“As a private organization that administers the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act, we will continue to work closely with the Minister of Government and Consumer Services who has oversight of our legislation,” Yollick told the Star. “We look forward to maintaining this partnership with the Province, and continuing to improve the statutory safeguards for Ontario’s new home buyers.”

The auditor general’s office told the Star last year that the legislature’s public accounts committee could ask for a review of Tarion and that the office would support such a review, subject to the provisions of the Auditor General Act of Ontario. The province’s ombudsman, André Marin, whose office received close to 300 complaints about Tarion between 2007 and 2013, has said publicly he has “long believed that Tarion lacks proper oversight.”

Tarion was created by the province nearly 40 years ago to administer the Ontario New Home Warranties Plan Act. It is funded mostly by Tarion’s “warrantee enrolment fees” — anywhere from about $435 to $1,600 — that are usually passed on to buyers.

The corporation does not receive any direct government funding, meaning it is not subject to oversight by the auditor general.

But Singh argues that because Tarion is the only provider of new home warranties in Ontario, homebuyers have no choice but to pay these enrolment fees — effectively making the charges a tax.

“Tarion’s whole source of revenue flows from the fact that government has appointed them the providers of the warranty,” he said. “It’s essentially the taxpayers that are paying Tarion to exist.”

Jeffrey Ferland, one of more than a dozen homeowners who attended Queen’s Park on Wednesday to lend support to Singh’s bill, said he has been in a dispute with Tarion for more than a year over a cement floor in his home that he says does not meet the Ontario Building Code.

Ferland says in September 2013 Tarion originally asked the builder to repair the floor and offered Ferland a cash settlement. But Ferland says the builder did nothing.

Then, seven months later, he says Tarion changed its position and said no offer would be made.

Ferland has already spent 14 days fighting Tarion’s decision at the provincial Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT), with another 18 days of scheduled hearings.

“In our case, the legislation was inadequate to ensure that our builder provided what was in our agreement and that our home was also built according to the Ontario Building Code,” Ferland said.

Tarion declined to comment specifically on Ferland’s issues, but said it looks forward “to a resolution in this case, and welcomes a “decision from a third-party independent body like LAT.”

Toronto Star