President’s Notebook
MASTER APEGA
We Must Honour the Privilege of Self-Regulation — or Risk Losing It
BY DR. STEVE E. HRUDEY, P.ENG., FEC, FGC (HON.) FCAE, FSRA APEGA President
we must focus our continuing regulatory improvements with them in mind. APEGA exists because of the authority granted to us in provincial statute, which means we must honour and understand the obligations required of us by law. Any perception in a specific case — justified or otherwise — that our professions have failed at this could undermine our ability to maintain our privilege to self-regulate. The government must trust us, as must the public it represents. Trust is very challenging to earn, remarkably easy to lose — and, once lost, incredibly difficult to regain. We should be proud that our professions have for the most part earned that trust, but to retain it we must be vigilant and willing to learn from the experience of other self-regulating professional agencies. On July 6, Quebec’s Justice Minister announced that the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ) was being placed under provincial government trusteeship. An APEGA sister regulator, OIQ, with about 61,000 Members, has been entrusted with the self-regulation of the engineering profession in Quebec since 1920. The Justice Minister’s announcement was based on a recommendation from Quebec’s Office of Professions, questioning the capacity of OIQ in carrying out its primary mission of protecting the public. See related story, page 13. How did this serious Canadian challenge to self-regulation of our professions come about? The genesis of this challenge was the four-year Quebec Charbonneau Commission, an inquiry into corruption in the awarding and management of public
The year 2016 has been remarkable for many reasons, not least of which is the public’s increasing skepticism of expert opinion — a trend that appears to have accelerated. Notably, a majority of British voters apparently did not accept countless warnings from prominent political and economic experts that a vote for Brexit from the European Union was a vote for economic uncertainty. What does skepticism about expertise have to do with self-regulation and APEGA? A key argument for regulating profes- sions is that they need to have, maintain, and deliver a unique set of knowledge and skills to ensure that the public interest is served. Trends towards societal rejection of expertise and authority can only make the regulation of professions more challenging. Self-regulation of a profession — or, in APEGA’s case, two professions — is a particularly valuable adaptation of this essential role. Self-regulation can ensure that the people most knowledgeable of best practices provide the standards for measuring competence and professional conduct. The costs of the regulatory process are borne by the regulated professions, not by the taxpayer. In return, regulated professionals are assured that their performance will be judged by practising professional peers, not by bureaucrats inevitably limited in their understanding of details of professional practice. We have been fortunate to exercise this privilege of ensuring public safety on behalf of our Members since 1920. As we approach APEGA’s centennial in 2020, however, we must take heed of authentic threats against retaining this privilege, and
contracts in the construction industry. Justice France Charbonneau released her report in November 2015, after damning testimony about unethical conduct such as taking bribes. The unacceptable behaviours in the engineering profession that the commission revealed were
not failures of technical competence; they were failures of professional ethics. The commission
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