A mistake repeated more than three times is a decision. Ontario provincial electrical safety regulators have made more than 133,000 formally documented mistakes, including high risk ones. They still repeat some of them today. And knowingly endanger uninformed consumers for money, despite my numerous demands not to. When exposed, this massive deadliest case of malfeasance in recent Canadian history will trigger a huge political scandal and an anti-corruption revolution. Most importantly, it will save lives.
To save time you can first review the following without opening links. If a link doesn't open properly just ignore it and keep reading. Trust only the Audit’s findings and formally documented facts. I am not a native English speaker, please be lenient with my writing.
The Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) is an administrative authority. MPBSDP (formerly MGCS) is a consumer protection Ministry. The Government mandated this pair to exercise their powers and duties under the SCSAA and the Act in such a manner as to protect, enhance, and improve public safety and carry out and perform the Administrative Agreement in a manner consistent with the objective of ensuring a fair, safe and informed marketplace that supports a competitive economy.
Contrary to the statutes, mandates and objectives, the pair have knowingly increased some risks for higher remuneration over the years. These are some of their major, fundamental and critical safety failures. Every italicized point is a fact formally documented by the Ontario Auditor General. It is copied verbatim from the Audit. If you cannot find a point, please search the Audit for its fragments:
- .the ESA has not mitigated the risk;
- defeats the ESA’s objective of improving public safety;
- not meeting the spirit and intent of Ontario government directives;
- does not operate efficiently in carrying out its mandate to improve public electrical safety;
- does not confirm that unsafe installations identified by general inspections are ever fixed, even when the installations pose a serious risk of fire and/or electrocution;
- unsafe installations found during general inspections–even those that are high risk–are [not …] fixed;
- not fulfilling all of its responsibilities under Part VIII of the Electricity Act, 1998 and the Safety and Consumer Statutes Administration Act, 1996 (Acts) to improve public electrical safety;
- [the Ministry/MGCS …] has not ensured that the ESA is accomplishing its mandate;
- [the Ministry has not confirmed …] that the fees that the ESA charges encourage electrical safety compliance (which they are supposed to do under the ESA’s Administrative Agreement);
- [the Ministry has not held …] the ESA accountable […] under its 2013 administrative agreement;
- [the Ministry has not used] meaningful operational performance metrics to ensure that the ESA is operating effectively and in a cost-efficient way to carry out its responsibilities under the Acts;
- [the Ministry …] has not addressed the situation;
- [the Ministry…] has not fulfilled its oversight responsibilities to ensure that the ESA is operating efficiently […] without compromising public safety;
- between the 2014/15 and 2018/19 fiscal years, we found that the ESA issued certificates of inspections for about 133,000 uninspected installations (or for 11% of the about 1.2 million installations it was notified of) that required at least one site visit according to the ESA. The ESA collected about $17 million in total fees for these unvisited installations.
[The 133,000 customers: 1) paid for but didn't get the inspection service; 2) many received fake safety certificates; 3) didn’t know about the danger; 4) ended up with high risk or serious risk, etc. conditions. ESA breached the 133K service contracts, didn’t conduct these mandatory safety inspections and didn’t notify the customers. Statistically, some of them lost or could have lost property to fire or died. A portion of the collected $17M eventually ended up in the ESA executives’ pay packages. Another portion was paid to the Ministry as an oversight fee. The Ministry, responsible and accountable to the people and the Legislature for the ESA's fulfillment of its statutory (or legal) mandate, saw nothing wrong or illegal. It accepted and covered it all up. It is horrible for the victims but great for the pair leadership's paychecks].
Most people in the world would object to these errors being made against them or their property. They would say that the regulators who have repeated mistakes thousands of times are or may be criminals knowingly or intentionally causing mass harm. And that they must be immediately investigated.
Answering a first simple question - Would I want even a single error documented by the Auditor General to happen to my property or to affect my family? - reveals wrongdoing.
Answering a second one - Could about 133,000 uninspected installations and high risk, serious risk of fire and/or electrocution, etc. mistakes that have been unresolved or repeated: for many years or even for most of its [ESA's] existence have increased the risk? - reveals danger in seconds.
There are a few other simple, fast as well as some formal complex ways to expose the truth.
