October 2008 issue
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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’m a registered engineer-in-training and have been working for a small manufacturing company for almost four years. I will be taking the APEGGA Professional Practice Exam very soon. My supervisor is a registered professional engineer and, together, we perform various engineering duties, always with his professional review and sign-off. He and I are the only engineers in the company.
Recently, I learned that my supervisor will be leaving the company. If the company is not able to find a professional engineer to provide competent review and sign-off, what are my ethical and legal obligations regarding my work? Is it ethical for me, as an E.I.T., to be doing engineering work without professional oversight?
I have been offered the position of senior engineer, which would make me responsible for all design and engineering work performed. I think my read on this is correct, but I’d like confirmation: Even if I were technically competent to perform the work, I believe I am ethically obligated not to take a position of this responsibility if I am not yet licensed as a professional engineer. Is that correct?
A Yes, you are correct. The Engineering, Geological and Geophysical Professions Act allows engineers-in-training to practice engineering if they are “employed or engaged and supervised and controlled by a professional engineer, licensee, permit holder or certificate holder.” As an E.I.T., you would not be entitled to take responsibility for the company’s design and engineering work. Ethically, you could not accept the senior engineer position.
As far as your engineering and design work goes, you could not continue to do that without professional supervision and control, even if you thought you were technically competent. Presumably the company will find another professional engineer to take responsibility for the engineering work being done within the company. As soon as you obtain your professional registration, you would be able to practice independently and fulfill the obligations that go with the senior engineer position.
Q An engineer employed by our consulting company signed and stamped the A-2, B-1 and B-2 Schedules for a building project as required by the Alberta Building Code. The engineer left the company and now we are faced with doing the field reviews and issuing Schedule C-2 without that person’s involvement. Can someone else look after that or does it have to be that person?
A The engineer would have signed the A and B Schedules on behalf of the consulting firm. Even though the individual is no longer with your company, the company is still responsible for completing its obligations for the outstanding field reviews, including issuing Schedule C-2. It isn’t mandatory that the particular engineer who issued the earlier schedules be the same engineer who takes responsibility for field review and who issues C-2 on behalf of the company. While it’s preferable that it be the same individual, there can be various reasons why that isn’t possible, such as the one here.
If there is another engineer in the company who is competent in the particular engineering discipline involved, that person could undertake the remaining responsibilities for field review and could sign C-2 on behalf of the company. If that isn’t the case, the company needs to remedy that deficiency so that the continuity of construction/field review isn’t jeopardized.
If it can’t, it would need to advise its client and the authority having jurisdiction that the company is not able to complete its contract for field review. Obviously, that will have ramifications.
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