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Key Principles for Modernization

The College Council adopted key principles to guide the work of the legislative reform working groups, College staff, and Council through the legislative review process.

Principle 1: Right Touch Regulation

Right touch regulation means utilizing the minimum regulatory approach required to achieve the desired result. The intent is to focus on identified and verified risks and simplicity in solutions.

Principle 2: Agility

Agility in regulation means looking forward and anticipating change. The Act intended to provide for broad authority which permits a flexible approach to actual implementation and the opportunity to refine regulatory responses over time.

Principle 3: Just Culture

A just culture ties discipline to an individual's intent or behavioural choices rather than the outcome of their actions. In promoting a just culture, we accept that mistakes occur. We consider both the individual and the system which gives rise to errors, and seek to learn from incidents and errors.

Principle 4: Collaborative self-regulation

Collaboration in self-regulation is demonstrated by an approach that views the public, veterinarians, government, and others involved in the safe delivery of veterinary medicine as partners in achieving quality practice outcomes.

Principle 5: Risk Mitigation

Our regulatory solutions seek to mitigate risks in practice. Our processes support the measurement and evaluation of risk(s), and solutions which manage them effectively and responsibly.

Principle 6: Transparency

The public needs access to information to trust that profession-based regulation works effectively. Transparency includes the provision of information to the public that enhances its ability to make decisions or hold the regulator accountable. Transparency, however, must balance public protection with fairness and privacy.