January 31, 2024
January 2024

Workforce Census coming in February

The census will help identify and address issues and challenges you face in Ontario's health care system.  

CNO is launching its first-ever Workforce Census to better understand your experience working in Ontario’s health care system. Beginning Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024, all nurses will receive an email inviting you to share your voice and take part in the survey. 

We hope you will make time to participate. A high rate of participation in the census will provide CNO with meaningful data and allow us to fully understand the experiences of nurses in Ontario – so we can help make meaningful change in the sector.

The results from the census will inform CNO’s work and help to identify and address the issues and challenges you face while working in Ontario’s health system.

To develop the census, we collaborated with community leaders, as well as experts in diversity, equity and inclusion who specialize in collecting data in health systems. These valuable partners include the Black Nurses Task Force, Canadian Black Nurses Alliance, Pan-Canadian Association of Nurses of African Descent (Ontario Black Nurses Network & Canadian Black Nurses Network), and the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council.

"The census is an opportunity for registered Ontario nurses to share their experience within the health care system,” said Brent Knowles, CNO’s Director of Analytics and Planning. “It will also provide us with a baseline to track progress toward advancing more equitable, diverse and inclusive policies.”

The census will provide you with an opportunity to self-identify in a wide variety of ways, share feedback on your practice environment and workplace experiences as well as your experience with CNO.

The census will not ask for your name or registration number and your responses cannot be linked to you. The data collected will not be linked to other resources and will only be released in aggregate form to system partners, such as the government, health profession regulators, nursing unions and associations, educational institutions with nursing programs and select organizations with a demonstrated ability to impart system-level change.

For more information about the upcoming Workforce Census and how you can participate, visit: www.cno.org/census.

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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