Last week, Service Alberta Minister Nate Glubish introduced legislation that will empower him to appoint an official administrator and replace RECA’s entire board. 

This decision was precipitated by key recommendations from an audit report produced by KPMG on RECA’s governance (released early in July). It’s a significant decision with lots of moving parts and pointed language, but it’s not something that should give you or the public cause for concern.

Why?

Because while the KPMG report was comprehensive in its condemnations, it was also specific in its recommendations for change. Among other things, the report offered a balanced perspective saying, “RECA is performing its core regulatory functions: standards are being communicated, practitioners are being licensed, and investigations and hearings are proceeding.”

And so, in the spirit of balanced thinking, my message is to not let the developments at RECA reflect on your well-earned professional brand, or the REALTOR^® brand more broadly.

Despite our regulatory model never fully embracing true ‘self-regulation,’ REALTORS^® are regulation and rule followers, which demonstrates a desire to regulate yourselves. The quality of our process infrastructure and standard way of doing business is proof.

Of course, bad regulation or uneven enforcement in any scenario will be heartily and eloquently challenged, but my experience over many decades in the business is that when you put two REALTORS^® together and bring up a case that breaches ethical or procedural norms, the conversation will always go to the need for strong penalties and consistent enforcement.

Now that these changes at RECA have been announced, what happens next? Have we lost self-regulation? Are we going down the rocky trail like our provincial neighbours to the west, where a similar outcome resulted in drastic changes that, according to a friend of mine who was thrown off the BC Real Estate Council, were ‘disastrous’?

The situation in BC was rooted in political theatre in advance of their last election. The BC Real Estate Council was dismissed because of a lack of enforcement whereas in Alberta it was about dynamics and actions on council.

Our government has said that RECA council will stay in place, confirming that they are solving an administrative problem versus the public protection issue seen in BC. The confidence of Alberta real estate consumers is not in question. Sadly, like the outcome we are witnessing in wild rose country; in BC some hard working and well-meaning people took the brunt of the challenges of self-regulation.

The fact is that we never really had self-regulation, so it is not as we are about to lose anything. After the release of the KPMG report during one of many discussions, I said, “. . . has anyone involved with leadership in Alberta real estate since the inception of RECA not wondered aloud what happened to the ‘self’ in self-regulation?”.

The challenge for government is to maintain balance between industry and the public interest and the name for that model is not important.

The composition on the RECA governing board of directors is going to be an area of great focus, but this should not come as a surprise. Our new provincial government has been clear in their goals to clean up the uneven appointment process for governmental agencies, boards and commissions.

We need to do more than push-pull during the work on a new council composition and appointment process. There needs to be foundational change towards collaborative regulation.

In a way, RECA lost its ability to self-govern when Minister Glubish suspended RECA’s search for a replacement for their retiring Executive Director.

Again, it does not appear that the Minister has long-term plans to remove RECA’s ability to self-govern and nor does he intend to interrupt RECA’s core work. The announcement was clear and interim in nature. It is business as usual for RECA.

No question, we are amidst a regulatory reset, and while the day-to-day work of our regulator continues, there is a lot of work to do to redefine our model.

We are committed to be an effectively regulated real estate industry in Alberta. CREB^® supports strong industry governance, which is something we must all contribute toward achieving in the Alberta real estate community.

CREB^®’s approach throughout this process has been to focus on playing a productive role in the creation of RECA 2.0.

So far, rather than offering opinions on the KPMG report or on potential decisions of the Minister, we made a purposeful decision to focus on ensuring our members were well informed.

A lot of rumours can swirl from changes of this magnitude, but rest assured, CREB^® always puts member interests first.

Our organization also commits to playing a leadership role in ensuring the confidence of Alberta consumers and our provincial government in the Alberta real estate marketplace.

When opportunities arise, we will provide interested members with engagement opportunities to help with this process and, as usual, we will keep you as informed as possible.