At a Special Meeting called to order on Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 7:30 p.m., administered virtually, the ODA General Council—the ultimate decision-making body and authority of our voluntary dental association—voted with an overwhelming and clear majority to remove Dr. Jonathan Mayer from his position on the ODA Board of Directors.
After many months of delay, obfuscation, denial, and what concerned members viewed as a campaign of misinformation by the ODA Board of Directors, the Board ultimately had no choice but to accept the call for a Special Meeting and the proposed resolution. It was duly signed and put forward by the required number of General Councillors in accordance with ONCA, seeking to remove Dr. Mayer for alleged violations of the ODA’s own Code of Conduct, conduct considered likely to bring the association or dental profession into disrepute, and conduct alleged to be contrary to the best interests of the ODA.
Both an executive summary and a comprehensive report outlining the concerns regarding Dr. Mayer’s conduct were provided to General Councillors, despite the CEO, Frank Bevilacqua’s, initial refusal to distribute them. The materials included documentation of 19 social-media posts over a three-year period containing insensitive comments, remarks that many construed as racist, and posts derogatory toward the government in office.
The report generated by concerned councillors outlined how they believed this behaviour violated established ODA policies and documented an online petition and thousands of letters reportedly calling for Dr. Mayer’s resignation. These letters to the ODA Board, were not released to General Councillors and, according to information presented to Council, were not fully made available to the investigative panel. Despite its lack of access to all of this material, the panel nevertheless concluded that Dr. Mayer had offended specific ethnic groups and caused reputational harm to the association. It also raised concerns that criticism directed at Prime Minister Mark Carney and MP Gary Anandasangaree could negatively affect the profession’s advocacy regarding the CDCP.
Since the CDCP is a federally administered program, the potential consequences extended well beyond the ODA itself and into the manner in which the federal government and other national stakeholders viewed the association and our profession.
Even our colleagues in provinces across the country and at the CDA were watching as the Board’s lack of decisive action dragged on for months. The failure to act swiftly, consistently and transparently in accordance with accepted governance standards, while confronting a nationally embarrassing situation, represents an:
Incomprehensible Governance Failure on the part of the ODA Board.
What made the situation so disturbing was Dr. Mayer’s initial insistence that these were merely his “personal opinions,” despite the concerns expressed about the impact of those statements. His lack of contrition and admission of error was disturbing to many members. As an ODA leader, did he not understand that he represented ALL ODA members regardless of ethnicity or political beliefs? His failure to step down also forced the association to undertake, at considerable cost to members, an internal investigation.
It is entirely reasonable for members to ask why and how much membership money was spent on an investigation, if the social-media posts themselves provided sufficient evidence for the Board to determine whether the ODA’s Code of Conduct and Social Media Policy had been breached.
More importantly, what did the Board do with the findings of the investigation it commissioned?
Despite the investigation and its findings that his behaviour was inappropriate for someone seeking ODA leadership, the ODA Board failed to enforce its own standards and failed in its governance responsibility to protect the organization and preserve the reputation of our profession. Instead, by preserving Dr. Mayer’s position and subsequently promoting him in the organization by ratifying him to President-Elect, while possessing a report commissioned by the Board itself, that found his behaviour offensive and inappropriate for someone in a leadership position, the Board placed the reputation of the organization at further risk.
Is it any wonder that Dr. Mayer put his self-interest first and refused to step down for the reputational good of the association, when the Board itself, effectively condoned his actions and allowed him to not only continue, but be promoted?
These are not the actions of a Board that puts the profession first, or acknowledges the pain caused to many ODA members, or the damage caused to the association’s standing with politicians. By ratifying Dr. Mayer to the position of President-Elect, despite the findings of the report, the ODA Board clearly demonstrated that it tolerates criticism of the Prime Minister in office, anti-Muslim rhetoric, discrimination against identifiable groups and bigotry at the highest level of leadership: indeed, within the Office of the Chair itself.
A Board that failed to act failed to Govern.
This is the central issue: Governance Failures, including the Board’s lack of responsiveness to General Council’s concerns.
