In a career that already includes enormous professional responsibilities and personal marketing expenditures, I don’t need the government’s Competition Bureau becoming the spokesperson for one, two or three disgruntled businessmen in an industry with over 90,000 members across Canada or 32,000 members in the GTA.
Anyone with one iota of common sense would acknowledge that real estate is the most competitive and highest consumer service industry in Canada.
To claim that consumers lack choice in Internet real estate services is absolutely absurd and a blatant misrepresentation of facts.
As for TREB members, we pay for our association and the MLS system in order to help us serve our clients more effectively. It appears clear to me, and anyone else who is interested, that the MLS system belongs to the members who have entrusted the association to be stewards of the system. Thus, the members should be free to choose how the system will be designed and used. Also, members must respect the decisions of the members in this regard. The idea that one or even 10 members want a change to the system should not be forced upon all the members. In fact, some members may want to develop expensive applications for themselves that will reduce the competitiveness of the other members who don’t have large amounts of capital. Such applications of the MLS system should not be approved by TREB or forced upon the membership by the Competition Bureau. In fact the bureau would truly be favouring big business and thus reduce competitiveness.
There are several industries in Canada where corporate members have developed shared databases, many of which are not accessible to the public (car insurance, life insurance, oil and gas industry, mineral mining industry, medical industry, auto dealers, auctioneers). These industries have unequivocally merged into oligopolies with widespread price fixing. To compare the real estate industry to these would be grossly unfair and dishonest.
The lobbying power of a couple of real estate brokers with the Competition Bureau is capitalizing upon the diversity and independence of the front line real estate sales representatives. We have no mechanism in place to rally together and voice our common outrage at the manipulation and deceit being foisted upon us by Melanie Aitken of the Competition Bureau. Even the terms and phrases being used by her are reported in a legal jargon that has been designed by a partisan perspective in this matter. These are not the words of a consumer advocate. They are the words of a disgruntled Realtor and their lawyers.
I truly hope that TREB will be able to match their legal jargon blow by blow and eventually defeat this megalomaniac. I am not incorrect in assuming that 99 per cent of front-line Realtors would prefer to have the MLS system evolve in a manner approved by our membership and in a manner that will help us provide excellent services to our clients. Surgeons don’t teach their patient clients how to operate, and Realtors don’t need to try to make the public into knowledgeable unlicensed Realtors.
I sent a letter voicing my concerns to six cabinet members. The Prime Minister’s Office forwarded this letter to his Industry Minister, who then sent it on to the Competition Bureau. A junior bureau officer called me this morning in the hope he could appease me and reduce my concerns. He works for the commissioner heading the TREB investigation. His main comment was that the tribunal will be made up of independent individuals.
I asked for an independent enquiry by the ministers but they sent my enquiry to the commissioner. I was completely surprised by this behaviour and attitude in response to my letter.
The point I emphasized to the bureau’s officer is that they intend to regulate the establishment of expensive website offices that will certainly favour brokerages and teams of agents whilst making it too costly for independent contractors to compete. This will reduce competitiveness in the Internet media marketing channel.
The bureau did not appear to have thought through the full implications of their directive. In fact, their action will only help the discount brokers to reduce their costs and human services. The discount brokers will be given access to the database that the independent contractors have paid for through our membership fees. Also, our associations will have to increase their expenditures on maintenance, security, policing and arbitration in the future. There is also considerable risk as these new format brokerages fail and the databases are then open to data theft. The whole concept is foolish and not progressive from the context of the personalized real estate services that are the backbone of organized real estate in Canada.
I hope to retire in a couple of years and have significantly cut back on my new business generation activities. Believe me, I am not sending these missives for my own interests as the CB officer presumed. My intent is to encourage Realtors to protect their business model and to assert their rights to determine how their fees are spent.
If the MLS system is to be used or delivered in a modified format by the public or by special interest users, then these people should be on a “pay-as-you-go” basis and our MLS operating fees should be eliminated. The MLS should become a profit centre for us and our association, especially since we are personally liable for the accuracy of the data.
Jim Reid BA, MBA, Broker, ABR, ICI
Royal LePage – Your Community Realty
Richmond Hill, Ont.
Yes, it’s time to stand up and fight.
CREA and TREB have made concessions and clarified our business and services model to the government and consumers. It really does appear that this on-going assault on our member-created system has something more to it than it appears.
So, as with any untenable situation, we are forced into a corner, and MUST come out and say: “Nuff is e-Nuff”.
Let the federal government go to a tribunal. We can’t lose. Every suit has a window for a compromise/consent agreement to be worked out, so everyone comes out smiling for the cameras. But we need to stand up to a bully, and hold our ground – or send the federal government an MLS agreement of purchase and sale. They can create a new bureaucracy to run the MLS boards and we can take all the money and retire.
Our firm is happy and willing to pay whatever special assessment is needed to take on this fight.
Gordon Halkett
34-year CREA member
President
ReaList Realty International
Nanaimo, B.C.
The only problem with letting “willy nillies” have access to the MLS is we, as licensed Realtors, can do little to police their ethics and when they err we could be tarred with the same brush.
I would like to see only ONE board for each province and, inasmuch as we own the MLS, as a protection to the public, I think it is both fair and reasonable for us to require a paid membership from all groups and interests wanting to have access to our MLS property, so that offenders could be weeded out and denied access.
I have had lengthy phone conversations with the Competition Bureau, the last one lasting almost three-quarters of an hour. I complimented them on their concern for the public’s interests, however, all I got is a stammer, long silent pauses, meaningless words of explanation but no substance when I suggested that other big interest groups serving the public such as banks, oil companies, trust companies, insurance companies and the like have certainly not captured their attention as much as CREA. My closing comment was: It is my opinion that the CB and certain officers of same have a personal agenda and vendetta inspired by “your guess is as good as mine” and because Realtors are perceived to be over-paid for their services and are portrayed as having a monopoly on people’s home and hearth, it is easy to brand Realtors as the bad guys.
It is a known fact that when a Realtor goes into a court, he or she nearly always wears the proverbial black hat or the villain’s attire.
I also tried to make the point that if the CB was a private corporation and not funded by taxpayer dollars, do you honestly think they would be pursuing a case that they probably won’t win in the long run? Answer: silence.
JNL Lynch
Owner/broker
Okanagan Sun Realty
Oliver, B.C.