Please keep in mind that asking questions, demanding and getting answers from the public servants is the easiest and most effective way to find out the truth. Getting opinions from impartial, independent experts is the second easiest way to expose wrongdoing and danger. Using these methods will spare you from the need to know the details and subtleties.
In 2014, I, Viktor Khroustalev, then a Licensed Electrical Contractor (LEC), began alerting authorities of their failures. At the end of 2020, the Auditor General found about two hundred thousand of the pair's mistakes. This confirmed the validity of my concerns 7 years later. The pair have neither reduced danger to the lowest attainable degree, nor improved public safety to the highest achievable level. Statistically, they have prevented fewer avoidable fatalities, set some random fires and made more money off of it.
Had Ontarians known, they would have absolutely protested against being exposed to each error. They would have joined hundreds of my complaints. But while the safety mistake makers refuse to provide Ontarians with an individual, meaningful, honest answer to each question, they also rigorously suppress feedback and complaints. Records of serious health and safety hazards are unlawfully withheld to avoid a huge scandal. Undisclosed details about unpunished mistakes encourage the insidious corruptors to repeat them. The authorities refuse to investigate or they cover this up. This breeds impunity. Reaping financial rewards for harming consumers becomes even easier. The pair becomes cocky and invincible. The actual victims remain uninformed and unable to use the accountability provisions and justice system to defend themselves. This is a classic example of absolute abuse of absolute power, conflict of interest, self-remuneration, corruption, regulatory capture and a deadly Catch 22.
It is absolutely critical not to trust a word I write and not to trust a word the pair write. Please only trust the facts documented by the Auditor General.
Under an irresistible slogan of improving electrical safety, Ontario's cunning and greedy officials have created for themselves three semi-parasitic electrical licensing and consumer protection bodies (skilledtradesontario.ca esasafe.com the Ministry), instead of just a single lean and efficient regulator. They: a) pass some self-serving laws; b) create unnecessary high-paying positions for their unnecessary executives; c) charge four counterproductive fees; d) extract millions of dollars to pay their bloated staffs; e) make many unwarranted safety inspections mandatory; f) add a huge amount of red tape and waste; g) impel the overcharged, abused and outraged LECs to skip mandatory inspections and work illegally; h) the ESA itself unlawfully skips thousands of inspections, which it has made mandatory; i) and issues thousands of fake pass certificates for the unvisited, unfulfilled, not followed up mandatory inspections; i) the preceding implants hundreds of thousands or millions of defects into structures; j) the pair support, protect, cover up for each other to financially reward themselves and avoid responsibility.
The pair’s highly knowledgeable executives repeat thousands of various mistakes and offences that save them time, manpower, other resources, or generate income. The unaware consumers pay fees and penalties to the ESA and face consequences of the ESA’s high risk and serious risk mistakes. Some of the actual victims pay the ultimate price for the pair's systemic and systematic abuse and screw ups. The pair and, eventually, the whole government reciprocally protect and reward themselves with dream paypackages. Everything is meticulously covered up at all levels to avoid justice. The unaware general public are unable to defend or protect themselves from the danger. A few die in the statistically inevitable electrical accidents and fires. The top executives of the most dangerous, determined, stubborn and cocky abusers remain financially rewarded and victorious. Despite hundreds of incessant complaints, the pair’s mistakes and offences simultaneously generate additional financial gain, deteriorate safety and harm Ontarians even today. The formally documented in the Audit but hitherto uninvestigated and unpunished safety violations committed by the extremely experienced officials are far more dangerous and sinister than those committed by the mostly clueless offenders. And yet the notorious and merciless primary offenders of the pair punish their victims and minor offenders just because they are able to abuse their power and remain invincible.
Please search the Audit with these words: unsafe; fail; risk; did not; was not; has not. First, you will remain in utter disbelief, which will quickly turn into outrage and a keen desire to stop them.
The pair was created to do these things. Since early 2014, I have incessantly reported - and will provide documents - that the pair have deteriorated public safety and violated some of their duties.
The pair have agreed, admitted all their mistakes, inefficiencies, not fulfilled responsibilities, etc. right in the Audit. They appreciated the work done by the Auditor, didn't deny any and welcomed all the findings, recommendations and promised not to fail again. But the Auditor did not:
- analyse any failures to determine if they deteriorated safety;
- try to find and question the individual mistake makers;
- scrutinize root causes and consequences;
- report them to the proper authorities or the law enforcement agencies;
- try to find who was or could have been harmed;
- demonstrate mercy or compassion;
- serve justice to the actual unaware past victims. Not before the Audit, not after, and not today. It's a fact.
