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Annual Reports 2023-25
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CHAIRMAN'S ANNUAL REPORT October 10, 2025
Dear fellow directors,
Last year I reported that I had written a letter on behalf of the CJRB to the Premier of Ontario and the Attorney General about the observation that staff in the Office of the Director of Titles had been making decisions that ignored the law in s.54 of the Surveys Act which states that boundaries of registered plans of subdivision are true and unalterable. As a result of ignoring s.54, alterations to some longstanding Ministry PIN maps where published that purported to show boundaries that extended beyond the boundaries shown in the original registered plans of subdivision. This created the appearance of the Office of the Director of titles participating in the creation of bad and broken chains of title that had the potential to give rise to claims against to the taxpayer funded Ontario Land Titles Assurance Fund.
Although it is understandable that the Ministry might not wish to reply to the letter, it came to light this year that some actions were taken in regard to the issues raised in the CJRB's letter. It is apparent that the Office of the Director of Titles deleted the questionable PIN maps and associated title abstracts that had contained expanded land title descriptions and reverted to the earlier PIN maps and title descriptions that described the boundaries of the registered plans of subdivision correctly, with no extensions. Some other disciplinary actions may also have been taken that the Ministry might not wish to make public.
I am also pleased to report that the Ontario Ministry of Finance sought my comments, on behalf of the CJRB, about possible improvements to the property assessment process in Ontario. The CJRB's formal letter with my suggestions was included as an attachment to the CJRB's last quarterly report. But now another issue has been identified with MPC that I believe we should make the Ministry aware of. When a property owner files an appeal, MPAC is using the tactic of saying their initial assessment is too low and that MPAC will ask for an increase if the property owner continues with an appeal. In our cases MPAC threatened to seek increases, but in no case did they obtain an increase and in fact the property assessments decreased. In all cases, MPAC settled before we went to court. Clearly this is a scare tactic and therefore in my remaining time as chairman I have written the attached letter to the Ministry asking that they address this MPAC practice since it could easily be construed as extorting settlement agreements from property owners with threats and intimidation (see attached letter).
Earlier in the year I assisted the Toronto Star in a study of property assessments and was pleased to hear from one of their senior investigative reporters that the CJRB's website is impressive. In that regard although 4-months of data on visitors to the website was lost by our webhost provider when it updated its site, on a year over year basis the viewership continues to rise.
It has been a pleasure and an honour to have served as chairman of the CJRB for the past two years. Moreover, I appreciate the support that I have received over this past year from the current board in pursuing our common goal of improving the justice system, and I appreciated the contribution and updates that past-chair Liz Marshall provided on her work with the Ontario Landowners Association. I am pleased that our colleague David Franklin will be assuming the chairmanship for the upcoming year and I am also pleased to welcome Matthew Taylor J.D. as a new director of the CJRB. In my future capacity as immediate past chair I look forward to working with Mr. Taylor, and with chairman-elect David Franklin and other members of the board in pursuit of our common goals.
Yours truly,
Glenn Lucas
chairman
CHAIRMAN'S ANNUAL REPORT October 15, 2024
Dear fellow directors,
This year my report will be brief. The major undertaking has been a lengthy enquiry made to the Ontario Director of Titles concerning the discovery that members of her staff who possess Ontario Land Surveyor credentials (OLS) had been ignoring section 54 of the Surveys Act which holds the boundaries of registered plans of subdivision to be true and unalterable in law.
After several months of encountering considerable resistance from the Office of the Director of Titles, it became clear that the matter of disregarding the law in s.54 of the Act to thereby alter Land Title Descriptions in a manner that created bad and broken chains of title was being masked by the Office of the Director of Titles by accepting, as valid for registration, some applications for so-called "Absolute Titles" designations showing "boundaries" that extended beyond the true and unalterable subdivision boundaries. Given the attitude of Director of Titles in not flagging the matter, the situation was brought to the attention of the Premier and AG. That CJRB letter was attached to earlier CJRB quarterly reports for all to review.
The Ministry of Finance recently announced a review of the operations of the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) and I have been making enquires on how to best present some of the CJRB's and my own views on this matter, especially as it relates to the fairness (or lack thereof) of the taxing process on a go forward basis.
I am pleased that Bill Vasiliou will be joining the CJRB's board of directors and join in welcoming him. Moreover, I appreciate the support that I have received over this past year from the current board in pursuing our common goal of improving the justice system
Yours truly,
Glenn Lucas
chairman
CHAIRMAN'S ANNUAL REPORT October 20, 2023
This year our colleague and past chair Liz Marshall prepared a research paper that addressed the ability of municipalities to fine or tax property owners who have rental units that are left vacant. Her paper is archived on the CJRB website in the "Reports" section.
Our colleague Al Rosen published a number of articles including "Why Faulty IFRS cannot be repaired" and "IFRS without warnings", both of which have been archived at the following link:?https://canadianjusticereviewboard.ca/reports-papers/why-faulty-ifrs-cannot-be-repaired?
Our colleague Jim MacDonald authored an open letter to the Rotaman Alumii Award nominations committee in which he urged the committee to adopt higher standards. His letter has also been archived at the following link:
https://canadianjusticereviewboard.ca/reports-papers/open-letter
Liz Marshall recommend that 'Threats to The Security of Canada'?authored by?Asher Honickman?from 'Advocates For The Rule Of Law'?be added to the CJRB website's articles. It is archived at ?https://canadianjusticereviewboard.ca/reports-papers/%E2%80%9Cthreats-to-the-security-of-canada%E2%80%9D-the-case-for-a-single-stringent-standard?
Al Rosen published his latest book titled?Avoiding Swindlers. His CJRB webpage has been updated to include it, and it can especially be noted that it received acclaim in "Reader Views"https://readerviewsarchives.wordpress.com/2022/11/07/meet-the-author-rosen/
On October 28th?our colleague Jim MacDonald?announced that he had directed that some of the proceeds from his successful class action to go to Windsor U's law school.
Our colleague David Franklin was congratulated for his successful push for an RCMP & OPP fraud investigation of Fortress Real Developments Inc. David's summary of that matter was posted on Facebook where it received the highest circulation and approval this year.
Over the past nine months, I answered requests from the Toronto Star seeking information about the property assessment process and data used by the Municipal Property Assessment process (MPAC). I shared with the Toronto Star an assessment evaluation that I did in 2007 on multi-residential assessments. That study showed that new buildings were 30% under assessed and older ones 30% over assessed. MPAC published a report indicating their assessments were accurate based on a percentage of the overall average assessments. While this was mathematically true, it did not expose the great variance in assessments between older vs newer buildings. Owners of older buildings were subsidizing owners of newer buildings by millions of dollars. The Star's investigation showed the same flaw in residential properties. MPAC would not share their data with the Star, citing agreements with Teranet as the reason. Here are some of the links to the articles so far. More will follow. Note that to access all the articles a subscription to the Star is required.
I am grateful for the assistance that I have received from the other directors of the CJRB in pursuing our common goal of improving the justice system so that it returns to delivering the protections that it should provide for all Canadians and so that the administration of justice is not cast into disrepute.? The information posted on the CJRB website and on Facebook has been well received and read by an increasing number of people across the country.? I look forward to achieving more in the upcoming year.
Yours truly,
Glenn Lucas
chairman