January 2008 Issue
backgrounder
Act Changes Considered for 2008 Balloting
At its Dec. 6 meeting, Council supported seeking input from Members and possibly holding Member votes on two possible changes requiring amendments to the Engineering, Geological and Geophysical Professions Act. One would give full APEGGA membership privileges — the right to hold office and the right to vote — to members-in-training. The other would amalgamate the designations Professional Geologist and Professional Geophysicist into a single designation called Professional Geoscientist, or P.Geo. Following are backgrounders on each proposal.
Both of these votes could be held in conjunction with the regular 2008 APEGGA Council election.
Before you received this edition of The PEGG, discussion papers were distributed through an e-PEGG Extra, seeking responses to both potential changes. Those discussion papers will appear in hardcopy form in the February PEGG.
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Members-in-training often bring their energy and perspective to APEGGA business at the branch level. The Association has 10 branches, spread throughout the province, and M.I.T.s at one time or another have been involved in the business of all of them. In fact, M.I.T.s have often chaired branches. They often volunteer for APEGGA committees and the Outreach Program.
Despite this, M.I.T.s cannot vote in APEGGA elections or other Member ballots, or at Annual General Meetings. Neither are they allowed to run for office and hold positions on Council.
APEGGA and Council encourage the engagement of young people in the business of self-governance and respect their input. While still university students in Alberta, future engineers and geoscientists often choose to join APEGGA through the APEGGA Student Advantage Program, or ASAP.
Would another way to build engagement and input be to have electoral rights begin with members’ registration as M.I.T.s?
In the member vote on One Act, Two Associations, one of the main groups interested in the subject was M.I.T.s, yet they were unable to vote in the special ballot.
Based on the current situation, the Council Governance Committee brought the matter to Council. The committee noted that M.I.T.s
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already vote in municipal, provincial and federal elections
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need to be engaged in APEGGA business early, so they develop an interest that continues through their professional careers
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bring a diversity of opinion that APEGGA should value
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are the future of the professions.
Under the EGGP Act, APEGGA is responsible for licensing professionals in geology and geophysics as well as engineering. When the Association began in 1920, membership included geologists within the category of mining engineering.
The designation Professional Geologist, or P.Geol., was added in 1955, followed by Professional Geophysicist, or P.Geoph., in 1960. Since then, all other Canadian jurisdictions have moved to licensing geoscientists under one designation, Professional Geoscientist, or P.Geo.
The two main reasons for moving to a single designation are enhanced compliance and enhanced mobility. Compliance is APEGGA’s role in making sure those who practice the professions are licensed to do so. Mobility refers to the ability of professionals to practice in other jurisdictions.
Enhanced compliance leads to greater public protection, the mandate of every self-regulating profession in Canada. As a regulator, APEGGA considers improved compliance in the geoscience community important. Yet a recent APEGGA survey found that full compliance has not been achieved in the geosciences. The survey suggests that only 53 per cent of geophysicists and 65 per cent of geologists in Alberta are licensed.
As the practice of geoscience has progressed over the past six decades, the two, narrower designations are increasingly challenged by emergent geoscience work that falls between the two APEGGA designations. For example, APEGBC can regulate the practice of geochemists under its P.Geo. designation, but APEGGA has a challenge accommodating this under the current structure.
In addition to those in geoscience who do not now fit under the P.Geol. or P.Geoph. umbrellas (but should), it’s believed that many geologists and geophysicists have, over the years, inadvertently begun crossing over into scopes they aren’t licensed to practice.
This puts them, unintentionally, into non-compliance, even though experience and their own professional development may well qualify them for the work.
It is interesting to note that the practices of geology and geophysics are more closely related than most engineering disciplines.
APEGGA will not lower requirements. It is unlikely that someone with a geography degree, for example, would qualify for the P.Geo. designation, just as it is now for P.Geol. and P.Geoph.
Enhanced mobility is an issue of great concern and interest to Alberta’s geoscience community. Yet Alberta is the only jurisdiction licensing P.Geols. and P.Geophs. rather than P.Geos.
Licensing P.Geos. would, therefore, align Alberta with other jurisdictions — one important step towards improved professional mobility.
Geologists and geophysicists licensed by APEGGA are understandably proud of their designations. Under the new system, no members, however, would be forced to abandon their current designations. They would switch to the new P.Geo. only if they wanted to. However, to minimize public confusion when the new designation comes into being, no new P.Geol. and P.Geoph. designations would be granted.
The change to P.Geo. would likely mean a change to the Association’s name sometime in the future, providing a good opportunity to update and shorten it as have Engineers Canada and Engineers Nova Scotia.