There are thousands of errors, omissions and violations in the Audit. It's a fact. Assuming most of them didn't just happen on their own, there are the pair’s executives who made them. There are thousands of reasons to investigate each one of them for repeating the mistakes and for their consequences.
A critical note. The authorities will claim that they have done nothing wrong, answered all my questions, addressed all my concerns, and have already fixed or eliminated all these problems. That is not true. The safety problems were neither corrected before my 1st complaint, nor after the 200th one. Not all of them were fixed before or after the Audit and not in 2025! These documents prove it.
As a LEC:
(A) Since early 2014, I have been reporting that the residential repair and renovation sector LECs refuse to: pay the obviously unnecessary, redundant, excessive fees. Thousands of overcharged, abused and outraged LECs are coerced to work illegally. They skip mandatory inspections. A significant delay and other circumstances make it impossible to pinpoint the pair as the primary culprits and their failures as the root causes of statistically unavoidable accidents and fires occurring much later.
It's a fact. The Auditor General has established that:
(B) The ESA has also been unsuccessful in preventing illegal electrical installations, a problem that is widespread in Ontario and is partially due to the current legislation that prevents certified and master electricians from offering electrical services to the public.
(C) the Ministry has not confirmed that the fees that the ESA charges encourage electrical safety compliance (which they are supposed to do under the ESA’s Administrative Agreement).
(D) We [the Auditor staff], requested a quote for new wiring installation. The quotes that we received ranged from a low of $150 to $1,100 and together averaged about $650. We found that none of the 20 “for-hire electricians” were licensed by the ESA. Each of them strongly discouraged us from notifying the ESA, reasoning that the job was too small. Licensed electrical contractors offer to do electrical installations for less money if the ESA is not notified as required by law. We obtained 20 additional price quotes from licensed contractors from across Ontario. Nine of them gave us an ESA and a non-ESA quote, saying that it was up to us to decide if the ESA would be notified or not, even though the law says that contractors must notify ESA of all electrical installations. The average ESA quote was about $200 more than the average non-ESA quote. Three of these nine contractors had been previously caught by the ESA for performing electrical installations without notifying it.
These numbers - We obtained 20 additional price quotes from licensed contractors from across Ontario. Nine of them … - indicate that about 45% of LECs work without passing mandatory safety inspections. Other LECs either have to charge higher prices to cover the regulatory cost or lose business to those evading abuse and bypassing the system. And even more LECs are coerced to work "under the table". This remains the greatest, craziest, deadliest point of all even today. Thoroughly hidden and covered up.
The ESA states, “Most importantly, we help ensure ... Electrical work is inspected by ESA”. Yet it has prosecuted only a miniscule percentage of LECs in the last few years. “Soussanna Karas: 99%, or probably more than that, are all prosecutions against unlicensed contractors. I could only count maybe two or three prosecutions that we've initiated against Licensed Electrical Contractors.”
ESA pushes the sector underground, neither enforcing compliance nor prosecuting LECs operating without passing mandatory inspections. Thousands of LECs-secondary-offenders coercively perform hundreds of thousands of the uninspected installations (that are formally classified as unsafe). And millions of defects pile up, causing anguish. This is only possible because authorities ignore, or act against the public, or cover this up to this day. This example demonstrates how it happens.
Anyone can make 20 to 50 phone calls to LECs and prove that the (aforementioned B + C + D points) describe the biggest and horrendous fact of safety deterioration. Very briefly it is described here. It will prove that in 2025 thousands of LECs still work without passing mandatory safety inspections.
Some of this continues for: 18 years since the enactment of O. Reg. 570/05; 11 years since I began reporting it to the ESA and then to other authorities; 4 years after the Audit exposed it; 3.5 years since the initial Implementation Plan was published. The pair have always known about the (B + C + D) and its atrocious consequences. But have not: stopped operating inefficiently in 2008; cut the fees after my first demand in 2014; ensured that the ESA is accomplishing its mandate after my 200th warning in 2022. The regulators have not amended legislation related to the (B + C + D) and have not fulfilled the Auditor’s RECOMMENDATION 12 (page 33) even today. They have even taken steps in the opposite direction. After how many stubborn repetition of the mistakes; blocking hundreds of my demands to stop charging millions of dollars for safety deterioration; breaching their own mandates and policies - would this be investigated as a breach of trust or an offence of knowingly inflicting anguish for money?
