March 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.
Q Are
APEGGA life members still entitled to practice engineering, geology or geophysics
after they have been granted life membership?
A The answer depends on the circumstances under which a professional member was granted life membership. Over the years there have been different criteria for the life membership category, so the first point to consider is the date an individual became a life member.
APEGGA’s bylaws state: “Council may confer life membership in the Association upon any professional member who (a) has been a professional member for 25 or more years; or has held equivalent registration in a jurisdiction recognized by the Association, and professional membership totaling a minimum of 25 years, of which at least the last 10 years have been with the Association, and (b) has retired from the practice of the professions.”
The above criteria are current and have been in place since April 1991. “Retired from the practice of the professions” means that to be eligible to receive life membership a member agrees to give up his or her right to practice. Simply put, those individuals who have become life members since April 1991 are not entitled to practice.
If life members wish to resume practice, they would need to submit an application to the Practice Review Board. The board would then determine whether there were any conditions to be met before granting permission to resume practice. The members would not be entitled to practice until explicitly receiving the board’s permission.
They would, of course, need to relinquish their life membership and resume
paying full annual dues.
Prior to April 1991, the criteria for life membership were: (a) having membership
in APEGGA for 15 or more years and being at least 65 years of age or (b) having
membership in APEGGA for 10 or more years, being at least 60 years of age and
having retired from active practice.
Those life members who were granted life membership prior to April 1991 under the “15/65” criteria were not required to be retired and were not required to relinquish their right to practice. Barring any other circumstances, they are entitled to practice. Those who received life membership under the “10/60” criteria are not entitled to practice, however. They, too, could apply for permission to resume practice as noted earlier.
In a discipline case a few years ago, a life member was found to have breached the Code of Ethics for having engaged in the practice of engineering while he was not entitled to do so. As a result, he received a reprimand from the Discipline Committee.
The issue was not the prime focus of the case, since it came to APEGGA’s attention as a result of a complaint regarding the engineer’s structural engineering services, which subsequently were found to constitute unskilled practice.