UCDA's "OMVIC needs education" alert, five months on: the $4 million claim, the proprietary-course quote, and what the numbers say now

Two days before OMVIC’s continuing professional development courses opened, the United Car Dealers Association published a dealer alert of under 300 words with the headline OMVIC NEEDS EDUCATION. It is the bluntest of UCDA’s public statements on CPD that we have covered, and five months on, with the program in force and the first renewal cycle under it running, its claims can be read against what has happened.

The $4 million estimate and the proprietary-course reply

UCDA had been offering MVDA Key Elements training to grandfathered members free since the start of 2026, as a not-for-profit giving value back, while “OMVIC charges $202.86.” OMVIC’s CPD “wants $99 for this from dealers every year, and salespeople every two years,” and by UCDA’s calculation OMVIC “will rake in over 4 million dollars from registrants as a result of all this in the coming cycle.” Some of that, the alert conceded, goes to Georgian College for Key Elements, but “it sure looks like more than ‘cost recovery’ which OMVIC keeps telling everyone.” UCDA set the figure beside another: “OMVIC’s deficit last year was just over 4 million dollars, so that may be closer to the truth of all this.” UCDA said it had asked OMVIC to share the CPD material so that its own free CPD training, starting April 1, could be “even better, more focused and efficient,” and quoted the Registrar’s reply: “the [CPD] program is proprietary to OMVIC …”. The alert’s last word on the regulator: “OMVIC are a not-for-profit organization, we’d like to see them act like it.”

Each figure in that paragraph is UCDA’s. The $4 million revenue estimate is a calculation the alert does not show, and the deficit figure is asserted without a source. We have not verified either against OMVIC’s financial statements.

The fee, the course, and the primer, five months on

The fee is what UCDA said it would be. OMVIC’s 60-day notice set CPD at $99, payable by dealers annually and by salespersons every two years, and the courses launched April 1. CPD became a condition of renewal for every registrant renewing on or after July 1, 2026, the date our CPD FAQ tracks, and UCDA’s own July issue of Front Line, which we covered, had by then moved to a practical rundown of the $99 course, its length and its pass mark.

The Key Elements figure UCDA quoted has moved. The $202.86 in the alert was the fee in OMVIC’s December 2025 bulletin, payable to Georgian College rather than to OMVIC; Georgian’s page now gives $204.89 effective September 1, 2026, with a new registration form, a change covered in our September Key Elements post. The course is also being ordered as a sanction: three section 14 education orders this summer and the Patvivi consent order all send registrants to the same Georgian test.

UCDA’s free training has a limit the alert did not state. Time spent on UCDA modules does not count toward OMVIC’s CPD, and the requirement is met only on OMVIC’s own portal under the registrant’s own account. UCDA’s August Front Line describes its offering as a primer for OMVIC’s course and sends members to the OMVIC portal for REVS itself, and its continuing education page lists what the association offers.

The cost-recovery question is where the two accounts still diverge. OMVIC’s January notice described the $99 fee as set on a cost-recovery basis and did not itemise the cost, and UCDA’s alert said the sum looked larger than the cost without showing its calculation, so a dealer reading both is left with two unshown numbers.