The new fees added in 2007 by the O. Reg. 570/05, induce massive violations, deteriorate safety and generate millions of dollars for the ESA. It then pays a portion of that revenue, up to $685K as annual oversight fee to the Minister! The total amount of the counterproductive, redundant, excessive fees extracted from 2007 to the present could be $100 million or so. The loss to the actual victims of accidents and fires and the dark figure of crime could be times greater. The primary and the secondary-coerced offenders together erode safety and put a huge number of consumers at risk. Not only have the two regulators always known this, but with a hellish zeal and impunity they planned, implemented, maintained, financially benefited from, and covered up the bad things described in the Audit.
These are the documented statements:
1 electrical mistakes can be costly and deadly
2 The majority of electrical incidents occur as a result of incorrect procedure and human error
3 Human error is responsible for 21% of non-occupational electrical fatalities by potential cause in Ontario, in 2014–2023. Page 30.
4 The Auditor General herself says, “Electrical wiring or products that are installed or manufactured incorrectly pose significant public safety risks such as electrocution and fire.”
Even a single error can cause trouble. The pair knew their mistakes were dangerous, but kept making them anyway. Astonishingly, for many years; for as long as 10 years; and even for most of its existence; or since the enactment of the seemingly good O. Reg. 570/05 in 2007; and even after the Audit was published - not a single error was investigated for consequences. Perhaps because it was a meticulously organised covert operation that boosted the pair leaders' paychecks. And because many of the resulting defects still pose danger and therefore are carefully concealed to avoid responsibility. The pair claim one thing but do the opposite - contrary to: the four aforementioned points; my warnings; logic; common sense; law; justice and against everything good and right under the Sun. Eventually, the whole government benefits from covering this up & from the: .high risk, serious risk of fire and/or electrocution, etc. mistakes unresolved or repeated: for many years or even for most of its [ESA's] existence!
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts has presented its report to the House in April 2022. https://www.ola.org/sites/default/files/node-files/committee/report/pdf/2022/2022-04/Final%20English_ESA.pdf Please search for: does not operate efficiently in carrying and read down.
.https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en22/1-11ESA_en22.pdf, released in November 2022, states, “The Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) and the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery (formerly the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services), as of September 30, 2022, have fully implemented 72% of actions we recommended in our 2020 Annual Report.”
Standing Committee on Public Accounts Follow-Up on Value-for-Money Audit, 2020 Annual Report
https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en22/3-10ESAPAC_en22.pdf
effective November 18, 2022, states: “As of September 2022, 63% of the Committee’s recommended actions had been fully implemented”.
https://esasafe.com/assets/files/esasafe/pdf/Corporate_Reports/ESA-BusinessPlan-F2025.pdf
The ESA BUSINESS PLAN. APRIL 2024 to MARCH 2025 (released Apr 1, 2024) says, “Work has diligently continued on the implementation of the recommendations made in the Auditor General’s December 2020 Audit Report. Eighty-seven percent of the 35 action items that contribute to the implementation of the Auditor General’s recommendations have been completed.” (13 percent are still not fixed in 2025).
The ESA Implementation Plan says in 2025 that 5 response efforts out of 50 or 10% are not completed.
The pair have been doing most of these horrible things to Ontarians since the enactment of O. Reg. 570/05 in 2007! My 200+ emails to the pair and various authorities have been ignored or rejected (please ask and I will forward any number of them to you).
https://esasafe.com/assets/files/esasafe/pdf/Corporate_Reports/ESA-Business-Plan-2023.pdf
The Electrical Safety Authority BUSINESS PLAN. APRIL 2023 MARCH 2024 says,
“By the end of calendar year 2022, ESA completed 80% of the recommendations.”
“The Electrical Safety Authority will: ... always operate with the best interests of all Ontarians in mind.”
But haven't some victims of electrical accidents and fires paid the ultimate price for the 100% and then for 37%, 28%, 20%, 13%, or 10% of the pair's mistakes? Why are some of them still being made today?
