As an Architect practising…

As an Architect practising in Ontario since 1992 and having had to go through the circus of bill 124 that forced me to write a Building Code exam that was completely unnecessary I strongly object to the Ministry of Housing imposing anything that attempts to regulate Architects.
We have the Architects' Act which clearly states our responsibilities and our liabilities. Just because the City Officials in Ontario believe that it is their responsibility to take it upon themselves to verify items in the building Code for which we then have to spend time and money educating these "officials" that have never designed nor built a building and do not understand the Code does not justify introducing another layer of government in the Building permit process. In the province of Quebec, the review of permit documents is a cursory review as they insist that the architect/engineer stamping the drawings & specifications is the responsible party. The Province of Ontario and its Municipalities are in fact incurring liability every time they tell an architect what they should be putting in their design & permit documents. Let us do our job and stop trying to do it for us - you did not go through years of university and internship to learn the craft of architecture and should therefore not be meddling in it!