College of Opticians of B.C. in Trouble for Delegating its Statutory Role

Recently the BCSC considered the rule against sub-delegation by a statutory body. This decision is alarming for regulatory colleges under the Health Professions Act, many of which delegate credentialling and examinations to other entities. This case involves the College of Opticians which has recognized 4 optician training programs at educational institutions. The Petitioner runs a program and asked the College to recognize it. The College would not do so unless the program went through an accreditation process operated by a national association. The Petitioner would not go through the process. He argued that this process offended the rule against sub-delegation and that the College was required to set its own educational standards. Although the Court held that the College had not in fact delegated its power to the national body because it did not say that it would grant or refuse recognition solely on the basis of the national body's analysis, the decision is of concern because the Court ruled that the College was required to receive and consider such evidence as the Petitioner chooses to submit in support of its application to be recognized as a program for training opticians. It said the College "cannot close its mind to the possibility that in an individual case, there may be other evidence capable of demonstrating that an institution's graduates meet an acceptable academis standard. The problem for Colleges is that generally, they are not equipped to review and analyse material in support of educational credentialling and are reliant on outside experts to help them with this task. BC College of Optics Inc. v. The College of Opticians of BC 2014 BCSC 1853