades’ scopes of practice. Changing the rules so decisions are made “by people not affiliated with the trades, who don’t know anything about my trade, about how it works or why,” could result in dangerous circumstances, Grimshaw said. “If I was to put pipe down and screw it to a ground cable, and that cable is made of copper, and the bolt is gal- vanized, if you don’t put compound on it to stop the ioniza- tion of the two metals, there could be a short to the ground,” he said. “This is one of thousands of things that others don’t know about the trade, which we need to un- derstand.” Finally, Grimshaw said Dean called for “a limited scope of practice for some trades to be compulsory,” separating a “core skill set” from the trade’s entire scope of practice. This would result in circumstances where unqualified peo- ple “who don’t have all the training” and don’t appreciate the interconnection of systems, completing work that could be dangerous both to fellow workers and the public at large, he said. Grimshaw indicated that the PCTC has not focused on the OCOT’s contentious policies and processes regarding establishing the rules for compulsory certification, which caused much concern among employers and the labourers, as the Carpenters’ Union pushed forward with its lobby for general carpentry’s certification. The certified trades put their perspectives forward in public consultations with Dean and he “didn’t find these ar- guments persuasive,” said Jason Ottey, representing Labourers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) Local 183. “The recommendations tried to resolve some of the sub- stantial issues of the College while preserving a balance from a policy point of view and a stakeholder point,” Ottey said. “If the government is making amendments to the Dean recommendations in response to the certified trades con- cerns, that is a real concern to Local 183,” he said. “It makes us question what is the point of Dean.” “It is the ministry’s intention to move forward with leg- islation upon completion of the policy work and implemen- tation planning,” a MTCU spokesperson wrote. “We hope to move forward as quickly as possible.” The Canadian Design and Construction Report — May-June 2016 – 17