Cathy Polan (supplied)
Cathy Polan, the new president of the Ontario Real Estate Association, confesses to being “nervous, anxious, and excited all at the same time” about her role.
As head of the organization, she joins a growing number of women in top leadership positions within the industry. “Over the last four years, three of OREA’s presidents have been women,” Polan notes.
“This is more than a moment—it’s a movement.”
The Belleville-based Realtor, who’s a sales rep with Royal Heritage Realty, was announced as OREA’s 2025 president following the association’s annual general meeting on March 27. She replaces outgoing president Rick Kedzior. Polan is now representing the province’s nearly 100,000 Realtors, with the aim of ensuring that they have the necessary resources, supports, and regulatory framework, with strong leadership at their back to help strengthen the real estate sector and advocate for greater housing supply and affordability.
Polan highlights OREA’s solid relationship with Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
“During such a pivotal time, it’s more important than ever that we work together to keep the dream of home ownership alive for the next generation,” she states, stressing that it will take the engagement of all levels of government to do so.
Tackling supply, affordability and CEO succession
No easy feat, of course. She admits that Ontario’s housing affordability crisis and supply issues won’t be resolved during her presidency.
“It’s not a quick fix.”
OREA is pushing for factory-built modular housing as a potential option to help relieve the province’s supply crunch. The future depends on innovative solutions, the organization asserts.
Polan faces a host of other challenges as well. “It’s been very busy.”
She feels fortunate that her husband, Bruce, also a Realtor, can fill in for her at the brokerage when necessary. “He’s my calm to the storm.”
At OREA, her undertakings include helping to find a new permanent CEO for the association (“hopefully in the next couple of months”), following Tim Hudak’s resignation last summer. Trying to ensure that housing issues don’t get sidelined now that the Ontario premier has no choice but to be laser-focused on the U.S. tariffs crisis is another pressing matter.
There’s also Toronto’s infamous condo glut. “We’re hoping it’s just a bump in the market,” observes Polan. Landlord/tenant reforms are needed as well.
Controversial issues and longstanding challenges
Other business on Polan’s radar includes the longstanding and outdated ‘auctioneer loophole,’ wherein auctioneers are permitted to sell real estate without a formal license.
And let’s not forget the Ontario Realtor Wellness Program (ORWP), the controversial mandatory health-benefit package for members introduced by OREA early last year that ruffled a lot of feathers. “The ORWP isn’t going away,” maintains Polan. “The program is working for the most part, but there are still some people not happy with it. We continue to work to improve it. We have data now which will help with that.”
It’s clear that being president of OREA is no cakewalk, and that Polan and the OREA board aren’t going to be able to make everyone happy.
“We know that,” she says.
With 16 years in the business behind her as well as an extensive background in organized real estate, which formerly included sitting on various key OREA committees and serving as president of the local real estate association, Polan is an industry veteran and seems prepared for the challenge.
Says her friend Lisa Comerford, chief public affairs officer for the Central Lakes Association of Realtors (Polan’s local association): “Cathy has shown time and again an incredible level of commitment to this industry and its advancement, whether it was a popular position or not.”
A viral TikTok moment and new strategic direction
That said, one place Polan has been spectacularly popular is TikTok, where she recently got a mind-boggling 6.5 million views.
How on earth, you ask?
It turns out that Polan—staunch OREA president and grandmother of six—is a Belieber.
She read the news that Justin Bieber is currently struggling with impostor syndrome. “I saw an article that said he felt unworthy” of his success, she explains. It nearly brought her to tears.
So she got up from a nap and posted a TikTok video of support, which she hoped would reach the singer, telling him that it’s human nature to have those feelings at times and that they don’t mean that he’s a fraud.
“You are worthy, Justin,” she said. “Not because of perfection but because of the beautiful, real person you are.”
Comments poured in from all over the world. And although Polan didn’t hear back from Bieber personally, she got a message from someone saying they were close to him and that he was grateful for her post. “I hope that’s true,” remarks Polan.
Not one to bypass an opportunity that fell into her lap, she’s now looking into leveraging some of those millions of TikTok responses into leads.
Fired up to make her own stamp on the industry, Polan met with member boards and asked for their views—“the good, the bad, and the ugly.” She and the OREA team will now start to form a strategic plan.
“If we don’t do anything, that was wasted time,” says Polan. “And I don’t like wasting anyone’s time.”
Susan Doran is a Toronto-based freelance writer who has been contributing to REM since its very first issue.