Please read this list for 20 seconds. Then, for five minutes, read what the pair leaders said at this 2021 hearing. And repeat these two steps five times. You’ll see staggering opposites. The Audit says: .unable; ineffective; unsuccessful; not fully effective; not successful; the ESA has not developed; has not established; has not ensured; has not confirmed; has not fulfilled; has not undertaken; has not addressed the situation; has not mitigated the risk; has been operating inefficiently; did not adopt technology; not operating effectively and in a cost-efficient way; not following up on thousands of inspected unsafe electrical installations; does not confirm that unsafe installations identified by general inspections are ever fixed, even when the installations pose a serious risk of fire and/or electrocution; not meeting the spirit and intent of Ontario government directives; conducts unnecessary inspections that do not contribute to improved public safety; doesn’t become more efficient; not fulfilling all of its responsibilities under Part VIII of the Electricity Act, 1998 and the Safety and Consumer Statutes Administration Act, 1996 (Acts) to improve public electrical safety; etc. Many of these points consist of hundreds or thousands of individual ongoing failures. But the pair testified: “we corrected it immediately”; “extremely small amount”; “small, low risk”; proud; pleased; achievement; excellence; forward-looking, modern; success; significant progress; exceptional; etc. about their screw-ups!
The aforementioned meetings, hearings and reports did not scrutinise any of the pair statements, even though they completely contradicted the Audit's findings. They didn't invite and did not hear opinions of independent impartial experts. These hearings unlawfully prevented LECs, victims, witnesses, forced or involuntary offenders and myself from testifying, despite my numerous demands. All these hearings have effectively blocked the search for the truth and covered up for the perpetrators. When will the obvious questions be asked and answered? When will an impartial statistical, engineering, financial, operational, regulatory, governance research be conducted into the consequences of the Audit findings? The interrelationship of these points remains unknown and deadly. Will more people be doomed to torment unless a real, not sham, hearing is urgently held?
The implementation results must be meticulously scrutinized. As they are probably 50% or more fake.
There are statistics showing safety improvements. But there are others proving deterioration.
1,470 or 1,490, or so electrical fires occur annually. We cannot save those who were ordinary people before being subjected to these ESA’s mistakes. But if we urgently exercise compassion, mercy, humanity and act, we will bring justice and restitution to some of them. And prevent some future fires.
Between 2012 and 2021, 82% of structure fires occurred in the residential setting. Electrical distribution equipment (26%) remained one of the most common ignition sources in these fires.
Please search the OESR-2022 for “82%” without quotes.
Between 2016 and 2020, 81% of structure fires occurred in the residential setting. Electrical distribution equipment (24%) was one of the most common ignition sources in these fires. Please search the 2021 Ontario Electrical Safety Report for “81%” without quotes.
Among OBC structures, where electricity was the fuel of the ignition source of the fires, there were 16,151 loss fires and 1,364 no-loss fires for a total of 17,515 structure fires from 2011 to 2020. And the number of these fires with loss in 2020 was 1,354. Or 3.7 a day! Look at page 65 of the same 2021 report.
Please search the OESR_2017 for “107%” without quotes. You will see that the five-year rolling average rate of non-occupational electrical-related fatalities per million population has increased by 107% when comparing 2008-2012 and 2013-2017.
Please search the ESA_OESR_2018 for “181%” without quotes. You will see that the five-year rolling average rate of non-occupational electrical-related fatalities per million population has increased by 181% between 2009–2013 and 2014–2018 time periods.
The rate of electrical fire fatalities (where the ignition fuel was identified as electricity and/or the ignition source was electrical distribution equipment) has increased by 102% when comparing the five-year rolling average in 2009–2013 and 2014–2018 (OESR_2019).
The five-year rolling average rate between 2010–2014 and 2015–2019 has increased by 15% per million population.
The rate of non-occupational electrical-related fatalities per million population has increased by 25% between the same time periods.
The five-year rolling average rate of non-occupational electrical-related fatalities per million population has increased by 83%, when comparing 2012-2016 to 2017-2021. (OESR-2021).
The OFMEM data identified 80 deaths (closed cases) in fires for which electricity was the fuel of the ignition source or which were from electrical distribution equipment between 2011 and 2020. Since 2011, the death rate from this type of fire has increased 45% from 0.47 deaths per million population to 0.68 deaths per million population. (OESR-2021).
