With less than two months to go before the ON provincial election, we are learning more about where the various parties stand.

Yesterday, the NDP announced its platform and it includes good news not only for Ontario purchasers of newly built homes, but all Ontario consumers!

Purchasers of newly built homes: The NDP continues its commitment to end Tarion's monopoly, which is great news! But the NDP have now gone further: The NDP has included in its platform an independent ON Consumer Watchdog.

A little background: Currently the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services (MGCS) has the responsibility for consumer protection, which includes overseeing Delegated Administrative Authorities (DAAs) such as Tarion, the Home Construction Regulatory Authority, the Electrical Safety Authority, etc.  Over the decades, sadly, many new home purchasers have reported that they found an "anti-consumer culture" within MGCS.  And clearly MGCS has not done an adequate job of overseeing these DAAs - just read related Auditor General of Ontario reports for evidence of that.  Ironically, the MGCS gets paid millions of dollars annually to oversee these DAAs, but there is no transparency - or accountability - on how these millions of dollars annually are used.

If elected in June 2022, an independent Consumer Watchdog will be set up by the NDP to address the serious shortcomings with DAAs, something that has long been needed.

Ontario consumers generally:  An independent Consumer Watchdog will address all consumer complaints and investigate businesses that violate consumer protection laws. And we have been assured that this Watchdog will have teeth! 

Note: CPBH is not affiliated with any political party.  We recently reported on the Ontario Greens' commitment to new home purchasers.  We will report on what the Liberals commit to in its election platform once we find out.  Sadly we are not expecting much from the PCs - they didn't follow through on what they promised to CPBH before the June 2018 election.