A Board cannot demand accountability from members while refusing to demonstrate accountability itself. It cannot adopt Codes of Conduct and policies and then enforce them selectively. It cannot commission investigations and then disregard inconvenient findings. It cannot demand trust while withholding information from the very governing body to which it is accountable.
It is a shocking failure of governance that the Board effectively failed in its responsibility to enforce the ODA’s Code of Conduct, the Board’s Code of Conduct and the ODA’s own Social Media Policy.
Instead, the responsibility for restoring proper governance was placed on the shoulders of General Council, whose members patiently deliberated for hours on a weekday evening.
General Councillors were forced to do what the Board had failed to do.
In the interim, the Board’s failure to act, damaged the ODA’s reputation. Federal MPs from different parties became increasingly aware of the controversy surrounding the President-Elect and the Board’s response to it, as the controversy dragged on for months. Members are entitled to ask whether this damaged the ODA Board’s credibility at precisely the time when effective federal advocacy regarding the CDCP was desperately needed.
Equally troubling was what many councillors perceived as an attempted delay and “wash-over campaign” portraying the effort to remove Dr. Mayer as an “antisemitic campaign,” when those supporting the resolution maintained that their concern was fundamentally about compliance with the ODA’s Code of Conduct.
Further, it was clear from her letter to General Councillors urging them to retain Dr. Mayer on the Board that our current President, Dr. Janet Leith, had taken a position on the matter. That raises legitimate questions regarding impartial leadership and consistency in governance.
How can this Board, which previously removed a sitting Board member, Dr. Laurie Houston, based on allegations communicated by then-ODA President, Dr. Manesh Jain, with critics arguing that insufficient written evidence and documentation had been provided, then ask General Council to retain another director despite documented social-media posts and an investigative report commissioned by the ODA itself?
Where is the consistency? Where is the objective standard? Where is the governance?
This again creates the appearance that current leadership has one rule for outspoken volunteers who ask difficult questions and another, more discretionary rule when dealing with individuals favoured by the existing leadership.
“Do as we tell you, not as we ourselves do.”
In plain terms: the ODA Board appears to operate under a double standard.
That perception is profoundly damaging to a voluntary professional association because governance depends upon legitimacy, and legitimacy depends upon members believing that rules are applied fairly and consistently.
With concerns having already been raised about interference in component-society elections, exclusion of outspoken members from committees, and proposed new Bylaws that could give the Board greater authority over who may seek election to the Board of Directors, the Board has lost the trust and confidence of many members.
And now this same Board is considering imposing a revised Code of Conduct governing General Council and dissent when it has demonstrated an inability—or unwillingness—to consistently enforce its existing Code of Conduct.
The irony and hypocrisy are impossible to ignore.
A Code of Conduct must protect an organization from misconduct. It must never become an instrument for protecting those in power from criticism.
One can only hope that our current President and Chair of the Board, Dr. Janet Leith, looks objectively at the situation, recognizes the profound loss of confidence that has developed among members, asserts the Board’s independent governance role and alters the Board’s current trajectory toward greater control and suppression of dissent at General Council.
The same governance test now applies to every future allegation of misconduct.
This includes the conduct of Dr. Arthur Worth toward Board member: Dr. Nafisa Ahmad. Unlike allegations based merely on hearsay or competing recollections, the conduct at issue is supported by written text messages authored by Dr. Arthur Worth himself. Those texts include Dr. Worth referring to Dr. Ahmad as an “asshole” and spreading allegations about her conduct to other director(s), including a statement that she had spent “25 minutes in the bathroom” texting another director.
How could Dr. Arthur Worth accuse Dr. Nafisa Ahmad, and spread rumours and innuendo to other director(s) about her. It appears this was an orchestrated campaign to discredit her.
Was he watching her in the bathroom or does he spy on her phone?
Does he use his timer to count the minutes she spends in the bathroom?
