February 2006 ISSUE
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE & ETHICS CORNER
APEGGA members with professional practice or ethics questions are welcome to send them to Ray Chopiuk, P.Eng., Director, Professional Practice, APEGGA, 1500 Scotia One, 10060 Jasper AVE NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 4A2; fax 780-426-1877; e-mail rchopiuk@apegga.org.
QIf
an APEGGA member is convicted of a criminal offence that is unrelated to his
or her professional work in engi-neering, geology or geophysics, would the member’s
registration be revoked or cancelled?
A Simply being convicted of a criminal offence would not necessarily result in an individual’s registration being cancelled. Certainly, cancellation would not occur automatically, if at all.
A complaint against a member by the registrar or anyone else would need to result in a charge of unprofessional conduct being brought before the Discipline Committee. The Discipline Committee would then have to find that the conduct or actions of the member that resulted in the criminal conviction were, firstly, unprofessional and, secondly, of such a serious nature that cancellation was an appropriate order or sanction.
Whether or not the conduct was related to the member’s professional work in engineering, geology or geophysics would not be the deciding factor. The Engineering, Geological and Geophysical Professions Act uses the term “unprofessional conduct” rather than the term “professional misconduct.” The Discipline Committee’s interpretation of that term is that the legislators intended that actions beyond the strict practice of the professions would be considered.
In the recent past, the Discipline Committee has cancelled two engineers’ memberships who had previously been convicted of criminal offences. One was an engineer/lawyer who engaged in fraudulent financial activities and served time as a result.
The second was an engineer who also served time. He had failed to pay employees’ salaries while falsely claiming that he did; he failed to submit Canada Pension Plan and Unemploy-ment Insurance Commission deductions, and he misused federal Industrial Research Assistance Program funds.
In the second case, the Discipline Committee made its findings and orders almost entirely on the basis of the cross-examination of the engineer in the discipline hearing. As the Discipline Committee said in its decision, “In summary, the Panel finds that the pattern of [the member’s] conduct was dishonest and deceitful. The mere failures of a business would not normally attract the attention of the Association. [The member] dealt with the public, his staff and others in the profession improperly and in a manner that contravenes the Code of Ethics.”
Although not related to any criminal offence, another case illustrates the point that conduct not involving engineering, geology or geophysics can result in disciplinary orders being assessed. In this instance, an engineer received a reprimand for unprofessional conduct.
He had admitted that he made racist comments to another engineer and that he made insulting and offensive remarks to the engineer’s companion. In addition, the disciplined engineer had insisted that the other engineer share the same car and hotel room on an out-of-town assignment, knowing that the other man was asthmatic and could become ill from second-hand smoke.