Issues and News from Your Association
By Mary Field

LEGISLATION AND REGULATION
The Ministry of Health in Alberta is considering a review of the Restricted Activities list and is currently seeking stakeholder input on how the list might be altered. This is also an important issue for British Columbia’s opticians, since the signing of the TILMA agreement between the provinces of Alberta and BC. The TILMA agreement calls for harmonizing of trade and labour regulations.

The new Health Professions Act has been pronounced in Manitoba. Like Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia before it, Manitoba has moved to the ‘umbrella’ or ‘omnibus’ type of legislation which unifies the structure and governance of all health profession regulatory bodies. What will follow are several years during which each health profession’s individual Act will be redeveloped and brought under the ‘umbrella’.

Ontario’s refracting opticians are facing some challenges due to the freeze Ontario’s Minister of Health has placed on the College of Opticians of Ontario Refracting Opticians Registry. The Ministry has encouraged the College to work with both the Ministry and the Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Committee (HPRAC) as HPRAC conducts a review of vision care issues. According to the HPRAC website, work on inter-professional relations and issues related to the eye care sector was scheduled to begin in August of 2009. As well HPRAC will resume monitoring all college patient relations programs in October of 2009.

The ‘freeze’ on the COO’s ability to register additional refracting opticians presents a real challenge for many opticians who have recently undertaken training in order to meet the COO’s registry requirements. They are understandably frustrated at not being able to immediately complete the process they undertook. However, we need to be reminded that the Minister did not ban optician-performed refracting. The OAC continues to support initiatives by Canadian opticians to increase their scope of practice and will keep working with our provincial colleagues in providing refracting education opportunities for opticians.

EDUCATION
Fall comes along and before you know it the educational conferences start popping up all around the country. The OAC keeps urging opticians to take advantage of continuing education opportunities as they become available rather than waiting until the last minute to complete the requirements of their education cycle.

The Opticians of Manitoba are holding their annual education day and Graduation and Awards Ceremony on October 1st. This is always a great day for Manitoba opticians who celebrate their profession by welcoming newly-minted colleagues and by enjoying a full day of information gathering and sharing.

The College of Opticians of Ontario is holding its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday September 30. This will be a full day meeting. (www.coptont.org)

The Ontario Opticians Association is organizing a Contact Lens Symposium on Sunday, October 25, 2009 at the Ajax Convention Centre, 550 Beck Crescent, Ajax, Ontario. Ajax is just a quick trip east on the 401 highway from Toronto and should be quite accessible for registrants.(www.ontario-opticians.com)

The Opticians of British Columbia (www.opticians.bc.ca) are holding their fall education day on November 1st at the Delta Burnaby. The College of Opticians of British Columbia’s (www.cobc.ca) AGM will be the keynote event of the day, with lectures in the morning and afternoon.

The Saskatchewan Ophthalmic Dispensers Association AGM and educational sessions will be held on October 3 and 4 at the Travelodge in Saskatoon.

Vision Canada 2009 in Calgary (November 16 and 17) is going to have some great WOW! factors for registrants. As of our editorial deadline the trade show is shaping up to be an outstanding experience including a boutique grouping of exhibitors from the MIDO trade show. Complete with its own ‘relax’ area and ‘esclusivo’ custom environment, the MIDO exhibitors are set to offer us a taste of their fabulous annual show in Italy. If you’re looking for style ‘a la moda’ for your dispensary – the MIDO ‘esperienza’ is for you.

Also in the trade show, get ready to compete on the ski hill with Jean-Luc Brassard – Canadian Olympic Gold Medal Mogul skier. At the Essilor booth on Saturday, Essilor will have a Wii display set up and registrants will be able to match their skiing skills with Brassard. Or just learn and get a few tips on surviving the slopes from one of Canada’s best Olympic athletes. Brassard will also be participating in Essilor’s lecture on the visual challenges of the Canadian winter. And who has better experience?

Vision Canada will be hosting the launch of the new Opticians Council of Canada (OCC) ‘Branding the Profession’ project. This exciting collaborative initiative is supported by all the regulatory bodies, associations and teaching institutions. Canadian opticians have been frustrated for many years by what they perceive as a lack of professional recognition and identity. For the first time our collective energy and resources are being combined to address that issue. The rollout of the branding project will start in Calgary and the Branding Ambassadors will be a part of every educational series that’s scheduled in Canada over the next six months. The branding project needs your support and endorsement. It deserves your support and endorsement.

The Branding the Profession presentation will include many experienced keynote speakers. Bill Hutton is a recently retired general manager of Pepsi Canada. If anybody knows about branding it’s Bill. His experience extends well outside the boundaries of Canada. A powerful speaker, Bill will share with his audience an insight into how Pepsi goes about establishing a mark and maintaining its impact. Bill will be joined by the Branding Ambassadors of the OCC who will have surprises in store for some lucky registrants.

No education day would be complete without a terrific motivational speaker. Jody Urquhart holds diplomas in Professional Speaking from Mount Royal College and in Management and Marketing from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. In addition, she studied management for three years at the University of Calgary. Jody enjoys performing stand-up comedy, and brings that comedy experience to her speaking sessions. The theme of her presentation will be “The Nerve to Serve – Say Hello to Humour and Goodbye to Burnout.” Do you ever get frustrated with the sometimes unreasonable expectations of your clients? Do you sometimes have to suck up your courage to go to work and face Mrs. or Mr. Complain-a-lot? According to Jody you don’t need ulcer medicine to get through the day. You just need to find the humour in life.

And don’t forget…At this edition of Vision Canada we will be drawing for the lucky winner of the trip to the Whistler Winter Olympics. Thanks to Lanctôt and Vision Canada some lucky couple will be at the Olympic site in Whistler in the midst of all the action. At our two previous shows a lucky candidate was drawn from the registrants present. A third candidate will be drawn at Vision Canada and from those three names a winner will be chosen.

Major sponsors for Vision Canada this year are Essilor as a Gold sponsor, Transitions as a Silver sponsor and Wal-Mart as a bronze sponsor.

Check out the Vision Canada website at www.vision-canada.ca for a complete list of speakers, exhibitors and continuing education credits.