January 2008 Issue
President’s Notebook
A Few Thoughts as the
Year Winds Down
BY JOHN McLEOD, P.ENG.
APEGGA President
______________________
Although the Alberta economy has cooled somewhat, most of us are enjoying yet another prosperous Christmas season. This is the perfect time to remind ourselves, no matter what faith we practice or culture we come from, that financial prosperity means little without family, friends, colleagues and a life of fulfillment and purpose.
This is also a traditional time of year for looking ahead. Where will we be next year at this time? How about in 10 or 20 years? What will the Christmas celebrations of our children and their children look like, half a century from now?
Will our prosperity continue? Will Albertans still be living lives of fulfillment and purpose?
The answer to both of the last two questions, I believe, is yes. And I believe your Association and its policies are playing an important role: a role with positive economic, professional and societal implications for many decades to come, no matter what challenges arise.
A whole range of initiatives and improvements in APEGGA’s regulatory and non-regulatory functions are part of that role. The initiative I want to talk about this time is professional mobility.
It’s a big one, even though the concept is simple on the surface. Professional mobility refers to the ability to obtain a licence to practice in another jurisdiction, whether that involves moving to that jurisdiction, or working on projects there from outside the jurisdiction. In practice, though, it involves a complex campaign of negotiations and goodwill building, and the creation of dozens of agreements with other jurisdictions, on this continent and abroad.
It’s also about protecting the high professional standards we’ve developed in Alberta and across Canada, while participating in a global economy and not being protectionist.
For the last decade, improving mobility has been a top priority for your Executive Committee. The momentum has been building. Later in this article you’ll read about some of the most recent mobility successes, as well as some of the types of mobility APEGGA professionals now enjoy and the areas of mobility your Association is striving to develop and improve.
Why Mobility Matters
Perhaps some of you are thinking, why would mobility matter to me? I’m making plenty of money, right here, right now. Life is good.
Well, here are a few sobering observations.
First, it takes far more APEGGA members to build up the oilsands than it does to operate the billions of dollars worth of plants coming on stream in the next few decades. Many corporations will be swelling with experienced project management and development teams — and the Alberta of the future may very well have a reduced number of opportunities, at home, to put them to work.
As for traditional oil and gas, we’re dealing with a mature basin. While the challenges this presents draw on professions today, the supply won’t go on forever.
International companies are nothing new, and many of our members work abroad. In the last few years, domestic prosperity has brought a goodly number of them home, however.
There’s been much comment lately about the shortage of professionals in Alberta. But APEGGA’s own research forecasts the gap shrinking. A decade from now, supply will meet demand. Early in 2008, you’ll be able to read our full Labour Market White Paper online.
Alberta universities, meanwhile, are determined to increase enrolments,
improve the quality of their programs and continue building their reputations
as top-notch research and education centres. This is certainly something the
Association supports, but history and labour forecasts suggest the economic cycle
will not always be as favourable for new members as it is today.
Your Mobility Primer
Loosely speaking, there are three types of mobility — mobility between Canadian and U.S. jurisdictions, mobility between Canadian jurisdictions and jurisdictions outside of the U.S. and Canada, and inter-provincial mobility.
Mobility at home, particularly in engineering, tends to be the simplest. In fact, for engineers in Canada we have virtually full mobility.
Although in exceptional circumstances a transfer might be rejected, an engineer licensed and in good standing with one jurisdiction will almost always, after making application or moving to another jurisdiction, receive a licence quickly and without any additional requirements. This model of Canadian mobility for engineers came into being through the Inter-Association Mobility Agreement of 1999.
In 2001 Canadian geoscience regulating associations signed a parallel agreement. Still, geoscientists face special problems with mobility. Geoscience mobility in Canada will improve with the acceptance of the National Minimum Geoscience Knowledge for Registration, drafted by the Canadian Geoscience Standards Board and now being considered by jurisdictions across the country.
International mobility will never be completely full. Professional standards in Canada, the U.S. and other developed nations are far higher than they are in many less-developed nations. Bodies of knowledge and programs at universities are diverse.
However, we do enjoy some level of mobility in the international community, and we do so without sacrificing Alberta’s high standards.
The most significant international mobility agreement is the Washington Accord, signed in 1989 by the bodies that accredit engineering degree programs in Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Ireland, the United Kingdom and South Africa. The accord recognizes the “substantial equivalency” of the accredited programs in the signatory countries.
A special register, called the Engineering Mobility Forum Register, builds on the Washington Accord. Being on the register doesn’t guarantee a professional will be registered elsewhere, but it does serve as a form of calling card.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Engineer Register serves a similar function for the more than 20 economies included in APEC.
APEGGA’s Board of Examiners and Registration Department have made great strides in improving how all applications for licensure are handled, and in particular, those of internationally educated graduates. The latest step is the creation of the Provisional Licensee designation, which you can read about on page 2 of this month’s PEGG.
Good Neighbours
The biggest mobility development opportunity is, by far, with our biggest trading partner, the U.S.A.
We’re making progress, but the process is a complicated one because individual states have differing requirements for licensing Canadian-trained engineers.
When U.S. engineers with the PE designation come to Canada for licensure, they often don’t have to write confirmatory exams. To a great extent, the Canadian self-regulating groups look at a PE as equal to P.Eng.
The same isn’t always true in the U.S. Typically, a State Board will require a Canadian P.Eng. to write the grueling Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, and then, after several years of experience, follow up with Principles and Practices of Engineering Exam before becoming a fully licensed engineer.
Also, a Canadian with the PE designation in one state isn’t guaranteed licensure in another.
What We’re Doing
I’m pleased to report that the goodwill between U.S. jurisdictions, APEGGA and other Canadian self-regulating groups in the engineering realm continues to grow. As it grows, mobility is improving.
This is in no small part due to the efforts of APEGGA Executive Director & Registrar Neil Windsor, P.Eng., and a succession of presidents who have come before me. APEGGA has forged key relationships through the U.S. National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, or NCEES, and the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region, or PNWER, as well as state-by-state with the licensing boards themselves.
The biggest statement of the goodwill that now exists came last April, at the second of two U.S.-Canada mobility forums hosted by APEGGA over the last decade. Delegates targeted 2009 as the year for a heightened degree of reciprocity. In that year, the hope is that P.Eng. and PE will be as close to equal as the two different countries can expect.
Idaho and Washington licensing boards both favour waiving exams for Canadian engineers with eight or more years of experience after licensure. Texas for years has also waived all or some of the U.S. exams on eight years of experience after licensure.
In November, the Nevada board agreed to go even further. A Canadian engineer with four years or more of experience after registration — that’s eight years total when the member-in-training period is counted — may now be licensed without taking exams, through a new board policy. We have good reason to believe that other states will adopt similar policies in the near future.
Faith and Confidence
Ultimately, a new Alberta will emerge as the development of fossil fuels
becomes less a part of our economy. In a sense, improved mobility is a statement
of faith and confidence in the engineers and geoscientists educated and trained
here, because mobility has to be, as much as possible, a two-way street.
It says to the world that we’re confident enough to let professionals who meet our high standards come here for employment — but that we want and expect others to treat us the same.
Our greatest resources, when it comes down to it, are not the ones in the ground. They are our knowledge, our professionalism and our people. These are the resources we will continue taking to the international stage for many years and Christmases to come.
On behalf of Council, the Executive Committee and the rest of your Association, I wish you and yours the best of the season.
And if you do find time over the holidays to drop me a line, don’t be shy. Send it along to president@apegga.org.