Give her a good opportunity to succeed
OREA’s top priority should be the elimination of the mandatory component of the ORWP as a significant number of its members (including myself) are opposed to it for so many reasons especially those of us over 65 who are paying the same as those under 65 for reduced benefits. No matter what the spin OREA doles out on this – it’s discriminatory – and overall OREA does not have the right to dictate personal insurance coverages onto all of its members who are fully capable to make those decisions on their own.
Cathy Polan who was one of the ORWP task force members states:
“The [ORWP] program is working for the most part, but there are still some people not happy with it. We continue to work to improve it. We have data now which will help with that.”
Let the true meaning of those words sink in, especially, “for the most part,” and “we have data now to help with that.” It goes to show how slipshod, hurried and ill-planned it was.
The 2024 financial report is a hot mess. They’ve paid out more towards premiums, administration fees and almost one and a half million more in credit card fees than collected in orwp fees and that’s just year 1 – a loss of almost $1million on ORWP alone. Year two is a projected loss of $2 million. Year 3 which will surely see ORWP fees increase substantially will be even larger loss when the rooster comes home to roost as the insurers line up for a substantial increase in premiums.
The reserve fund took a massive hit which will deplete it in 6-7 years at this rate. It’s a travesty for such a well funded organization with no production overhead.
The membership should be asking how the finances are so poorly managed such that the $660 is insufficient to cover the premium, the 3%+ pay out of admin fees and credit card reimbursement costs of the boards, never mind the glaring other over-expenditures. But as usual 90% or more have no clue what is going on.
I think OREA should focus on the integrity of licensing in Ontario. It’s a joke, Considering that the course and the exam is offered ONLY in English and is a tough University level course., yet we all meet realtors on a daily basis that cannot even converse properly in English, their paperwork and knowledge of clauses and legalities just reinforces this lack of understanding.
How can they have possibly actually passed this course and become licensed if they don’t understand english ?
Instead of ensuring that the person obtaining the licenses truly wrote the exam,( when we see signs posted all over offering exam writing services for huge money and OREA is well aware) Instead, of OREA addressing the problem they created , government steps in with legislation try to fix the problem after the fact by adding more restrictive
regulations and more and more forms and restrictions.
We are the recipients and scapegoats for OREAS lack of due diligence in licensing practices.
Simply have registration ONLY in person, where either a retinal scan or thumb print is used as baseline ID and then the exam MUST also be in person and ID verified using the same ID. That would eliminate any illegal practices. You can’t legislate honesty , but you can prevent fraud. Years ago, when chatting at a convention with an OREA executive, it was clear they were all well aware of this problem at least 15 years ago. But are still refusing to FIX IT
As for ORWP, I’m 75 and forced, by just a trade association that has No right to deny my license renewal because I do not want insurance where I’m literally forced to subsidize other realtors, while ineligible for many of the benefits I must pay for.
I was under the impression in Ontario that it is illegal to charge for services that you cannot or will not supply, yet this association thinks they have the power to do just that. I will vote OREA out permanently if/when that becomes an option. They have far exceeded their authority as a simple trade association. PAY OR LOSE YOUR LICENSE ( that I’ve had for 37+ years ) Even our constitution says its illegal to restrict someone’s right to make a living. It’s just blackmail not association membership.
I totally agree with the comments above. We, mature agents have worked hard for so many years (30 years in my case) supporting TRREB, OREA and CREA with my fees, and the powers to be just go ahead and force the mature experienced Realtors who have never received any benefits from OREA in the past, and have all along paid for whatever benefits they wanted. Now CREA makes it mandatory for us to support and pay for the newbies — who make our work even more difficult too. The progrram should have been made voluntary and if it was too expensive for the younger agents, then so be it. It was expensive for us as new agents to also manage to pay for the benefits we wanted! No wonder the more mature agents were forced to leave the business, as they were literally “DRIVEN” out if they did not pay the fees to carry the younger agents for their benefits. Totally, no vision by the people who created this sloppy ORWP which does not benefit the more mature agents and me in any way whatsoever! I would challenge any one of them to show me where I gain anything making me join the ORWP. I gues those tat mandated the program were only thinking of themselves and how it would benefit them and therefore made it mandatory!!! Total utter disgrace and bullying! A big shame on them.
I agree with the above complaints of the OWRP . Whoever negotiated this deal did a poor job. Why no dental or eye component especially since you basically handed the insurance company 100,000 new members. It’s shameful.