The Globe and Mail

When Ontario set out five years ago to look for a way to reduce the red tape in getting a building permit, one of the proposed reforms seemed simple enough: Designers of buildings should be certified as competent in the province's building code. The people who drafted the law felt this would speed up approvals, because designers and the municipal officials who approved the plans would start on the same page; and the officials would not have to send designers back to the drawing board to make plans code-compliant, as they often did. Simple as the requirement seemed when it was passed into law and proclaimed in July, 2003, it put the Ontario government on a collision course with engineers and architects, most of whom felt the province was attacking their status as independent professionals.