This presents the Board with a fundamental test of its governance and its credibility. Having invoked Codes of Conduct, investigations and disciplinary processes in relation to other directors, will the Board apply those same standards when the documented conduct involves one of its own senior and longstanding directors? Will the Board deal with this Code of Conduct violation objectively, protect a female, racialized director who has made a formal complaint from retaliation or intimidation, and enforce its Code of Conduct consistently regardless of the identity, seniority, relationships or influence of the director involved?
If the Board minimizes documented misconduct in one case while aggressively pursuing allegations in another, then the issue is no longer simply the behaviour of an individual director. It becomes a failure of governance by the Board itself.
Selective accountability is not accountability. A Code of Conduct that is selectively enforced is not a Code of Conduct—it is a tool of control.
It was also clear from the most recent ODA General elections that concerns remain about organized bloc voting and the re-election of many previous Board members. Yet members must now ask a more fundamental question: what has this Board actually accomplished for practising dentists?
The CDCP was implemented with profound consequences for dental practices across Ontario. More than half of participating members may no longer be balance billing or billing according to the ODA Fee Guide, instead adopting Sun Life’s CDCP fee grid for covered services. Whatever one’s position on the CDCP, the central governance question remains: where was the effective advocacy, strategic planning and measurable influence of our Board?
No amount of posed photographs with politicians in The Ontario Dentist, or on the ODA’s instagram can substitute for results.
If government decision-makers are no longer meaningfully influenced by the ODA on the delivery or remuneration of dental services, then members are entitled to demand that the Board explain why.
They are also entitled to ask what strategy was adopted, what measurable objectives were established, what outcomes were achieved, what failed, and who accepted accountability for those failures.
That is what an effective Board does.
The CDCP was developed without sufficient input from practising dentists who understand the day-to-day realities of operating dental practices. Serious questions have also been raised regarding the influence of academic and policy voices advocating substantial fee reductions and opposing balance billing, and whether potential conflicts of interest were adequately disclosed and managed.
These questions should not be suppressed. They should be answered.
Unlike our medical colleagues, who confronted a major governance crisis within the OMA and ultimately changed their leadership, ODA members have too often been denied meaningful access to information about what is occurring at the Board level.
That is another fundamental governance failure.
Members finance this organization. General Council is its ultimate governing authority. Yet meaningful governance and financial information have too often remained inaccessible, incomplete or difficult to obtain.
Transparency is not a favour bestowed upon members by leadership. It is an obligation of accountable governance.
The movement of a “few” has now grown into a movement representing a substantial portion of General Council, as demonstrated by this most recent Special Meeting and decisive vote. It showed something enormously important:
When General Councillors are provided with the full facts, they are capable of making informed decisions for themselves and for the profession.
That is precisely why transparency matters.
It has also demonstrated something else that this Board should not ignore:
General Council has authority.
If General Council can hold individual directors accountable, it can hold the entire Board accountable.
Our current ODA Board must therefore answer some very basic questions.
- What has it achieved?
- How has it strengthened advocacy?
- How has it protected the economic viability of dental practices?
- How has it demonstrated responsible stewardship of members’ dues?
- How has it ensured that its own Codes of Conduct are applied consistently?
- How has it protected dissent rather than attempted to control it?
- How has it demonstrated transparency to General Council?
And, most importantly:
Why should the membership continue to have confidence in this Board?
At Engage ODA, we will continue to expose the shortcomings of our current leadership, provide members with information regarding issues that directly affect their practices, and advocate for positive change.
Unlike those who characterize this movement as one that is “trying to destroy the ODA,” we believe that demanding accountability is how an organization is strengthened.
We want an ODA Board that:
- The Government listens to
- Protects the interests of practising dentists.
- Understands that it serves the membership—not the other way around.
- Governance based upon transparency, accountability, fiscal responsibility and respect for democratic dissent.
And we will continue asking the hard questions until those standards are met.
We encourage every member to:
- Demand meaningful financial transparency and an Independent Forensic Audit
- Insist upon consistent application of the ODA’s governance rules
- Require our Board to demonstrate measurable results for the membership dues entrusted to it.
The ODA belongs to its members. Its leadership must answer to them.