The rate of non-occupational electrical-related fatalities per million population has increased by 27% between the same time periods (OESR-2022).
The five-year rolling average rate of non-occupational electrical-related fatalities has increased by 38% when comparing 2013–2017 and 2018–2022. Per million population.
Rate increase of 83%. 2013–2017 non-occupational electrical fatalities five-year rolling average per million population compared to five-year period 2018–2022.
OESR-2022-FULL-FINAL page 5.
OESR-2023 demonstrates some improvements in electrical safety, with a few problems:
The OFM data identified 103 structure fire deaths between 2013 and 2022 (excluding First Nations) where electricity was the fuel of the ignition source or were from electrical distribution equipment. Since 2013, the death rate from this type of fire has increased by 16% from 0.74 deaths per million population to 0.86 deaths per million population. Page 51.
Since 2014, there has been a 75% increase in the number of product incidents reported to the ESA. In 2023, there were 553 reports. Compared to the previous year of 2022, this is a 21% increase. Page 68.
Here is another ESA’s “achievement” I’ve been warning about:
More electrical fatalities at home than at work in Ontario
Electrical Safety Authority monitoring (or causing?) this reversal in a historic trend.
These findings described in the Audit have reversed it. Of the 1,000 or so electrical injuries that occur in Ontario every year, nearly half are in the general public. It’s a major atrocious achievement of the pair.
The skyrocketing use of smoke alarms has prevented so many fires. So why are some Ontario's residential electrical fire statistics on the rise and the aforementioned non-occupational safety indicators deteriorating? Is this yet another accomplishment of the pair’s documented failures? These heinous results don't horrify the authorities. Instead of prosecuting, they cover them up. The pair, the Solicitor General and Office of the Fire Marshal must personally inform every Ontario victim of an electrical fire or accident since early 2007, as well as their lawyers and insurers.
A LEC was convicted and fined $537,500 for “saving” $200 to $500 on skipping an inspection. He made one electrical mistake that killed a man. This single case known to me has proven my point that each mistake, every uninspected device or installation is either a: potential miniscule risk, possible small defect, probable considerable, indirect high, or a direct grave health or safety hazard.
How many thousands or millions of electrical defects have the now known 133,000 uninspected installations implanted into structures? And as a consequence, how many tragedies have occurred and may yet take place? I’ve been warning for years about this problem. How many times has the pair been sued for the 133,000 skipped inspections identical to the one in this case? What if some of them set fires? Shall all the 133K customers be classified as victims of breach of inspection service contracts, or breach of trust, or fraud? Shall this particular “mistake” be urgently exposed, or shall the 133K trials be initiated? Shall a public inquiry take place, with: first-hand witnesses; voluntarily confessing involuntary offenders; forced accomplices; critics; opponents; victims; their lawyers and insurers? Or shall impartial experts, members of the IAEI, or the IAFC, or the US, UK or EU accounting, engineering, etc. forensic firms, investigate the facts and formal fire and accident statistics against the claimed achievements?
In 2023 I discovered that ESA had badly failed its Risk Based Oversight (RBO) program, endangering hundreds or thousands of multi-unit building occupants. I am aware of one such incident that occurred very roughly in the period of May to August 2023 to one or more buildings. The pair still do not report this particular failure. Or they hide, or make these records concealed, or disappeared, or withheld, or nonexistent, or not disclosed. ESA charges money for inspections, but routinely does not visit the sites and does not inspect the actual work or installations. Defects accumulate, becoming ticking fire bombs. But the pair are determined to keep this income boosting and self-remunerating program. The entire RBO program is fundamentally flawed. The greed, abuse and misuse make it a grave hazard.
The pair know about the risk but still make errors even today. Some of them generate income and cause accidents and fires. A percentage of the net income still goes into the leadership paychecks.
.Contrary to (B + C + D) and instead of the recommended cuts in the: number and amount of fees, number of semi-parasitic regulators, pair’s staff, red tape, overcharging - the wiring and licensing fees have increased! The fees that the ESA charges [still don't] encourage electrical safety compliance.
