Chief Review Officer - Margot Priest

Margot Priest is the President of the Governance and Legislative Reform Group, of Ottawa. Since 1995, she has advised a number of federal departments and provincial ministries on re-engineering, regulatory structure, the design of institutions and compliance systems; she also has executed audits in a legal environment and management evaluations. She is an expert on the regulatory process, self-regulation, and governance and accountability of organizations operating with delegated regulatory authority. Among her articles in this area is “The Privatization of Regulation: Five Models of Self-Regulation” which was published in the Ottawa Law Review.

She has been the Chair and Vice-Chair of two regulatory tribunals in Ontario, as well as the Chair of the Council of Canadian Administrative Tribunals (CCAT), a national organization of members and staff of administrative tribunals. She was a member of the Communications Committee of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and founding Chair of the National Institute for Administrative Tribunals. She has been active in the development of training and professionalization of tribunals and has taught “New Administrative Law” in the LLM Programme of Osgoode Hall Law School. She was awarded the 1997 Medal by the Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators for her contribution to the Ontario administrative justice system. In her capacity as a leader in the administrative justice system, she has testified as an expert witness before committees of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and the Québec National Assembly. She lectures and writes extensively on administrative law and regulation; among the organizations she has addressed are the Canadian Bar Association, the Québec Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice. She is an active participant in continuing legal education and is the co-author of Directors’ Duties in Canada: Managing Risk.

Prior to her appointments to Ontario tribunals, Margot Priest was a senior federal public servant and consultant, working with the Department of Justice, Treasury Board Canada, the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, the House of Commons and the Regulation Reference of the Economic Council of Canada. She is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the State Bar of California and has degrees from Harvard University and Osgoode Hall Law School.