May 01, 2024
September 2018

Be a voice for Ontarians: Run for Council!

Everyone is entitled to great nursing care. When you’re a member of the College’s Council, you become a voice for clients in Ontario. You use your nursing knowledge to bring insight, oversight and foresight to Council decisions that protect the public, maintain public trust in nursing care and build confidence in nursing regulation.

If you want to make a difference for Ontarians, joining the College’s Council might be for you.

Everyone is entitled to great nursing care. When you’re a member of the College’s Council, you become a voice for clients in Ontario. You use your nursing knowledge to bring insight, oversight and foresight to Council decisions that protect the public, maintain public trust in nursing care and build confidence in nursing regulation. 

If you want to make a difference for Ontarians, joining the College’s Council might be for you.  

What is Council? 

The College’s Council is its board of directors. It sets the strategic direction for regulating nursing in Ontario, and establishes the goals, objectives and policies of the College.  

Who sits on Council? 

Members of the public and nurses who are passionate about advocating for the public. They are effective and constructive communicators who are able to make decisions based on evidence, and are willing to listen and learn. Their sole focus when making decisions is what is best for the public.  

Want to know more about what it takes to be a good Council member? As part of its governance journey, Council is working to identify the competencies and attributes that future members of the board would bring to Council.  

Next month, we will publish these competencies and attributes on our Elections page and in The Standard. If you are considering running for election, reflect on which of the competencies and attributes in the profile you would bring to Council.  

What’s the election process?

Nominations for 2019 Council elections open on Friday, Oct. 19, 2018. 

If you are an RN or NP in the Central and Toronto election district, or an RN, NP or RPN in the Central Eastern district, you are eligible to participate in this election. 

On, Friday, Oct. 19, we will send you a link to the nomination form. You can submit your own name or nominate a colleague to stand for election. 

The nomination period will close on Friday, Nov. 23, 2018. Voting will begin on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019. 

Learn more about elections and the role of Council.

About CNO

The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) is the regulator of the nursing profession in Ontario. It is not a school or a nursing association. CNO acts in the public interest by:

  • assessing qualifications and registering individuals who want to practice nursing in Ontario.
  • setting the practice standards of the profession that nurses in Ontario are expected to meet.
  • promoting nurses' continuing competence through a quality assurance program.
  • holding nurses accountable to those standards by addressing complaints or reports about nursing care.

The College was founded in 1963. By establishing the College, the Ontario government was acknowledging that the nursing profession had the ability to govern itself and put the public's well-being ahead of professional interests.

For the latest information, please see our Nursing Statistics page.

Anyone who wants to use a nursing-related title — Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) or Nurse Practitioner (NP) must become a member of CNO.

Frequently Asked Questions

Go to the public Register, Find a Nurse, to conduct a search for the nurse. Contact us if you can't find the person you are looking for.

All public information available about nurses is posted in the public Register, Find a Nurse, which contains profiles of every nurse in Ontario. Publicly available information about nurses include their registration history, business address, and information related to pending disciplinary hearings or past findings.

Unregistered practitioners are people who are seeking employment in nursing or holding themselves out as being able to practice nursing in Ontario, but who are not qualified to do so. They are not registered members of CNO. Only people registered with CNO can use nursing-related titles or perform certain procedures that could cause harm if carried out by a non-registered health professional. CNO takes the issue of unregistered practitioners seriously. See Unregistered Practitioners for more information.

To ensure procedural fairness for both the patient (or client) and the nurse, the Regulated Health Professions Act requires that information gathered during an investigation remain confidential until the matter is referred to the Discipline Committee or Fitness to Practise Committee. CNO will not disclose any information that could identify patients (or clients) or compromise an investigation. See Investigations: A Process Guide for more information.

Information obtained during an investigation will become public if the matter is referred to a disciplinary hearing. If a complaint is not referred to a hearing, no information will be available publicly.

See CNO's hearings schedule, which is updated as hearing dates are confirmed. Hearings at CNO are open to the public and the media. For details on how to attend a hearing, contact the Hearings Administration Team.

A summary of allegations and the disciplinary panel outcomes can be found on the public Register, Find a Nurse. Full decisions and reasons are also available.

Where a disciplinary panel makes a finding of professional misconduct, they have the authority to reprimand a nurse, and suspend or revoke a nurse's registration. Terms, conditions and limitations can also be imposed on a nurse's registration, which restricts their practice for a set period. Nurses can also be required to complete remedial activities, such as reviewing CNO documents and meeting with an expert, before returning to practice.

For detailed information see the Sexual Abuse Prevention section.

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