OREA interim CEO Diane Brisebois/contributed.

 

The Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) is urging the province to put more guardrails around a proposed new system of financial penalties for real estate professionals, pointing to British Columbia as a model for distinguishing between minor compliance issues and more serious violations.

The recommendation is part of OREA’s response to the Ontario government’s consultation on the third and final phase of the Trust in Real Estate Services Act (TRESA).

The province is proposing to give the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) the ability to impose administrative monetary penalties for certain violations — a move OREA has advocated for since at least 2024.

But acting CEO Diane Brisebois says OREA wants more detail around how violations would be categorized and when a financial penalty would be appropriate.

“Let’s be realistic, the real estate services sector has experienced a lot of rapid change, and there have been a lot of changes at RECO,” Brisebois told Real Estate Magazine.

OREA’s position has not fundamentally changed since its 2024 white paper, Continuing to Raise the Bar for Real Estate in Ontario, she says, but its thinking has evolved as it has examined consumer risk and regulatory approaches elsewhere.

 

Brisebois points to B.C. penalty model

 

B.C.’s real estate regulator divides violations eligible for administrative penalties into six categories. Its superintendent can also consider factors including whether a violation caused material harm to a consumer, was an isolated incident, was inadvertent or was quickly corrected.

Ontario’s proposed framework, by comparison, sets out four risk levels.

“In contrast, the proposed framework from Ontario only considers four risk levels, which means it’s less precisely defined compared to the B.C. model,” Brisebois says.

“We are recommending that they consider defining the risk levels in more detail … in order to properly categorize specific violations.”

OREA isn’t necessarily asking Ontario to replicate B.C.’s system, but Brisebois says its greater specificity could reduce ambiguity.

“We’re proposing we look at the B.C. model, because they have less ambiguity in the different categories,” she says.

 

When does a mistake warrant a fine?

 

Underlying OREA’s recommendation is a question of proportionality: when should a real estate professional face a financial penalty, and when is a lesser response appropriate?

“If it is not harming consumers, if it is low risk, there are other ways of dealing with it than a monetary penalty,” Brisebois says.

She describes a system in which the regulatory response escalates with the seriousness of the conduct and its potential impact on consumers.

B.C.’s first two categories illustrate that distinction. Category A covers certain business infractions considered to pose a low risk of harm to consumers, while Category B generally captures minor matters where there is no material harm to consumers.

Brisebois says real estate professionals need to understand how the rules will be applied and know education and support are available when mistakes don’t warrant a financial penalty.

OREA nevertheless supports administrative monetary penalties as an enforcement tool. It has advocated for them for years, arguing relatively straightforward violations could be handled more efficiently while disciplinary resources are reserved for more serious misconduct.

 

‘Trust accounts are sacred’

 

The government’s consultation also addresses brokerage trust accounts, including proposed changes intended to clarify requirements for money received by brokerages in trust.

OREA supports the underlying consumer-protection objective but wants more information about what the government intends to change.

“OREA has always believed that one of the paramount responsibilities of the real estate services sector is to protect money held in trust,” Brisebois says.

She says it isn’t yet clear whether the government’s objectives require changes to existing rules or could be achieved through greater clarity, guidance and education.

“At the end of the day, OREA’s position is that trust accounts are sacred and consumer protection is non-negotiable,” she says.

 

Some OREA asks remain outside this round

 

The latest consultation doesn’t encompass all of the changes OREA proposed in its 2024 TRESA white paper.

Among its nine recommendations, OREA called for changes related to the disclosure of latent defects in homes and for Ontario to close what it describes as an auctioneer exemption that allows certain real estate transactions to occur without a registered real estate professional.

Those issues aren’t a central focus of the current consultation, which Brisebois says is concentrated on areas including trust-account reconciliation and reporting, compliance orders and monetary penalties.

“Our position from 2024 hasn’t changed, but we also understand that the focus may be on different items as we go through different periods of consultation,” she says.

“We will continue to push forward for some of the changes that we’ve recommended in our paper in 2024, and so we suspect that that will come back eventually to the table.”

 

‘We have their back’

 

Brisebois has been acting CEO of OREA for two months, joining the association following a period of leadership turnover.

Asked why members should put their trust in OREA and its advocacy after several changes at the top — including two departures for which the association provided little public explanation — Brisebois declined to comment on the previous leadership. She pointed to what she has seen since taking the role, and says OREA needs to do a better job of communicating that work to its members.

“The one thing that we’re working on right now is to ensure that we’re not the best-kept secret,” she says.

Brisebois says her role also gives OREA’s board a longer runway to find a permanent CEO.

“Associations go through cycles as the industry changes, as the environment changes,” she says.

For Brisebois, that work ultimately comes back to demonstrating OREA’s value to its members.

“Our job is to ensure that the members know that we have their back and that we’ll die on the sword for them to support them, help them grow and educate, and work with the stakeholders we need to work with so that we have a very healthy and professional sector.”

She spent more than 30 years as president and CEO of the Retail Council of Canada (RCC), retiring from that role in 2025, according to RCC’s website.