October 2006 ISSUE

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President’s Notebook

The Foundations of Our Professions

What a delight it was to witness the interaction of players from our entire engineering, geology and geophysics education cycle. This opportunity arose during the September Council dinner at the Mayfair Club in Edmonton.

Your Council hosted representatives of the Board of Examiners and the APEGGA Education Foundation, as well as APEGGA Teacher Award recipients, the deans of engineering and science of the University of Alberta, and students who’ve won our Gold Medals and scholarships.

The students were thrilled to dine with the deans and rub shoulders with professionals from industry and academia. Councillors were heartened to see the quality of new members entering our three professions, and to be able to dialogue with the players who make our high-quality and well-respected education process work and work well.

At the conclusion of the dinner, I had the distinct pleasure of inducting a new member into our Association. Maj. Mark McCullins, P.Eng., a test pilot with the Canadian Armed Forces, is stationed at 4 Wing, Cold Lake.

Maj. McCullins is a member of the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment, and to find out more about this fine facility, see the story on page 14 of this month’s PEGG.

Maj. McCullins joins Capt. Jonathon Knaul, P.Eng., as the second AETE test pilot to obtain his registration with APEGGA this year. These inductions are particularly noteworthy since military engineers are exempt from APEGGA membership when performing their duties for the Canadian Armed Forces. Some military engineers, however, recognize the value of membership in an organization that protects the public while regulating the professions, and we are certainly proud to have them.

Congratulations to Mark and Jonathon, and thanks to Larry Dublenko, P.Eng., for encouraging these consummate professionals to obtain their professional registration.

Strategic Priorities for 2007
At the Council meeting Sept. 21, Council approved the Strategic Plan for 2007-2016 and in particular the 2007 priority items that form the basis for the 2007 Business Plan of the Association. The full plan is now posted on the APEGGA website.

The key priorities for 2007 are
1. Reach a conclusion with ASET on discussions of the One Act , Two Associations model and to present the outcome to APEGGA members for a vote by ballot

2. Consult with members through a comprehensive Member Survey

3. Continue to build the culture of Personalized Professionalism through the adoption of good governance and best practices by our Members and the Association

4. Assess the professions’ ability to meet the needs for professional practice over the next ten years by forecasting the expected resources, and exploring the implications of a supply/demand gap.

5. Provide leadership on professional and technical issues affecting society by implementing a proactive policy to involve the association publicly in important issues where our involvement will contribute to the public’s understanding of the issues and to positive solutions

6. Address the issue of professional mobility by making meaningful progress on coordination of licensure with other jurisdictions in Canada and with state boards in the U.S.

Professional Mobility
On the mobility front, APEGGA was a prominent participant at the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region Conference held in Edmonton from July 16 to 19. As a result of efforts by Executive Director Neil Windsor, P.Eng., legislators from the eight PNWER jurisdictions passed a resolution calling for improved reciprocity between the jurisdictions regarding the registration of transferring Canadian professional engineers.

The resolution asks that P.Eng. equal PE following eight years of practice after full professional membership is attained. This resolution now gives the individual state licensing boards the vehicle to ask their state legislatures to change their legislation accordingly.

We expect that in due course a number of states will adopt the resolution and make registration for Canadian professional engineers a simpler matter.

Taxi Driver Myth
At the end of August, I took exception to an article written by Calgary Chamber of Commerce President Heather Douglas. Among other things, the Calgary Herald article said that Canadian professionals, including “engineers from the Maritimes,” are being intentionally kept from jobs in Alberta by archaic trade barriers.

“The interprovincial trade blockades are towering, hard to penetrate and effective at keeping skilled labour out,” she wrote. “We call that medieval.”

PRESIDENTS PAST, PRESIDENTS PRESENT - APEGGA President David Chalcroft, P.Eng., left, listens to a presentation by Life Member John McDougall, P.Eng., president and CEO of the Alberta Research Council and a past APEGGA president, during the last Edmonton branch lunch. Next to Mr. Chalcroft is another APEGGA past president — Life Member Dr. Fred Otto, P.Eng., a former engineering dean at the University of Alberta.

I penned a stiff response to the Chamber, which appeared in an e-PEGG and said in part: “...our record speaks for itself. In each of the past several years we have registered over 1,000 engineers from elsewhere in Canada, plus some 1,500 engineers from other countries around the world.”

Through the Inter-Association Mobility Agreement signed by the 12 jurisdictions regulating engineering in Canada, a professional engineer registered in one jurisdiction can readily get licensed in any one of the other jurisdictions — in as little as a few days.

 In other instances, this type of accusation has involved new immigrants to Canada who have not obtained registration to practice engineering in Alberta. Some of these have taken on jobs driving taxis to make ends meet.

A number of these stories have been published in the written press over recent years, in spite of APEGGA’s protestations to the editors. A back-analysis of the 6,000 applications received  by APEGGA from immigrants over the period 1999-2005 showed that 78 per cent obtained their licensure on the merits of their application, while an additional 14 per cent obtained licensure after writing a number of confirmatory exams.

Here’s the kicker.  In all,  92 per cent of internationally educated graduate applicants obtained their licence to practice in Alberta. The taxi driver myth is just that!

Those who did not obtain licensure did not have the credentials needed to practice the professions in Alberta. Either that or they chose to drop out of the process.

My fellow members, we need to get this message out to the public and the press. We are too often falsely accused of protectionism when exactly the opposite is the case.

ASET Discussions Continue
Discussions with ASET around the One Act, Two Associations model have proceeded at a measured pace with three facilitated meetings to date. Communiqué No. 1 was published in the e-PEGG and in the regular PEGG in September. We received about 150 responses from members with a variety of thoughtful viewpoints, and in due course will be publishing a series of responses to clarify or respond to the points and questions raised.

Over the next several weeks, we plan to continue discussions with our counterparts at ASET, and as we reach tentative agreement on further matters, we will publish additional communiqués to keep you informed and to solicit your input.

Thanks for your continued interest and support. As always, you can express your opinion to me directly at president@apegga.org.