No, not at all. You don't need a lawyer for the mediator, and there is no cost to the service. And you can have 20 mediators following the enforcement policies and precedents set by the commissioner. So they can do 20 times as much work and clear away 20 times as many complaints as the commissioner, as only one person can only work so much.
No, it's part of the system that has been put in place in Ontario for all civil cases. They're forced to go to mediation now to speed things up. It's viewed as a way of speeding things up, not slowing them down.