The council has an administrator, who is a staff person who receives complaints. That individual spent 29 years at the College of Nurses of Ontario in complaints. She receives complaints, vets the complaint form and ensures that it's complete and correct, and then assigns it to an investigator.
We currently have under a service delivery contract an external company made up of retired RCMP officers. Their sole role is to collect facts; they make no judgment as to the guilt or innocence of the party. We are in the process of moving that function in house with staff—trained investigators—over the next year.
The complaint is sent to the investigator; the consultant is contacted and made aware of the complaint and asked to provide a written response to those allegations. From there, the reply is sent back to the complainant for them to either provide additional information or to refute the response. From there, it goes to a panel of our complaints committee, which is made up of one member of the public, who is an appointed person, along with two practising consultants. The complaints committee decides whether there is merit and will either dismiss the case or refer it onward to discipline.
At the referral it goes to an independent lawyer whom we have retained as a discipline counsel, who begins a process of pre-hearing discussions between the member, the member's counsel, and the prosecutor. From there, if an agreed statement of fact and a joint recommendation on penalty can be achieved, it is presented to a different panel of the disciplinary committee—again, a public representative and two practising consultants—who will receive the evidence—