Act and Bylaw Review

May 2024 Update

APEGS is engaging in a review of The Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act and associated bylaws. Below is an overview of information that was shared with the membership at the Annual Meeting and Professional Development Conference on May 3-4, 2024.

Current Status

Information on the act and bylaw review was presented at the Modern Regulation for a Resilient World Information Session at the professional development conference on May 3, 2024, and at the annual meeting on May 4, 2024. APEGS plans to have in-person and online information sessions throughout 2024 and into early 2025. Details on the location, time and topics of each information session will be communicated to APEGS membership in the coming months.

APEGS is committed to ongoing communication. Updates will be made available through outreach channels such as The Edge Monthly e-newsletter, The Professional Edge print magazine, and this webpage.

Reasons for the change

The act and bylaws have not undergone a comprehensive review since 1997. Over the last 27 years, the professions have evolved, including the public’s expectations of how we regulate all registrants. Review is important to ensure the way APEGS is regulating the professions is evolving and necessary organizational improvements can occur. With the introduction of The Labour Mobility and Fair Registration Practices Act in May 2022, the time is right to take a closer look at how we regulate, ensuring APEGS continues to uphold public confidence in our processes.

It is important to change before you have to, and we are not alone. Other provincial professional regulators in Saskatchewan and engineering and geoscience regulators throughout Canada have or are going through the same changes as APEGS.

Timeline

It is important to remember that the Government of Saskatchewan owns the act and will be responsible for approving and implementing any changes made. The current plan is to provide the proposed changes to government during the call for legislation in early 2025. If approved, we hope the changes will be implemented by late 2025 or early 2026; however, the timeline is subject to change and may be impacted by the provincial election in the fall of 2024.

What it means for registrants

The key impacts include:

  • Day to day practice does not change;
  • Firms will be required to have professional practice standards, similar to sister jurisdictions;
  • Simplification of Act and bylaws for better transparency and understanding of professional responsibilities;
  • Modernize legislation that considers public safety and expectations allows us to remain self-regulating; and,
  • Strong professions now and into the future.

November 2023

APEGS is engaging in a review of the Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act and associated bylaws. The act and bylaws have not been reviewed since 1997. Review is important to help us regulate the professions more effectively. With the introduction of the Labour Mobility and Fair Registration Practices Act in May 2022, the time is right to evolve our processes and increase our responsiveness.

We are not alone. Other provincial professional regulators in Saskatchewan and engineering and geoscience regulators throughout Canada have gone or are going through the same changes as APEGS.

Themes of Change
  • Simplify: Move specifics from the act to bylaws and procedures
  • Modernize Terminology: Use terminology that is inclusive and easily understood by the public and reflects our role as a regulator.
  • Expand Entity Regulation: Give APEGS scope to audit and enforce standards of practice and investigate and discipline business entities, in addition to individual registrants.
  • Increase Public Representation and Accountability: Increase involvement of public representatives in the governance of APEGS and enhance our accountability to the public.
  • Modernize Registration Framework: Ensure registration categories and processes reflect current public expectations of inclusivity, fairness, transparency and timeliness.
  • Improve Efficiency, Effectiveness and Transparency of Governance Processes: Improve the ability for the council to represent members and maintain strategic oversight, while empowering the executive director and registrar to manage operations through a cohesive bylaw and policy framework, ensuring that the public understands what APEGS is doing to regulate in their best interest.
  • Investigation and Discipline Transparency: Improve transparency of processes and provide clarity on roles of APEGS, council, and public. (Potentially develop an appeals committee separate from council.)
Proposed Changes Endorsed by Council

In addition to the key themes of change outlined above, the proposed changes generally endorsed by the council on November 30th, 2023, included:

  1. Amending the definition of “practice of professional geoscience” to ensure alignment with the practice of professional engineering and to better reflect the work of professional geoscientists.
  2. Changing the association’s operating name to Engineers Geoscientists Saskatchewan.
  3. Amending the objects of the association to include two duties and two objects.
  4. Using the title Intern instead of Engineer-in-Training and Geoscientist-in-Training.
  5. Recognition and protection of titles for Engineering Licensee (Eng.L), Geoscience Licensee (Geo.L.), Engineering Intern, and Geoscience Intern.
  6. Modernizing governance concepts respecting roles, responsibilities, and language. This includes changing the way bylaws are made and changing titles from Council to Board, President to Chair, and Executive Director to CEO.
  7. Creation of a new appeals committee as a statutory committee to review appeals related to decisions of the Registrar and decision of the Investigation Committee that no further action be taken.

Although the above concepts have been endorsed by the council, the Government of Saskatchewan ultimately approves of the changes through cabinet approval.

Schedule

September 2023 to November 2023 – Review the act and bylaws and note desired changes, consulting with the Minister in the process

December 2023 – Provide Minister with draft amendments

January 2024 to May 2024 – Work with Minister to develop the draft legislative proposal

May 2024 to December 2024 – Stakeholder engagement

January 2025 to August 2025 – Prepare decision item for cabinet approval

September 2025 to December 2025 – Introduce bill through to royal assent

Commitment to Ongoing Communication

The Act and Bylaw Review Task Group is lead by Chair, Erin Moss Tressel, P.Eng., P.Geo., along with Nicholas Kaminski, P.Eng., Monte Gorchinski, Public Representative, Peter Jackson, P.Eng., and Bert Munro, P.Eng. in addition to staff support. The task group is committed to keep momentum and continue with our original thinking of reviewing and recommending changes and pass along to government to carry out their legislative process.

Watch for updates on progress through outreach channels: The Edge Monthly e-newsletter (emailed on the 15th of each month or next business day), The Professional Edge print magazine (mailed in June and December).