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It’s clear that somebody "messed up" when your car won’t start after a visit to the mechanic, the plumber is on his way out and your faucet is still leaking, or your mailman forgets to deliver your mail.
But it is much more difficult to assess whether or not your psychologist asked you the right questions, if your surgeon didn’t follow standard procedure during an operation or whether or not your lawyer knows what he is doing! There are many people who have undergone years of training to become specialists in fields that are often a mystery to someone on the outside. Just consider the work done by nurses, engineers, acupuncturists, accountants, dieticians, and architects, to name but a few. Luckily, the law requires these people to be part of an organisation that will ensure that they are qualified, that they will dispense quality services, that they will respect both their clients and the requirements imposed by their profession. These people are called "professionals" and belong to a "professional order". In this Infosheet, Éducaloi explains to you what a professional order is and why it exists.   
It’s the association of people who exercise the same profession. To be a professional order, this association must have been recognized as such by law and it must fulfill all of the requirements that the law imposes.
A professional order is not a union that protects its members above all else. Professional orders exist to protect the public. Certain professionals, like medical-specialists, have even chosen to form separate associations since their order couldn’t favour their interests above others. To protect the public, each order supervises the way its members practice their profession. The order must ensure that a new member is qualified. It must adopt rules on how to act and make sure that these rules are followed. 
The word “profession” is misleading because it can have various meanings. For example, a professional athlete is someone that excels in a sport, while a professional journalist is someone who properly verifies his sources.
For the purposes of this Infosheet, and of several Quebec laws, a professional is someone who exercises a “profession”. A “profession” is an activity that the law oversees in a specific way, such as by imposing membership of an order on anyone wishing to exercise it. A police officer, or a teacher, does not exercise a profession. While these individuals are competent and trained, the law did not foresee a professional order to supervise them. That certainly does not mean that their jobs are any less important or that nobody supervises them!
In Quebec, there are 45 different professional orders. 25 of these are “exclusive professions” and 20 are “with reserved titles” (the distinction between them is explained later on).
The following are exclusive professions:
These are the professions with reserved titles:
That’s a lot of people! In fact, over 300,000 people exercise one of these professions.
An exclusive profession is one that only members of an order who are in good standing can:
For example, stimulation by means of needles of specific sites on the skin to improve health or to relieve pain is an important act preformed by an acupuncturist. The law specifically states that it is an offence to perform this act without being an acupuncturist (or another professional who is allowed to do this). Also, only a person who is a member of the Ordre des acupuncteurs du Québec can claim to be an acupuncturist. Remember that professional orders and the Office des professions du Québec do not decide which act is reserved to the members of a particular profession. It is the law that says so. It aims at protecting the public from acts that could endanger it if they were done by a person who is not a member of an order. For example, you must be a doctor to operate on someone, or a lawyer to defend someone accused of committing a crime. That’s not to say that anything done by these professionals is forbidden to others. A doctor does not only operate on his patients. Sometimes, he also tells them to eat broccoli because it’s good for them. And that’s something that every parent in the world has the right to do without becoming a professional!
A profession with a reserved title means that only members of an order who have valid permits are allowed to use the titles associated with it.
A profession with a reserved title is different from an exclusive profession in that the acts that are specifically linked with the profession can be preformed by people who are not members of the order concerned. For example, you must be a member of the Ordre professionnel des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes to say that you are an accredited translator. However, you do not need to be a member of this order to translate something from one language to another, although the act of translating is what characterizes the profession of a translator. Why does the law only protect the title of these professions? For 2 reasons: 1) There are special permissions that allow an occupational therapist, for example, to treat a wound, whereas the law usually says that this act can only be done by doctors and nurses. 2) A person who deals with a dietician or with a chartered administrator should be able to depend on the fact that this professional is qualified. If anyone was allowed to say that he is a “nutritionist” or a “certified management advisor”, or to put a long list of misleading initials in front of his name, the public would be in danger of dealing with a “phony” whose qualifications (or lack thereof) are not supervised by anyone.
The public can be protected in several ways at various points in time: from the admission of new members, all through their careers and sometimes, even after their careers have ended.
The order will make sure that a person who wants to join has all of the required degrees. For certain professions, the order will require additional training and an apprenticeship. Rules vary depending on the order in question. A person who has been convicted of a crime or of having violated the code of ethics of another order must reveal it. The order may refuse his membership. Once the person fulfills all of the requirements, he is given a permit that allows him to practice his profession and his name appears on the list of members (roll of an order or tableau de l’ordre) Then, the law and each order impose rules that the professional must follow to ensure, for example, that:
A professional order fulfills its duties of supervising the conduct of its members, in particular, by making them follow a code of ethics. The code of ethics of an order contains rules of conduct for a professional towards his clients, colleagues, and the public at large.
If a professional does not respect the provisions of his code of ethics (or the duties imposed upon him by law), his professional order will investigate him (that’s the work of what is called a “syndic”) and a complaint will be lodged against him with the disciplinary council of the order.
Sometimes, professionals hold funds or property belonging to someone else. When that is the case, the professional is said to be holding something “in trust”.
Here are some examples:
A compensation fund must be set up by a professional order as soon as its members are called upon to hold funds or property "in trust". The compensation fund is destined to protect victims of a professional’s reprehensible conduct. Despite the strict supervision that his order exercises, it is possible for a professional to use what’s held “in trust” for another purpose. To maintain the dignity of the profession, the victim of such an occurrence can be compensated, in whole or in part, from this special fund. Members of a professional order must contribute financially to maintain this fund.
Generally, anyone (including a professional) who makes a mistake that causes damages to another person must pay to repair these damages.
Sometimes, a professional isn’t wealthy enough to cover the costs of what happened. That’s why professional orders make their members take out professional liability insurance. This type of insurance ensures that the victim of the mistake will be paid if on the long run, a judgment is made in his favour.
The professional inspection committee of an order is made up of a selection of members of that order. Its function is to supervise other members of the order by ensuring that they are properly exercising their profession.
The committee has several means at its disposal to do this, including:
The visit of an inspector often allows a professional to avoid errors and to perfect his practice. When an inspector notices omissions, he reports them to the committee. The committee makes recommendations to correct the situation. Recommendations may include to have the professional:
To ensure public protection, the committee can recommend that the order restrict or suspend the professional’s right to practice until the problem is resolved. The committee may even inform the syndic if it thinks that an offense was committed.
The disciplinary council of a professional order is made up of a selection of its members. It is always chaired by a lawyer appointed by the government. The disciplinary council judges the conduct of a professional accused of having violated his profession’s obligations.
The disciplinary council investigates and hears a complaint. If the professional is convicted, the disciplinary council imposes on him one or several penalties such as:
To learn more about the complaint process, including about how to file a complaint against a professional, consult our Infosheet Professional disciplinary councils: The complaint process.
Each professional order maintains and publishes a list of its members called the “roll of the order” (tableau de l’ordre). This way, no one can illegally exercise the profession or unduly use a reserved title. To verify whether or not someone is allowed to exercise a profession or to use its title, simply communicate with the professional order in question.
It is an offence to pretend to be a professional or to do something that only a professional is allowed to do. This offence is punishable by a fine ranging from $1,500 to $80,000 depending on whether or not this is a first conviction and on who committed the offence: an individual or a company.
Even professional orders are supervised! The Office des professions du Québec makes sure that each professional order protects the public and does what the law tells it to do.
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