Approximately seventy people attended this year’s Annual General Meeting in Lindsay, Ontario this year. Held on Saturday, October 21 at the Admiral Inn and Conference, the first order of the afternoon meeting was to introduce the OLA Executive for 2017-2018. Tom Black is returning as President, along with Jeff Bogearts as Vice President. Governors are Donna Burns, Duaine McKinley, Karl Von Blodeau, Bob Weimeir, and Stefanos Karatopis. Missing from the photo is Duane McKinley.
This year the OLA awards were presented to Mike Westley (Wayne Gyde Memorial Award for Integrity and Commitment), Robert Pattison (OLA Special Recognition Award), with Most Outstanding Landowner Association of the Year Award presented jointly to the Navan Landowner Committee and the Goulbourn Landowners Group, Inc.
In addition, the Terrance James Green Award for Excellence in All Matters of Justice was presented, for the first time, to Elizabeth Marshall.
Congratulations to all!
Finally, Hal McGregor was presented with a bottle of 12-year old scotch and the very best wishes of the Ontario Landowners. Hal, a stalwart member of the OLA who has helped many appeal their MPAC assessments, is getting married and moving to Nova Scotia. He will be missed.
Our keynote speaker was Joseph Groia who spoke about his experiences with the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC). Mr Groia was penalized for “incivility”, a finding which he has appealed. Mr. Groia and his associate Brendan Monahan prepared a paper on Administrative Justice and the Rule of Law which can be found here…
Following a short break, we heard Martin McDermott describe his years long research into Teranet, the system used by the Ontario government to manage our land registry data.
To close the afternoon, the audience participated in a discussion with panel members Tom Black, Elizabeth Marshall, Donna Burns, and Jeff Bogaerts.