Members of Ontario’s Legislative Assembly speak out about consumer issues with TARION

Member of Provincial Parliament, Cheri DiNovo speaks out about: What’s broken at Tarion

Here are excepts from her letter to a homeowner dated April 24, 2014. Reproduced with permission from MPP DiNovo’s office.

Dear (Homeowner),

(…)  You are absolutely right – there are far too many issues with Tarion, and there needs to be legislation to protect homeowners. That is why the NDP has tabled a Bill to give the Ontario Ombudsman oversight over Tarion.  (…)  The NDP has also met with Ministers of Consumer Services over the years pressing them again and again to take action on this.

Tarion Warranty Corporation is a private, developer-run corporation created by the government to protect new home buyers.  Most of Tarion’s funding comes from Ontario’s home buyers, but Tarion does not answer to consumers. It answers to the developers it is supposed to regulate. We in the NDP have raised questions to the Minister of Consumer Services, Tracy MacCharles to explain why a corporation set up to protect consumers seems more interested in fighting consumers at the License Appeal Tribunal, while protecting builders?

The bottom line is that the Liberal government is not interested in reforming Tarion in any way.

At a recent Ontario Liberal party AGM, the Liberals elected (…) the government relations director of Tarion Warranty Corporation. In other words, the lobbyist for a developer-controlled corporation now has influence over the distribution of political contributions to local campaigns. The construction and development industry is already by far the biggest contributor to political campaigns, and now its grip on the Ontario Liberal Party has tightened further. This is relevant to understanding why the Liberal government seems so reluctant to do anything about Tarion.

Yours,

Office of Cheri DiNovo, MPP

Calls and e-mails to Premier Wynne’s office from consumers and consumer organizations expressing concerns about Tarion have not been responded to, from March 2013 to date, May 2014.  This seems inconceivable from a Premier who promised us she stood for “transparency and accountability”, and “got into politics to help people”.  How to explain this? Follow the money.