Knowing the dire situation, the pair took yet another seemingly right step in the wrong direction and increased the penalties for those who defy the abuse (described here). And now even more coerced violators, involuntary offenders, and the ESA’s victims have to pay higher amounts to brazen corrupters. Instead of improvements, the pair increased risk and presented their own errors as achievements. The ESA is now even more unsuccessful in preventing illegal electrical installations than ever. Why don't authorities investigate and prosecute the biggest, most dangerous, determined, brazen and notorious pair of offenders? So that the fines and penalties imposed on them go to those affected by their massive, still ongoing “mistakes” (or to the casualties of their past conscious actions).
Although ESA shall use collected administrative penalties for the following purposes only: 1. Education initiatives concerning compliance with Part VIII of the Act. 2. Consumer awareness. 3. Electrical safety initiatives for the public. These funds increase total ESA revenue. Other revenue streams are not spent on these three items. As a result, a portion of the higher net income ends up in executives' paychecks.
While the super highly experienced LECs must first get three licenses and pay four fees, the ESA allows absolutely clueless homeowners and occupants to do the same electrical work without a single license and without a single hour of experience! Why is this madness still possible in 2025?
The public assumes that anyone can do it. Homeowners and handymen replace LECs. The ESA catches some offenders, charges numerous: cost recovery notices, director’s orders, notices of violations and gets even more money from: counterproductive dues; higher penalty amounts; greater variety and numbers of their victims, overcharged and abused offenders it has created. These are abhorrent, illicit sources of revenue and the pair’s very exciting but crazy and deadly bonanza!
FOI laws state that the public has the right to be informed to the fullest extent possible. So that people are able to participate in the democratic process and hold elected officials accountable for the wrongs they commit on behalf of, but against, the people.
11 (1) Despite any other provision of this Act, a head shall, as soon as practicable, disclose any record to the public or persons affected if the head has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that it is in the public interest to do so and that the record reveals a grave … health or safety hazard to the public.
A public sector organization (in this case the Ministry) should have disclosed a record of grave hazard even without my single request, let alone my numerous demands over the years. But it never did.
ESA breaches its own Advisory Councils policy and Stakeholder Engagement principles. Critics, whistleblowers, opponents and witnesses haven't been permitted to testify. I wanted to join two of the Councils as a member but was rejected. The ESA and the Ministry kick me from one to another. I still demand an opportunity to prove the conscious or deliberate nature of their wrongdoing. I demand to testify under oath and provide documents to the: ESA leadership, Advisory Councils, the Stakeholder Engagement body, and the MPBSDP. And then to: the Auditor General; the Standing Committee on Public Accounts; the Solicitor General; the Legislative Assembly. The authorities still unlawfully block: voluntary confessions; feedback and evidence from the five LECs and myself. Since 2021 this is being done contrary to the Auditor’s recommendations!
An urgent action must be taken to calculate the total number of mistakes and defects implanted into structures, to expose the horror caused, and to individually provide every customer and victim with details and explanations. Public servants must immediately begin serving the public. When there are the Audit's facts of the increased danger, the authorities must pay attention to them and to the first-hand witnesses. Confessions of the coerced secondary offenders shall be heard immediately. Anyone who has: authority or duty to act; or ability to stop the anguish - but ignores, hides, or covers up the facts, or acts against the public - is complicit in the crime and must be investigated.
You can read this document online here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSEO0Bv31dy1ELKHT4Ytq4B25O00fLBdwS-cqbxUdJftTPlO2MWAaZBfpKTaNqwbOg1p6XLxyQ9lba1/pub All URLs are case sensitive. Please copy/paste the whole URL.
A list of mistakes and safety failures of the Ontario electrical safety regulators:
A list of questions to ask and to demand individual, direct, meaningful, honest answers:
More information, facts, evidence and questions for the directors of the ESA board:
Thank you. Created March 8, 2022. Last updated July 3, 2025.
Viktor Khroustalev
Please email me electrical.contractor.toronto@gmail.com or 647866@gmail.com
We can talk on Zoom or whatsapp 16478666444
I only accept correspondence electronically/digitally and via email
I give my explicit consent to use, access, disclose and share my personal and any other information.
In 1981, I graduated with a M.Sc. diploma in electrical engineering from the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University, USSR. I have worked in the electrical field in five countries and have 42 years of experience, most of it in Ontario. I am now retired.
Skilled Trades Ontario. The annual Certificate of Qualification renewal fee is $60 + HST.
