July 2008 Issue
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE & ETHICS CORNER
APEGGA members with professional practice or ethics questions are welcome to mail them to Ray Chopiuk, P.Eng., Director, Professional Practice, APEGGA, 1500 Scotia One, 10060 Jasper AVE NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 4A2; fax them to 780-426-1877; or e-mail them to rchopiuk@apega.ca.
Q I am currently in the process of ordering a stamp for myself as my current employer requires me to stamp documents for city development permits. In the interim, is it acceptable practice to sign and print my professional registration number on documents in lieu of an actual stamp?
A The regulations under the Engineering, Geological and Geophysical Professions Act require that documents of a professional nature be stamped with the member's professional stamp, so signing and printing your member number would not be acceptable. It is highly unlikely that the city would accept an unstamped drawing if you were to submit it to there. Your employer would need to wait until you received your stamp from APEGGA or else find another engineer who would be in a position to properly stamp the documents.
Q I work as a building safety codes officer. Is there a requirement with APEGGA that, over time, a date on an engineer's stamp makes the stamp no longer valid? For example, I received a stamp dated and signed July 8, 2005. Do you have any recommendations for this situation?
A The regulations require professional members to show the date on which they stamp and sign a professional document. That would be the only significance of the July 8, 2005, date that you see. The significance of the engineer’s stamp is that the engineer, by applying his or her stamp to a document, indicates that he or she is accepting professional responsibility for the professional work contained in the document.
The individual’s responsibility would not cease because a certain amount of time might have passed since he or she stamped the document. In other words, there is no "expiry date" on an individual’s stamp that appears on a document.
Q What are the requirements for keeping copies of professional documents?
A Neither the act nor the regulations directly address the matter of retention of professional documents. However, APEGGA’s Practice Standards Committee considered the issue and included a commentary in Section 3.3 of its Practice Standard for Authenticating Professional Documents. You can find it at www.apega.ca, under Fast Find, Publications, Guidelines, item 26.
The standard explains that a professional member or permit holder should endeavour to retain the authenticated original document and issue an authenticated reproduction to the client. If the original is provided to the client, the professional member should retain a duplicate authenticated original or an authenticated reproduction for record purposes. The document should be identified as a record copy to the effect: "This copy or document is for record purposes and shall not be revised."
A professional member should keep a professional document at least until the period of professional liability expires or longer as circumstances may require. The Alberta Limitations Act that came into force on March 1, 1999, provides for a total maximum time of 10 years to discover an "injury" and make a claim. Within those 10 years, the claim must be made within two years from the date that the necessary basis of a claim was discovered. Therefore, a document should be kept for at least 10 years.
An authenticated professional document of record should be stored so that its integrity remains intact.