Dear fellow ODA members,
The board was asked to address concerns regarding documents requested by members that were not provided in a timely manner, or in some cases, not provided at all. This is contrary to the CEO’s mandate and is a violation of the charters approved by the General Council. There was a blatant disregard for this failure to comply with the will of the council.
A small victory was achieved when the board agreed to make the charters available on the website. However, to date, they have not been posted. We must message Kiran Atwal (katwal@oda.ca) and Joan Kurts (kurts@oda.ca), as well as our board members, to demand that members receive our Charters.
Furthermore, pointed questions were raised about the increased costs in meals, travel, and per diems. Instead of providing detailed answers, expenses were discussed vaguely, and no investigation was deemed necessary, despite the councillors’ questions remaining unanswered.
There were no takeaways for the next council meeting. We must demand the timely release of documentation that informs members of their rights and explains how the ODA operates.
3 Responses
The ODA charters have been altered by the CEO and senior staff for their own benefit. The ODA is rotting from the inside. The last few Presidents seem to be more interested in having a good time than doing what is right for the profession.
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Since the last General Council election where 5 new board members were elected, and the previous ineffective ones were unceremoniously dumped, the Office of the Chair (OOTC) has been in disarray trying to plant supporters in positions of authority. They tried to influence the elections of General Councillors by sending OOTC members to component societies to discourage good candidates from running, they tried to put forward more controlling and stringent ByLaws to prevent eligible candidates from seeking office, they have spent millions of our members’ membership dues in searching out any dissenters and trying to punish them or barring them from coming to General Council, they have threatened members with legal action when they speak out, they have refused to answer requests for information, they have delayed or refused to investigate the bad behaviour of its Board members despite the fact that formal complaints have been made against them, they have tried to bury their misspending in the AFRC report to General Council under vague headings and inserted them deep into the report in hopes others would not challenge them, they have “suddenly” lost their CFO – Ian Farmer who actually resigned earlier than anticipated and are now blaming members who are challenging the financial statements. These are the workings of people who have lost the support of the membership and are desperately trying to cling to authority by being autocratic and attacking the very members they are sworn to serve. They state that dissenters are “trying to destroy the ODA,” when in fact members are trying to make changes for the better. And, anyone who challenges them is accused of “bad behaviour, employing personal attacks and trying to obtain confidential information.” Sounds like autocratic totalitarianism – sounds like our current board of directors. Sounds like this leadership needs to be replaced. Look at the track record of the last three Presidents and our current one – our members have lost scope of practice to other providers, we have the CDCP and all its headaches, we lost our PLP and had our fees increased $500 and even may go higher for the next three years, the RCDSO is threatening to take away our right to dismiss patients if they don’t pay and now they want to take away the right of our general dentists to place implants. This is no conspiracy – this is a movement to socialize dentistry and take away our ability to run our own businesses. And it all started when our leadership chose to have a socialist, non practicing dentist and Dean of one of our Dental Schools work with government to develop the CDCP. He wrote negative editorials in our own magazine Ontario Dentist. He made huge consultant’s fees and then refused to disclose his conflict of interest to General Council. And all our leadership did was give him an award and cried foul when he “voluntarily”resigned. Ask any one of the students at his school if they have had any patients to work on before graduating? Why come to the school when you can get free dental work on any corner. This Dean and his cadre of public health dentists, using obscure data, under our misguided current leadership, has sold out our profession. Why have we failed to make any significant gains to remuneration of our provincial dental plans? Ontario continues to be among the lowest compensated year after year, after year. Our presidents keep appointing themselves or our CEO to the negotiating teams when it should be someone, like a dentist who has clout with government. They put forward vastly expensive ad campaigns that bring no results and tout that they have made “gains.” What real gains? They employ friends and legal advisors that make millions from fees that give poor advice and refuse to hire lobbyists that actually have sway with government. This current leadership needs to be held accountable, this current leadership needs to be replaced.