On Sep 18, 2023 all licensing fees increased 5%. And they increased by 2% over the previous 7 years.
As of October 1, 2024, ESA wiring & licensing fees increased again by 3.8%.
If there had been no: errors; abuse; parasitic fees, or if the pair had corrected all the illegal & dangerous things immediately after receiving my first or 20th complaint, there wouldn't have been thousands of LECs skipping mandatory safety inspections. There wouldn't have been the 133K uninspected installations documented in the Audit, nor hundreds of thousands or millions of defects added into the structures. There would have been fewer tragedies. And you would not have received this report!
ESA’s delegated responsibility makes the Board accountable to the public for its safety mandate.
The [ESA] Board is accountable to stakeholders for ESA’s performance. Stakeholders include participants in the electrical industry, government and the general public.
The Minister is accountable to the people of Ontario as a member of the Legislative Assembly and to the Legislative Assembly as a Minister of the Crown in right of Ontario.
The Ministry is in charge of overseeing consumer protection.
The Minister responsible for the administration of the Act or of the SCSAA (the part VIII of the Electricity Act; the Safety and Consumer Statutes Administration Act).
Consumer Protection Act
Consumers should have confidence that they are well-protected and well-informed when they buy goods or services in the marketplace.
The Government of Ontario is dedicated to informing consumers, empowering them with a greater understanding of their rights and protecting consumers from unfair business practices, while holding non-compliant businesses accountable.
The power and legislation stems from the Canadian people through the constitution. The executive authority is entrusted to the government on behalf of the people. This underlines the fact that "governments are the servants of the people and not the reverse". But even today, no official or government body is accountable to me or to consumers who have been exposed to, or affected, or victimized by the formally documented failures.
Such brazen and atrocious corruption in Ontario, may be an indicator of Canada-wide malfeasance among officials in other industries, institutions and jurisdictions that the public is still unaware of.
The December 2020 Audit has exposed just a tip of the iceberg. These are ways to see the whole truth: 1) Putting yourself in the shoes of any victim and imagining the horror of burning alive - just because an official cheated or repeated a mistake and made money off of it - will shock you more than the crimes of some serial killers. And compel you to act. 2) Sending out an email to 100 Ontarians with a short or complete list of mistakes and asking them to answer either these two questions or 20 or 30 of them from this list. 3) Sending out an email to 50 victims with the same list of mistakes and asking them to answer either the same two questions or 20 or 30 of them. 4) Sending out a similar email to 50 residential repair and renovation sector LECs. 5) Sending out a similar email to authorities. And making them publicly answer every question. 6) Conduct an independent telephone survey of approximately 200 licensed electrical contractors in Ontario to determine how many of them operate illegally or do jobs without pulling mandatory ESA inspections. For details read this part or the Audit. 7) Allowing me to testify under oath to the Auditor and other provincial authorities. And allowing the secondary coerced violators, involuntary offenders to voluntarily confess under immunity and anonymity. 8) Individually informing every victim of these failures. And providing all the details and explanations will allow them to learn the truth, understand the danger, and demand: accountability; transparency; access to information; the public's right to know; disclosure of wrongdoing by public servants described here and here; the right to life and security; justice. 9) Getting formal or informal opinions from the independent experts. 10) Launching a new audit, an independent, impartial investigation or public inquiry covering the period from 2007 to the present will reveal even more as yet unknown points of mistakes, failures, unsuccessfulness, inefficiencies, fraud, abuse of power (like this one), and thousands of individual repetitions under each such point. It will demonstrate how the pair's conscious stubborn wrongdoing and government cover up have been boosting their remuneration, endangering and keeping consumers in the dark.
Taking any of these steps will: confirm hundreds of my incessant complaints since 2014; prove that corrupt predators have ignored or illegally blocked all my demands to stop repeating mistakes; that all my warnings have always been valid, substantiated and right. Because some of them were included in the Audit at the end of 2020 or almost seven years later. And that even today, in 2025, the danger exists and I am still right.
Some of these steps can be fulfilled in a day or two. They can benefit the people; the rule of law; the economy; save billions of dollars in other cases where Canadian officials act against the public - all of this at no additional cost! But most importantly, this can prevent future tragedies and save lives! And yet none of these steps has been taken.