Organization of the profession
General considerations
Quebec is probably the most advanced society in the Western World in the organization of liberal professions. Through the Professional Code enacted in 1974, it has imposed a uniform set of rules on all bodies governing professional activities in the province.
The Code provides a general framework for the organization of all professional orders: general meetings, board of benchers, executive committee, officers, voting, inspection committee, discipline officer, indemnity fund, framework for the adoption of specific rules for admission into each profession, disciplinary procedure and committee, processing of complaints, professional liability insurance, etc.
A statute has been enacted for each of the 43 recognized professions, with specific sets of by-laws and regulations, the most important being codes of ethics.
The Chambre des notaires du Québec
The professional order of Quebec notaries is called the Chambre des notaires du Québec, governed by a board composed of 24 regionally elected benchers, 4 non-members appointed by the Office des professions (the supervising body of all professional orders), and a president elected by all notaries directly.
The Chambre is the oldest (or first) organized professional order in Canada, created July 28, 1847, and has always been considered one of the most professionally managed orders. Its organization was the inspiration for the model in the Professional Code.
Particulars of the profession
The notary is a professional under the close supervision of his professional order. To explain that particularity one must bear in mind the unique status of public officer, and further, the importance of his role in handling huge sums of money in trust accounts. Recent gallup polls have shown that notaries, together with doctors (62%), are the most trusted professionals in Quebec society, advocates ranking much lower, at 30% on the public's scale of credibility.
The public's faith in notaries is not surprising, as this profession was the first in Canada to institute periodic compulsory professional inspections (1931), create an indemnity fund (1966), launch semi-annual sessions of continuing legal education (1961) (with attendance at each session averaging 40% of membership), establish liability insurance together with the law society of Manitoba in 1986. I could go on with the list of "firsts." In addition, last March, members were notified that as of January 1998, paper support would no longer be used in communications between the professional order and its members. This indicates how far notaries have gone in computerizing their practice, with their own software-development firm (Notarius) and their own intranet called "Inforoute notariale."