At the last General Council meeting, a strong message was sent to the board, ODA members want transparency for how our fees are being spent. Today we start at the top, to uncover how the outgoing board members voted to give Frank Bevilacqua, the CEO of the ODA, a raise. At a time when dental offices are struggling with labour costs, and CDCP is keeping most dentists up at night, Mr. Bevilacqua received a raise of 4% to now make his salary $426,000.
For reference the Prime Minister of Canada’s salary is $406,200, and Premier Doug Ford makes $208,974. How could one justify his pay raise? Are we happy with how the ODA has managed the CDCP? Would members continue to pay the ODA if membership was not mandatory for CDAnet access?
You may now ask how this information was received. What I can tell you is that the following board members were present, and they were the only ones privileged to this information. Of course, the ODA staff were also present.
- Maneesh Jain
- David Brown
- Jonathan Mayer
- Brock Nicolucci
- Edward Busvek
- Gordan Markic
- Homa Jammehdiabadi
- Todd Plexman
- Andrea Silverman
- Domenic Trotti
- Michael Vrbensky
- Sara Worth
Not all board members necessarily supported this decision. It is the majority that makes the decisions and the rest have no ability to publicly object. The majority in this case is led by the office of the chair. You will also notice that Janet Leith and Christine Moore were not at this “emergency” board meeting. This meeting was called the last day of the old board’s tenure. This is in poor taste and reeks of cronyism to make sure that Mr. Bevilacqua’s raise was secured. Given how many incumbent board members lost their position, clearly Mr. Bevilacqua wanted to rush this through before his performance could be audited by the new board members. The new board members did not comment on this matter, but they were voted in with a mandate for transparency and accountability.
At the next election in the Spring of 2026, we need to hold these past board members accountable for being complicit in this deceit, just as we did at our last General Council election when we removed Todd Plexman, Dominic Trotti, and Michael Vrbensky. We will keep you posted as to which current directors are actively working for you. We need to stop the gravy train at the ODA and put member dentists ahead of all else.
26 Responses
What makes the ODA so “unremarkable” is indeed its failure to- as you put it – to”evolve.” No innovation in advocacy, same old strategy of hiding their heads in the sand, poor messaging to members, lack of financial transparency, a culture of misogyny to women leaders, silencing new voices and ideas, attacking those who advocate for change, hiding blatant strategic failures, making decisions without consulting their own members, not adhering to their owns ByLaws and governances best practices, and most of all spreading misinformation from its leadership.
The ODA was indeed “once a glimmering star in our profession.” But those days have long passed, and those still practicing dentistry, those new grads just embarking on their career, and those in the thick of “wet fingered dentistry,” will say our current ODA leadership has let us down. “Even great institutions can evolve.” Sadly, our members have noted over and over again; how the ODA has “failed to evolve.” Same old strategies, same old slogans, and same old excuses. After decades, Ontario remains the lowest renumerated of all the provinces in Canada for the provincial dental plans. Members have noted the lack of financial transparency, misogynistic treatment of our female leaders, lack of movement on our provincial dental plans, misuse of our members’ money, failure (a low bid that went nowhere) on the RCDSO divestment of PLP, and an unwarranted $500 increase in our liability fees, the costly and disastrous CDCP ad campaign, the mistreatment and removal of those ODA members who tried to ask about out of control spending, the attempts to silence and disparage our past leaders, a current Board of Directors that is dysfunctional, the staff driven re-writing of our already ONCA compliant Articles of Incorporation and ByLaws, failure to uphold conflict of rules of interest, refusing to investigate complaint(s) of harassment of council members and Board members, and embarking on a campaign of misinformation to members on program achievements. To be clear, our members value our association, and are not interested in “blowing it up.” Our members are just dissatisfied with its current leadership. Where are our past great visionary leaders like Jack Cottrell, Jon Perlus, Steve Goren, Larry Levin, Ira Kirschen, Harry Hoediono, Jack McLister? Their voices need to be heard. These leaders had courage, listened, and responded to members’ concerns, took action, and got results. Our current leadership churns in the wake of all talk, blame, paranoia, and – no action. For our association to continue to “shine brightly,”. – we need new stars.
Hilarious – the people that claim to be the champions of feminism and root out misogyny in the organization purposely leave out the female presidents that have served the ODA in the last fifteen years, label the current female president-elect as “erratic” on a public platform, and post the personal information of female volunteers without their consent. Thank you for being supportive of women in organized dentistry!
As female ODA dentist of many years in practice – I am angry and disgusted with this board.
https://www.thetrillium.ca/news/politics/millions-from-ontario-training-funding-went-to-dentists-brokerage-with-ties-to-then-labour-ministers-wife-11267483
Show me the money!!! Y’all complaining about how much the ODA CEO gets paid, meanwhile certain parties are taking our tax dollars for lord knows what. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen any increase in the supply of dental auxiliaries in my neck of the woods.
https://www.thetrillium.ca/news/politics/millions-from-ontario-training-funding-went-to-dentists-brokerage-with-ties-to-then-labour-ministers-wife-11267483
Since my previous comments have been deleted.
I hired a new assistant, a trained dentist from an other country who is working towards licensure in Ontario. Going to work as my assistant until they get their license. I had them get their HARP certification through this program. Great program, there are no assistants out there. Not sure what I would have done otherwise.